They say they’ll keep all your transactions after the switch available for seven years, which is nice and all, but data from more than 180 days prior to two days from now will be gone forever. So if you want it, download it.

Okay.

But you only get 90 days at a time. But not three months, so if you want the download files easy to deal with, you should do two months at a time and just have three files.

Hey, at least they let you download all your accounts at once so even though I have ten accounts, I’ll be able to get them all in three file downloads.

NOPE!

When you select them all, it tells you that “When selecting format, you must choose only 1 account at a time.” And it says that for all the offered formats.

Uh, that means I have to do this thirty times!

I called Chase and suggested that since they’ve chosen to throw their customer transaction histories in the bin and are forcing customers to download them all if they want to have them, that maybe they should (for just the next two days before the switch) change that 90-day-per-file limit to a 190-day-per-file limit so that the customers they are inconveniencing will be less inconvenienced.

He said he’d notate that in my account.

I asked why he would notate a suggestion meant for the IT department in my account. He claimed they would read it there.

Clearly, he’s certifiably insane. That’s disturbing enough. But what if he isn’t insane? What if the IT department really reads every notation made in every account every day? That’s even more disturbing. For the sake of living a more carefree life, I’ll have to assume that all telephone customer service operators are insane axe-wielding maniacs. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate.

Pity. I was kind of looking forward to what Chase might offer in terms of improvements. Looks like it’ll take another bank for that.

And this letter is exactly why I maintain that all engineers should be forced to use what they build. Explain to me why the idiot who put together the new checkout stands put the pole support for the credit card swipe machine on the right side of the check writing platform when 90% of the population is right handed? Is this a subtle encouragement to stop using paper checks or just crappy engineering?

WaMu’s interface sounds beyond fomplicated. I think you need a new portmanteau my friend.

I’ve already expressed my opinions on Home Depot’s self-checkout.