How to get CEOs and other bosses to solve your problem when their customer service won’t

Dustin Maggard, a South Jersey utility worker, was trying to help his mom, Donna, qualify for federal medical aid. Her family bank, the giant Bank of America, spent months not helping.

Here’s what went wrong, and how Maggard finally got someone to fix it:

To qualify for Medicaid for her long-term care, which Medicare doesn’t cover, Donna first had to cash out any assets and use that money for her mounting bills. Her late husband had small IRA retirement accounts at Bank of America, totaling around $10,000. He left no will; she naturally had to prove who she was, that her husband had died, and that what had been his was now hers.

For six months, Maggard said, his mom “was met with nothing but difficulty from the bank.” By the time he wrote to The Inquirer in September, he was frustrated and alarmed: “If we don’t get her Medicaid application submitted by Oct. 1, the three-month Medicaid retroactive period may not cover medical expenses, and her estate will be liable” for her recent medical bills, even though her income and assets would qualify her for aid.

BofA’s friendly staff at a branch in Mount Laurel tried to help. But under the company’s centralized system, typical at big consumer companies, change requests and documents had to go through a remote department called Estate Services.

“Even documents that the local branch has cheerfully scanned and sent to the Estate Services department have magically ‘vanished,’ been ‘inadequate,’ or ‘filled out wrong.’ Even when they were completed by her estate lawyer,” Maggard said.

“If I send forms, they say they didn’t get them. If I send email, they ‘never received them.’ If I return requested forms, they tell me they are ‘incorrect’ and request different forms.”

Couldn’t he document that the bank had received the information? “They are using a proprietary messaging system that automatically deletes all correspondence, so it is impossible to create a paper trail. If you ask to speak with a supervisor or manager, they place you on an extended hold of one hour or more, and then connect you to another ‘account manager,’ who just resends you the same forms via vanishing email.”

Could the government help? Maggard said he researched bank regulators and reached out to the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks like BofA, but found the process not just complex, but slower than his mom’s pressing need.

Maggard started to wonder whether the bank’s distant phone staff were “doing this deliberately.” Was it possible the bankers who could have solved the problem preferred the family gave up?

Searching the internet, he found a series of Los Angeles Times stories that showed people suffering what Maggard called “the exact same experience.” He added: “I have to wonder how many widows and grandchildren have given up on these smaller accounts because they don’t have the means to pursue them.”

Maggard shared his struggle with BofA with The Inquirer just after a story had published on Frank Eliason, the Trenton-area customer service executive who pioneered social media as a problem-fixing tool at Comcast and Citigroup more than a decade ago.

With Maggard’s permission, The Inquirer forwarded Maggard’s request to Eliason, and he responded quickly: When regular customer service fails, “my recommendation is an email to an executive.”

Where to find them? Eliason says one of his favorite scouting grounds is CEOemail.com, a website that collects and posts executive contacts. On Maggard’s behalf, he went there and quickly located the president of BofA’s retail banking unit, where Donna’s husband kept his retirement accounts. He checked the name online to confirm the person was still in the job.

(At smaller companies, he might have gone straight to the CEO; at others, he might have sought a “chief consumer officer.” If he’d found a name but no contact, he’d seek emails for other employees at the company, and copy the exec’s name into that format, such as “firstname.lastname@companyname.com.”)

Next, he recommended Maggard send that contact an email “with a good, short title such as ‘Frustrated Helping My Mom with BofA.’ The email should start professionally: “Over the past six months, I have been trying to help my mom transfer my stepdad’s funds after his passing, but BofA has made it extremely frustrating. How would you feel if your mother had this challenge? Let me explain.’ And add a brief explanation.”

Eliason recommends avoiding initial threats to sue or file formal government complaints; these may cause officials to call in lawyers or compliance people, which slows response.

“Keep it upbeat. [You are] offering valuable feedback,” Eliason said. “It’s important to recognize these leaders are people, too. If you treat them with respect, they will respect you.”

Eliason concluded, “End with an ask: ‘Can you put me in contact with someone that can help get this done properly?’ Sign with name and a good contact number. They will call with 24 hours or less.”

Armed with Eliason’s method and his initial results, Maggard double-checked the retail president’s name and address. He also found the top executive at Estate Services and emailed that person, too.

“The prophecy was fulfilled,” Maggard said two days later.

“Within 24 hours, I got a phone call from a very pleasant woman named Natalie” from Estate Services. She asked for documents, which Maggard told her he’d already sent — again and again. But he sent them one more time.

“She called me back, again within 24 hours, told me she saw no problems with any of the documents I attached and released all funds immediately.” The Mount Laurel branch cut a cashier’s check and waived the fee.

“She couldn’t explain why there was so much trouble, but she did say that our particular situation wasn’t unique,” Maggard said.

“We can now proceed with my mother’s Medicaid application just in time,” he concluded, with a week to spare.

Eliason wasn’t surprised. “The key is getting the executive to read it,” he told me later. “If you draw the leader in, they will forward it” to someone who can’t afford to disappoint the boss.

Again with Maggard’s permission, The Inquirer shared the story with Bank of America’s headquarters image-control staff, which reviewed the case. The staff declined to comment directly but acknowledged that banking procedures “can be very complex. We regret the time it took to bring this matter to a conclusion. "

Staff writer Sarah Gantz contributed to this article.