From Nation's Capital to Nation's Capital: The Azza Street Spy

Customer Service Israeli Style, Part II
Another amusing customer service anecdote worth sharing:

I have a debit card through my bank account. In order to avoid a 59 NIS annual fee, I need to use the card on average 6 times/month or 72 transactions for the 12 month period. Initially, I made a point of withdrawing small amounts of cash in order to maintain the required number of transactions. However, after 5 months with the card I just learned that "transactions" (pe'ulot) don't count; they have to be "acquisitions" or purchases from a merchant (rekhishot). (FYI, I was initially told it went by transactions and not purchases.) Since this revelation, I've been using my card nearly everywhere in order to catch up, since I had about only 4 transactions that counted when I learned this.

Side note: Another way out of the fee is to spend at least 1,000 NIS per month with the card. Since small grocers won't always take the card, there is no way I can safely reach that spending limit without going into overdraft...

Point of the story: I obsessively monitor my money, primarily online. I noticed that I had two receipts from the same eatery where I was charged less on my bill. While I am always pleased to pay a little less, I wanted to clarify how and where one gets discounts with the card. I submitted an online inquiry to the customer support division, asking this question. I got an automatic reply that I would get an answer within x number of days. Later that day I get an email telling me to call the customer service hotline! So this is their online support, an email telling me to call them! Too funny.

Epilogue: I did get a call from a customer representative within a week. But I was somewhere noisy and could not really talk. He told me he would send me a booklet (hoveret) explaining the rules. An improvement, but still amusing considering that I contacted them online.

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