Every month TD Bank, which holds my mortgage, auto-debits my mortgage payment directly from my primary checking account which is at another bank. This works out well because I am notoriously late paying my bills and auto-debit is my insurance that my bills are paid on time.
Last fall, September 26 to be exact, we refinanced the house through another bank. At the time of the closing for the re-fi the closing agent assured me that once the old mortgage was paid off the auto-debits would stop as well. He also assured me that the Cubs would never win the World Series and that Hillary was a shoo-in for President.
You know where this is going. In October the old bank (“America’s Most Convenient Bank”) debited my account for the mortgage payment of a mortgage that no longer existed. I was annoyed but not surprised and, sighing, I called Customer Service.
First I heard a recording that due to heavier than usual call volume I would be on hold until the end of time. Next was a recording telling me to press 1 for Spanish and 2 for English and I wondered briefly why English was not option one. Next I heard a recording telling me how important my call was to the bank. Next I heard a recording that my call would be recorded for “quality assurance purposes” which made me laugh out loud. Then there was a brief musical interlude of this upbeat ditty that absolutely set my teeth on edge and then whole series of recordings started again.
Twenty-seven minutes later I finally got a real person who asked me my name, my address, my phone number, the last four digits of my social security number and who was my favorite superhero in middle school. Then he asked me for my account number which I read verbatim off my statement.
“That’s not a valid account number,” he said.
“I’m reading it verbatim off my statement,” I told him and read it to him again.
There was a long pause. “That account has been closed,” he said, and hung up.
I counted to 100 and started the process over again. This time before I gave my account number I explained that the mortgage account had been paid off but that the bank was still debiting the payment from my account.
“This is not the mortgage department,” said a young lady. “I’ll connect you to that department.” And then she disconnected me.
I counted to 200 and started the process again. I had now been on the phone for just under an hour with no relief in sight. This time I jumped through the hoops and finally got through to the mortgage department. The bored service rep took my account number and sighed.
“That account is closed,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m calling.” And I explained how America’s Most Convenient Bank was still debiting my checking account.
“We would never do that,” she said. 
“Well you did,” I said and offered to email her my checking account statement to prove it.
“We can’t accept email,” she said. “You have to mail it to us.”
“That could take weeks,” I said.
“Yep,” she said, and disconnected me.
I’ll spare you the details but it took almost three months to get America’s Most Convenient Bank to refund me the money they stole from me. I was told at every step that either 1) I was mistaken or 2) I was lying or 3) that this was my fault. Finally, through sheer persistence I finally got through to the Executive Assistant of the CEO, who was very pleasant, and by coincidence I had my refund check in 48 hours.
The next day I got an email from the bank: “How was our customer service? We want to know!”