Three Hours on Hold? Banks Inundated With Nervous Callers

(Bloomberg) -- Banks including Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Capital One Financial Corp. have assured nervous customers that they’ll provide assistance to those impacted financially by the coronavirus.

“Call us and we’ll make it right,” Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

But reaching a representative is proving more and more difficult as customer-service centers are inundated by calls from clients seeking help.

“Due to staffing issues resulting from our response to Covid-19, also known as coronavirus, wait times may be longer than normal,” callers to Wells Fargo’s customer-service line were told Monday. The bank said last week that it was “having a larger-than-normal number of employees work remotely on a specific day.” A Wells Fargo spokeswoman didn’t respond to questions about call-center employees.

The problem is twofold: Banks are trying to fight the spread of the highly contagious virus by keeping some employees at home, while call volumes are higher than normal as more American workers become concerned about paying credit-card bills and making mortgage payments as workplaces close amid the spread of the coronavirus.

Particularly hard hit are workers in the service industry as governors in New York, New Jersey, California and other states order businesses such as bars, movie theaters, restaurants and gyms shut to fight the spread of the coronavirus. President Donald Trump said Monday afternoon that Americans should stop eating out.

‘Longer Than Usual’

“As we address the needs of our customers, including those impacted by Covid-19, call wait times may be longer than usual,” Capital One callers were told. As of Monday morning, hold times to reach a customer representative at the bank were in excess of 20 minutes, according to calls placed by Bloomberg. That compares with an average of 41 seconds in 2018, according to a study from MyBankTracker.

Capital One spokeswoman Sarah Craighill acknowledged that wait times are longer than normal, and said that digital tools, including the bank’s mobile app, are the fastest way to reach the company. “We are grateful to our customers for their patience and understanding as we navigate these uncertain times together,” she said in an email.

Some customers have taken to social media to express their frustration.

“Yesterday I sat on hold for 3 hours and got nothing accomplished,” one user said on Twitter. “I’ve been disconnected 7 times. I spend an insane amount of money on Citi cards annually. This is awful customer service.”

Citigroup has offered to waive monthly service fees and penalties for early certificate of deposit withdrawals.

The bank’s U.S. customer calls related to Covid-19 represents a small portion of overall calls, with the focus being on trip cancellations, billing disputes and market volatility attributable to the virus, a Citigroup spokeswoman said. The majority of operations-centers employees continue to report to the office, while those who can work from home are doing so, she said.

When asked about what Bank of America would do for customers who can’t make mortgage or credit-card payments, Moynihan said in the interview Sunday that they can “call the number on the card and they say, ‘I’m affected by the disease,’ and we’ll defer the payment.”

To get that deferral, customers may be on hold for more than 30 minutes, based on wait times Monday.

“Overall, call volumes and wait times have remained stable, though we continue to prepare for increased volumes,” Bank of America spokesman Bill Halldin said in an email. The company is using social distancing and additional cleaning at its call centers, and some customer-service employees are working from home.

--With assistance from Lananh Nguyen.

To contact the reporter on this story: Olivia Rockeman in New York at orockeman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Daniel Taub

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