Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce – Updated: Excellent Customer Service!

CIBC originally handled a fraud situation beautifully for me by reversing $2300 in fraud charges by some scum bags that stole my identity and charged $500.00 to a place called the Maple Truck Stop in Maple, Ontario (presumably a cash transaction and it boggles the mind to think that whoever gave the cash was not complicit) … as well as three charges in April, May and June with Bell Mobility.

Then CIBC called me on Thursday, 12 August and dropped the bomb that they were charging me the $800 for April and May because it is my responsibility to check my bills thoroughly and call within 30 days else I eat the costs. Now, since I push all my expenses through the card every month, that’s a big job. And I don’t always see small charges (which is how they started) …

So here is the update: CIBC called me today on Friday, 13 August to say that they spotted my blog and reviewed the fraud situation again and have accepted the two charges from April as fraud. My credit will appear in a week or two. This is superb news, and I must say a very impressive bit of customer service. The speed of reaction for a large corporation is mind-boggling.

My real grouch in all this was their analytics. Both RBC and MBNA have responded instantly to fraud on my accounts in the past by running analytics in their back office systems. CIBC, on the other hand, never gave a peep.

I still think that CIBC needs to look at how their analytics missed the strange maple Truck Stop transaction for a large, yet even number ... and even more importantly how they failed to note the Bell Mobility charges with an account that did not have my name on it anywhere (I called Bell Mobility myself to check.) The representative did say that their fraud group was going to look this over a bit more and I hope that means examining it to see if it could have been caught.

When first contacted, I had pushed back a bit asking if these were illegal charges? The first woman who contacted me danced around that but there was no way for her to say that these charges were legitimate. All she could do was repeat over and over … “you did not call us within 30 days.”

I am toning down this post considerably, since CIBC has made good on the fraud and do not deserve the lambasting I gave them. There is also apparently an escalation process that I could have used, but I figured that fraud unit would be the last word. That's a lesson we can all take from this -- check to see if there is a higher authority. Of course, I would wonder if the response could have been any quicker than it was in this instance.



In yesterday's original post I mocked their catch phrase -- for what matters. Today I have to say that the CIBC is showing what does matter, which is responsiveness and an appropriate solution to an obvious problem. I can only thank them for moving to right what felt like a wrong to me.

And that, I think, is how customer loyalty is built.

I should mention here that I was not asked by the CIBC to update this blog. Not even to tone down the rhetoric. I have made these changes myself out of a sense of fair play for a company that is obviously trying to do some good.