Sunday, March 30, 2008

(41) Foyer Horribilus: TD Canada Trust, the Bank Gestapo!


Applied to the smeared, grimy walls of a bank at Queen & Lansdowne this kerchiefed lass surprises us with her composure. She may be wondering though, 'what sort of financial industry entity turns multi-million dollar profits operating from coast-to-coast in an environment protected by a special act of parliament yet cannot keep a few square feet in front of an ATM clean?'

TD Canada Trust, cupcake, that's who!

Years ago we complained. The response was a piteous load of corporatespeak from the manager and someone at head office. The ATM foyer at Queen & Lansdowne has been a disgrace for which one need almost seek out the Bible in order to come up with the requisite metaphor and proper sense of hellish scale. The entire branch has the architectural merits of a portable toilet at best. The ATM specifically is a toilet.

Only the other day we wished to attend to our banking and were put off by an unfortunate young woman giving herself a hit from a crack pipe while reclining on the floor. Undesireables sleep in the ATM area and urinate there. Frequently there are no deposit envelopes and food waste and other rubbish is strewn about inside.

What has been TD Canada Trust's latest customer service effort at this troubled location? To lock the doors after hours. Legitimate customers, not in search of a place to act out their addictions, vomit or urinate, who pay interest and service charges to the bank are left to the streets along with those who would tarnish the foyer. This approach to customer service has a logic the Gestapo would take pride in: one of collective punishment. As grandfather used to say, 'up with this we will not put!'

We are not remotely amused at the ongoing disaster the local TD Canada Trust ATM foyer confronts us with. We are paying for this satanic cess-pit and now cannot even even use it! Fee-paying customers who do no harm must use the outdoor ATM on Queen Street. The screen has been vandalized making it difficult to read. Envelopes are absent after hours.

If we were less than the nimble, long-limbed and well-proportioned working man we are we would not find the corner a safe place to openly handle money. What indeed, if we were elderly or disabled or were a female accompanied by her children? Poor winter weather (this has been a record year my friends) makes forced al-fresco banking a painful experience.

Irony of customer service ironies, a cluster of locals stymied in their attempts to GIVE MONEY to TD Canada Trust formed a spontaneous circle of support last friday night on Queen Street. Many a hearty jeer was directed at TD Canada Trust of a kind which would surely haunt the nightmares of any CEO. Bouyed by my new-found comrades spirit of disdain for their very own bank we walked across the street to a Scotiabank which remains open within sight of the Foyer Horribilus. How quaint and curious that another bank's ATM foyer remains open and stocked with deposit envelopes on the very same corner! We fetched us some deposit envelopes and distributed them to the masses who, we have to say, were ready for a good old bread riot. One garrulous fellow with a case of ice axes and the keys to a front end loader was talked out of rash behaviour by his brother-in-law only at the last moment!

The masses are smart enough to wonder why they should trust their wages, salaries, student loans, cheques and other business to a bank which cannot muster enough imagination to solve a simple technical problem.

The full weight of the POWcityblog will be flung at this rampart of corporate idiocy, technical incompetence and contempt for our part of the city. If other ATMs in Toronto can be clean and user-friendly why can't this one be as well?
editor's note: click above whenever you have a problem with TD Canada Trust

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