Re: jaws and chase bank
- From: "Yardbird" <yardbird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 07:29:22 -0800
Adrian,
That's it exactly, in organizational terms. Why, who knows. But the customer
support staff, whether inept or skillful, informed about Web design and/or
screen readers or not, was, to a person, decent, respectful and
well-intentioned. Even in an upper stratum of the firm I was received in a
very civil manner, as I said, but in the end it all came to nothing, so far as
I'm aware.
If I'm the only blind or vision-impaired online customer for that bank, and you
are, too, then we have an interesting phenomenon, don't we. I mean at the
level of logic. Not to mention, I'd have to guess, the hundreds or so of other
blind and low vision screen reader-using bank customers who are *also* the only
such ones.
Hmmm. Well, there's a little bit of humor to be squeezed from this, anyway.
----- Original Message -----
From: Adrian Spratt
To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 7:11 AM
Subject: Re: jaws and chase bank
Hi, Yardbird.
Chase told me five years ago that they were working on fixing it. I tried again
about a year ago, to be told there was nothing they could do. Most offensively,
both times they insisted I was the only customer calling attention to these
problems. As you found, individuals were terrific. Management is to blame, but
they hide.
----- Original Message -----
From: Yardbird
To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 8:42 AM
Subject: Re: jaws and chase bank
Adrian et al, I've had the same experience. When a friend inspired me to
convert to doing most of my bill paying and financial transactions online,I
found I was able to set up such procedures handily on the sites of my two
credit card issuing institutions,my communications provider, and other payees.
In each case, that involved using that vendor's or service provider's own
online forms to arrange for them to draw directly on my checking account at
Chase. Not to have Chase transmit something to them. And there's the rub.
Because I also wanted to use Chase's own scheduling system to set up regular
monthly disbursements *from* Chase to a few other individuals and companies,
but there, my self-reliance hit a stone wall.
The problem, as I remember it, seemed (from my none too technically
sophisticated viewpoint) to be that the Web page where this scheduling was done
were not coded in such a way that Jaws could navigate them. Meaning that screen
elements and controls weren't in tab order, and forms fields like edit fields
and combo boxes, were labeled haphazardly or altogether unlabeled. Try as I
might, I couldn't figure out which field was which, and where I was supposed to
type this or set that in a combo box.\
For months, I repeatedly spent ours on the phone with their customer support
team explaining my problem over and over , and having each customer support rep
access my account and input the information I would have set up had I been able
to.
And, time after time, almost every representative who assisted me, including
supervisors to whom I had to turn in frustration, made mistakes in the payment
scheduling for these simple transactions. One month, my building's management
company didn't receive the rent. So, back on the phone again to get them to fix
the schedule. Then I found out during a call with the business office of my ISP
about something else that they were being paid twice each month by my bank, and
I had quite a credit with them and less in my checking account than I'd have
thought (I hadn't checked my statement for the two months involved, or I would
have caught this after only one month instead of two, but so it goes); my
financial situation is very simple and modest, and there's seldom a glitch of
any sort to concern myself with).
Each time something like this happened, I was as patient and appreciative as I
could manage, and kept up congenial relations with these workers, as they were
all trying earnestly to do the right thing. But finally, I just suspended the
automatic payments altogether (on the phone, of course, and I had to check for
the next month to be sure my request was being acted upon). And I called ma
million numbers, explaining over and over about blind computer use and screen
readers (most of them thought that the blind sit back and talk to their
computers like Captain Picard ordering Earl Grey tea from the system of The
Enterprise, if anyone knows Star Trek" The Next Generation, and I had to
explain that we actually use the computer with our hands, except not with a
mouse, and so forth and so on, all the way up to fairly high-ranking bank
officers in corporate offices. As my contacts rose in rank, the conversations
at least became more fluid and my interlocutors more quick to understand.
Three's always the odd, overqualified slacker or two in such a system who gets
it right away, but I didn't run into any such, this time.
But even at the highest levels, they were baffled, just as the senior partner
at a law firm is no one to talk to about some issue with his law firm's
computer network. But finally I was put in touch with someone (a woman exec
ordinarily didn't do anything like customer service and yet returned my calls
and emails in a timely fashion, quite congenially)who found a number for a Web
design consultant in Oakland, California who she knew was informed about
accessibility issues. Whew.
So I had a nice exchange with this guy, who understood my problem perfectly
when I explained it, and said he hadn't heard such a complaint about that forms
page before, and said that nothing could be done immediately, but assured me
that ,when the site was refurbished in about six months, my input would be put
to use.
Well, I confess that after all the hours, countless, interminable hours, I'd
spent hanging on the phone receiving inadequate help from this bank's customer
service department, given no direct access by email or phone to anyone
responsible for Web design (that wouldn't have been this consultant but some
Chase person in the right department), I was just burned out. I gave up trying
to pay any bills directly out of the Chase account, which was okay, at least
I'd gamely tried. I haven't gone back to that page since to see if I could
manage it now. Just so much time wasted, and I can live without it, and I can't
overcome my resentment about having to go through all that crap. So I was
hoping this stuff would be rectified, by now. But it sounds as if it didn't get
fixed, after all.
Whew. I guess I really needed to get that frustrating story off my chest. Well,
carry on. Better days, and all that.
----
- Original Message -----
From: james h
To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 11:46 PM
Subject: Re: jaws and chase bank
greetins well the werid thing is they had me try different things with internet
explorer that didn't work i mean i can access the sight to get my balance but i
wanted to sign up for both alerts and also bill pay glad you mentioned that.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Adrian Spratt" <A.Spratt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 11:08 PM
Subject: Re: jaws and chase bank
I don't know if you're a new JP Morgan Chase online customer. About five years
ago, I attempted to set up online payments for my Chase accounts, without
success. Chase's technical staff couldn't get the system to work for me,
either, so they assigned someone to take my calls each time I wanted to make a
payment. The arrangement was well intentioned, but utterly humiliating. I now
use Schwab's accessible online payments system and have kept my Chase account
only because of their ATM network here in New York City.
I'm sure other listers will report their experiences, which I hope have been
more positive.
A.S.
----- Original Message -----
From: "james h" <aradioman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Greetings all happy holidays from denver, okay if anyone is using chase.com for
their banking running in to a problem don't know if it is jaws related. using
jaws 7.0 trying to sign up for their alerts which give you info on your account
but keep getting s error that says unavailable. anone successfully signed up
for these services. my msn happy_james_2454@xxxxxxxxxxx aim GoldenVoice1954
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