Oh yes National City, you WILL be mine. Following up on the post from the other day, here are the updates on my saga with National City.

Attempt 7: Going back on what the lady in Attempt 6, I called up what is apparently my “home branch”, which is where I opened the account some 10 years ago, although I don’t think I’ve been back since. Spoke to the lady that answered the phone and explained my problem. Well actually I didn’t really explain my problem so much as just tell her I wanted these fees waived. She of course said she couldn’t do that and I’d have to talk to the manager, who was conveniently on vacation until Monday. I pulled out one of the good phrases from that blog I linked yesterday – “I see this fee here and I’d really like to get it waived. What else can you do to help me?” Turns out there is also an “office manager” who can do it. But she was with a customer, so I could call back in 10-15 minutes. I instead opted to leave my name and number and have her call me when she was free.

Attempt 8: No call for an hour or two. So I called back – ended up speaking to the same lady. I introduced myself again and the lady explained that the manager lady was in with a different customer. I said nothing and eventually she put me on hold. After a moment or two, the manager lady answered. I again said I wanted the fee waived. Actually I said I got 2 of these overdraft charges and I’d like one of them waived, but she saw my trick and said that one of them was already waived, so I had to restate that I wanted the OTHER one waived too. She asked me if this is the first time my balance has been negative. I danced around the question since the answer is no and I didn’t want to lie about it. And then she said “Okay I’ll do it”. We talked about various other overdraft options (none free :-/) and that was that.

And there’s the proof! I’m kind of glad because I was totally going to drop National City if they didn’t cave on this. And that would have been annoying.