Toxic upselling at TD Bank is bad for your mod fund
 

It's disgusting when a financial institution no longer does what's right for the customer. It used to be that you could trust your financial advisor, now, it's almost like walking into Velocity (exaggeration). Yes, upselling is in all industries. But when employees are pressured to make unethical choices, it starts to get a little grey. Personally, as a business student, I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong industry. Moral code, ethics, and values are important to me, but too many corporations are just profit driven.

In a different example, a contract, failure to disclose additional information is illegal. Tellers are acting as agents of the bank, and thus must disclose all relevant information.

I recently closed my TD account. Previously, it was my savings account for my tax returns. However, since I've turned 18 (or 19), I've been charged service fees without warning. I only received notice after the 4 years of tax returns turned into $8.56 - insufficient to pay service charge.

This also happened at ScotiaBank where my childhood bank account robbed me of my money, and didn't notify me until the account was empty.

Thoughts on this?

TL;DR: Keep your mod fund under your bed.

'I will do anything I can to make my goal': TD teller says customers pay price for 'unrealistic' sales targets - British Columbia - CBC News

Edit:

I feel that I may have overshared. The purpose of this wasn't to talk about my experience, I used it as an example of a tactic that TD (and scotia) used to change my account, and thus charge fees. And yes, I should have done the due diligence, as previously mentioned.

In hindsight, I probably should have just left it out. I'd rather discuss the various other shady business practices to get consumers to sign up for stuff.

Like Radioman said, how do we see this as? How do we as consumers feel about corporate ethics?

When I read the article, I found it upsetting that upselling went to this extent, "When I come into work, I have to put my ethics aside and not do what's right for the customer"

Not justifying it but the flip side is you can open a bank account with a company like PC Financial and everything is done via machine, telephone or internet.
That means little to no customer service when you need it.
Need a certified cheque, they will mail it to you with snail mail with the cheapest method, IE not insured, takes a few to 7 business days to arrive and doesn't require a signature so someone who steals your mail will be able to cash it.

Waiting for report that TD went full-Wells Fargo.

Oh yeah, my only bank account right now, is PC Financial. No fees or anything, but looks like they're involved in some sketchy shit too: 'Whatever means necessary': How these insiders tricked Loblaws shoppers into signing up for credit cards - British Columbia - CBC News

my gf worked for td before. she didn't complain that much about that sort of thing, she complained more about customers getting calls and asking them about their experience at their last visit. they had to strongly agree that their experience was "legendary" or else she'd get a negative rating. they had to also strongly agree that their visit made them want to do more business with td or she'd get another bad rating. at no point does the question reference the fact that the ratings are directly related to the teller and not the branch in general.

Welcome to adulthood where you have to read your contracts.

I always read my contracts. I read my car contract, I read my phone contract. I think what was really annoying was that they didn't even send a notice, until the account had insufficient funds to pay for the monthly fee. It's also that they can see that the account is inactive, but choose to not notify me.

I don't remember if I created the accounts, both scotiabank and TD, with my authorization or parents. But I remember it was my signature with PC Financial. I should have paid better attention in Business Law, cause I almost want to say the contract with a minor cannot be rectified. Thus, I should not have been automatically charged.

You paid them what? $5/month and expect personalized service? :awwyeah:

You're going to be disappointed with how things work. My financial advisor contacts me several times a year to remind me to buy RRSPs and RESPs. Other than that, she sends me a Starbucks gift card on my birthday and that's as personal as it'll ever get.

Out of curiosity do are you guys seeing this as a negative thing for consumers or employees of TD?

When I go into any TD branch its hit or miss if I get asked to buy overdraft protection, get a new LOC increase or anything else they can throw at me. Its not very difficult to say no. I don't see how this is hurting the consumer. Now there could be instances of a teller misinforming a customer into using or getting one of those features but I've never run into that occurrence after 12 years of banking with TD.

Working in a toxic environment that sets quotas for these is where I can see a problem and I feel for TD staff but they can leave if its not the environment they think they signed up for.

While personalized service would be nice, but no. I expect no bullshit fees and proper customer service. My fees were $29/mo. I don't expect babysitting, I expect a notice sent to me that my account will now be charged after this date.

I think it's a negative thing for both consumers and employees. There's so much consumer fraud and I think it's shocking coming from banks. I think that employees shouldn't be encouraged to ignore their values. But at the same time, they do have the right to leave. I think it's that most people at TD, are in university/college and this would be the beginning of their career. I think the worry is that if they don't do as asked, it'll go on their record and stain their reputation for the rest of their career.

if youre a full time student, let the bank know n there shouldnt be a monthly fee. At least with RBC

If you're stuck on the fact that they didn't notify you, try contacting their CSRs, they likely keep records. I've used the same chequing account you mentioned for over a decade and can honestly say they've kept me up to date with every change.

