> Even if they called me I wouldn’t use this. Hang up. Call them. Don’t let them call you.
This has become increasingly difficult in my experience. Where calling the local branch I have the actual relationship is just dumped into the IVR. They make it very hard to speak to an actual human being bank employee.
All I can get is callbacks for some places. This is newish. You can call, wait in the queue for 20+ minutes, get routed to voicemail, and leave an option for a callback. That’s it. And the CSRs won’t reveal any semi-secret info to confirm who they are, they just want info to confirm your identity. It is frustrating because “calling them first” for anything billing related has been my go-to for a decade.
The (US) banks I've experienced will give you an "incident number"[1], you can call the number on e.g. your credit card or bank's website and say you have an incident number and you'll be connected to a rep who can pull up the details.
[1]: or something like that, I forget the exact words
My card has an international number which is US +1-(AreaCode)-XXX-XXXX. It used to bypass the IVR and send you directly to the top of the queue to a CSR. Because who has time to putz around the IVR when you're paying .25-.50/min to make an international call. Sadly, because some customers figured it out, it just routes you into the queue.
I have experienced an increase in just flat out hang ups as well. If the automated system doesn't understand you, it'll just say "it looks like we're having a problem, goodbye". It's infuriating.
This has become increasingly difficult in my experience. Where calling the local branch I have the actual relationship is just dumped into the IVR. They make it very hard to speak to an actual human being bank employee.