I can't believe the ordeal I went through with Walmart.... I was just reminded of why I go to Target or Meijer!!! And keep asking myself what the heck was I thinking app'ing for their card???
On Friday I got an email telling me I'd been denied because they could not verify my identity. Easy enough right? Figured I'd just call them up and we'd get this all cleared away - I am who I am and I know who I am.. can't get any easier. Placed the call driving home from work. It's a 15 minute drive and I was on the phone for almost 2 hours!!!!!
The first chic who answered was very nice, she listened to why I was calling, the whole applied online and got denied because my identity couldn't be verified, and then pulled up my ap. She asked me to verify my name, address, ssn, etc.. And then proceeded to tell me that I'd been denied for credit and my letter telling me why would arrive in so many days. UHH OK, hello did you hear the first part of our conversation?? So I went through everything again and she insisted that I had to reapply because I'd been denied, so I stressed one more time that I KNEW why I'd been denied, I was told via email that very morning! Something clicked or she was blowing me off, in either case she transferred me to another department.
Someone picked up, who understood a lot better, knew that I was calling just to have my identity verified and was ready to walk my through the steps. However the first einstein hadn't closed out my ap and so she couldn't access it. I got put on hold for about 15 minutes while they tried tracking down einstein, the csr did come back and give me updates so I wasn't totaly hanging. Anyways my stupid cell phone cuts off on me.
so I called back.
Remember the first einstein? well I hit einstein #2. Who absolutley refused to transfer me to any other department, insisted that I must go INTO the store to verify my identity, but all they would do for me was process another application. I told them more then once that I don't want another application because it would affect my credit. He hung up on me.
Then there was einstein #3, who also insisted that he would not transfer me. But reminded me that I would get a letter in the mail explaining why I was denied. HELLOO I already told you!!! So this guy finally said, well mam if you have your denial letter then get your free credit report that will explain why we could not verifiy your identity. So I said to him, I've seen my credit report, all of the information matches exactly what I just gave you - there is no issue of my identity, however the online ap asked for mortgage related info, since i've never had nor know of any mortgage I put n/a for each. "Well mam obviously your credit report has information about a mortgage, why else would we ask those questions?". At this point I started laughing and must have sounded like a mad woman!! I was running around in circles and getting no where. This guy transferred me to another department where the next guy told me in no uncertain terms that I would have to re-apply to be considered and then hung up on me.
For the next guy I asked immediatly for a manager and didn't take no for an answer, the others kept talking around my requests for a manager. I finally get a manager on the line who says I'd need to re-apply. LOL. At this point I was begggging for someone to track down the lady my cell phone hung up on! So the manager puts me on hold and comes back to tell me einstein #1 still had my ap locked (over 90 minutes later) and they couldn't do anything for me until they tracked her down and unlocked it. And she asked me to call back. No, there is no direct number to any one person. Yes, you'll need to speak to our CSR group first.
And I still don't think that manager knew what I was talking about.
So that was a long way of asking......Does Walmart allow you to verifiy your identity over the phone?