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LESSONS IN CUSTOMER SERVICE

December 15, 2005

Joel Schoenmeyer at Death and Taxes shows how a big-city bank generated serious badwill in handling a decedent's mortgage:

The claim arrived in the mail about two weeks later. (When I asked him about it, the attorney said he didn't recall our conversation, and stated that he had too many open files to be able to keep track of them all.) The claim included $500 for attorney's fees. When I told the attorney that my clients objected to paying these fees (since an out-of-court resolution could easily have been reached), the bank's attorney told me we could fight the fees in court, but that he would bill the estate for additional fees at a rate of over $200 per hour. Frustrated, my clients then agreed to allow the claim, at which point the attorney tried to tack on an additional $200 in fees for speaking with me on the phone about this matter.

The moral? Be thankful for your local community bank.

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