This is from a leafelet that came through the mail from Tompkins Trust, one of our local banks here in Ithaca. In Germany we call something like this a "Steilvorlage". The term comes from soccer and refers to a situation where someone plays you a ball that comes in steep right towards you. Sometimes these Steilvorlages make for good goals. Here is why this one is a Steilvorlage: Tompkins Trust gives me a nice opportunity to tell the world how bad they are. Because my statements and in fact a few of my debit cards might still be waiting for me - somewhere in the "Undeliverable" cabinett of German Postal Service.
I opened an account with Tompkins Trust in Aug 2008 when I arrived here in Ithaca. They claimed that for some legal reason they need my German address is addition to my local address. So I gave it to them. And what did they do? Started sending my cards to my German address. When you are new to a country you need a lot of cash to buy things and for that a debit card is somewhat important. Mine had not arrived for two weeks but Tompkins Trust thought this was normal. After two and a half weeks they re-ordered the card. After five weeks I still had no card from them.
It turned out they send my cards and all correspondence to my German address - just without putting ZIP code or city name on the letter. Due to some miracle on of these letters got through to my parents after many weeks. I tried to report this very inconvenient error to Tompkins Trust but Delevane (the counter chick at the Cornell branch) told me she doesn't care. I subsequently tried to complain about her to her manager who also didn't care. The complaint letter I wrote to the manager of her manager prompted a reply saying they do care. They cared so much that they sent my statements to my Ithaca address for almost a year before switching back to sending them to my German address.
I keep my Tompkins Trust account to be entertained by their continuing goofs. I'll keep you updated on any future goofs of Tompkins Trust.