You don't check your account/transaction history?

PC financial even sent me a letter saying my dormant account was closing, and that I had money in it.

It's your money, it should be your due diligence.

You might be able to argue that you didn't use their services at all, if you haven't been. At 30 dollars a month, for 4 years, means you had $1440 in it. It's worth at least an effort to try to get back.

If you tell them you are a student they should be able to reverse those fees for you. BMO has always been pretty good about it. If you have a friend that works there maybe they can help you out.......

Word of advice, check your accounts every once in awhile.

I agree, it is my due diligence. I always thought my taxes get deposited into my PC account, but it was actually my TD account. Four years of tax returns, but not a lot of money back cause student life. I started getting charged since I turned 18 or 19. If we assume 19, and I closed my account in Jan, then roughly 4 months of charges. Works out to about $120. With BCIT stuff, I didn't really want to go through the trouble.

That's like 2 weeks of student life food! I'll call for you and we can split the goods. :lol

Have you guys been to a TD branch? Have you ever felt pressured into signing up for something? I know I haven't.

I think this is a little exaggerated. I understand that there are quotas and targets to be made, but I think this one branch might be an outlier. These managers seem to be dicks to their employees. I find it hard to believe this is the norm across all branches.

In my experiences, the TD tellers are always more chirpy than RBC, CIBC, and Scotia. But, that's just my experience.

Though, I can see how less educated consumers could be "Conned" into signing up for these "Extras"

i've worked for TD as an advisor

yes the sales targets have gone up substantially and i wouldn't be surprised to hear that staff are upselling and pushing for sales more than before

but in OP's case, you weren't upsold anything. you had a bank account with a monthly fee and failed to monitor the activity

what boggles me is that you had 4 years worth of tax refunds in the account and didn't bother to check the account? doesn't take a whole lot of effort to sign into online banking and look around every once in a while.

do you think rogers/telus/shaw will call you if they notice you haven't been using your service? do you think these big companies would proactively call you to cancel your service? of course not. as a business student you should know that.

hard to side with you on this one OP

They tried to sell me something when I called in yesterday and when I went to the branch today. It's the equivalent of an obese person trying to give fitness advice.

.

Nowadays ATM and online banking do most of the tellers job. I rarely see a teller unless I need a bank draft. I'm guessing 5 more years and you can get bank drafts through an ATM.

The less contact the bank has with me the better. It's one of those don't call me I'll call you scenarios. How often does the average person go inside a bank and actually deal with the teller anymore? I probably go in once a year at the most. I bank at the same bank my brother in law manages so no fees for this guys, if I do get charged a fee I just send him a text and like magic it goes away.

I feel that I may have overshared. The purpose of this wasn't to talk about my experience, I used it as an example of a tactic that TD (and scotia) used to change my account, and thus charge fees. And yes, I should have done the due diligence, as previously mentioned.

In hindsight, I probably should have just left it out. I'd rather discuss the various other shady business practices to get consumers to sign up for stuff.

Like Radioman said, how do we see this as? How do we as consumers feel about corporate ethics?

When I read the article, I found it upsetting that upselling went to this extent, "When I come into work, I have to put my ethics aside and not do what's right for the customer"

Never liked TD and never will bank with TD ever again. I had a kids savings account when I was young, I would put in money I get from Christmas etc., into the savings. One year, they started charging account fees, which made no sense to me as kid, I don't even have a job to pay for service fees. They didn't send me mail to inform me or even tell me about it when I deposit money into the account until I called them out on the spot and flipped out on them. I demanded a refund of the fees back and I was a furious child back then, took out all the money and closed the account on the spot that day lol.

I agree that it's stupid that they don't tell send you an invoice before charging you like most businesses do but that is the nature of dealing with banks.

As Mr. Phreak said, they are frustrating to deal with and they make you come in to get minor changes done. Then try to pitch you things and if you mention HELOC, the reps will literally cream in their pants.

In any case, I am okay with them. I pay nothing in bank fees by keeping the minimum balance. I pay my credit cards right away and rack up points which I've used for flights/hotels. The VISA card I got has no annual fee and came with travel/interruption insurance. My spouse got sick in Asia and we spent another $900 to book new flights. TD Visa reimbursed us. TD Waterhouse dinged us with a maintenance fee. I reminded them that we met several conditions for no maintenance fee and they gave us refunds. On the other hand, the mortgage rates they gave were not the best and the GIC rates they offered were pretty shitty.