Leggings: Who's to Blame? Just One Theory...

Grandpa Would Be Proud

This is long, so be warned. This also isn't very entertaining, but I do want to archive it for if I ever want to look back and see that I am indeed the type of person to write complaint letters.


April 4th

Chicago Transit Authority
Office of Inspector General

To Whom It May Concern:

On Thursday March 30, 2006 at approximately 8:10 a.m. I went to add value to my Chicago card at the Western Blue Line station. The machine reflected my present value after holding the card up to the sensor. I put in $3.50. The machine reflected the added funds. I put the card back up to the sensor. After multiple tries holding the card to the sensor the machine canceled my transaction and it showed an error message and to see the attendant. The machine did not spit out my $3.50. At that time the attendant on duty told me to call the 800 number and give them the machine number to get a refund sent to me. She started to walk away, I said that the machine had taken all the cash on…then she raised her voice to me and said, ‘Hey, are you listening to me?” Well, I wasn’t because she hadn’t been saying anything, she was just walking away. It was only when I presented her with my dilemma did she get angry and defensive. She then let me on the train. I thanked her for her help. This employee appears to be around 55-65 years old, about 5’4”, 190lbs and is an African American female.

When the exact same thing happened to me today Monday April 4, 2006, this same attendant was immediately defensive, unhelpful, accusatory, rude and dishonest. After receiving the error message and the see attendant message, I took my card to the attendant’s booth and told them what happened. She came out of the booth and told me she couldn’t do anything about that and that I should have held my card up longer. I told her that I held it up until the machine said “canceled” and “see attendant”. She demanded my card, I gave it to her. She then looked at it and said it was cracked and that I needed to call the 800 number. I said, that’s fine and thank you, but I still have no money because the machine took it. She then walked away from me. I told her it took all of my money. She told me to take $2 and buy another ticket. I told her again that I didn’t have any money because the machine took it. She ignored me and proceeded to have a conversation with a customer. It was then when a kind woman offered me her fare card to get to on the train so I could get to work.

I thanked her profusely and then I approached the attendant, who was still chitchatting with a customer, and asked to borrow a pen so that I could write down the number of the machines so I could reference them when I called to report the card errors. She looked at me and said, “You were here the other day, this happened to you then!” I started to reply, “Yes, I kno…” And she yelled, “Yes, it was you, this happened before! You needed to call that number!!” I said, “Yes, I know, which is why I really need that pen.” She told me, “No, we’re not supposed to...”.And then she continued her conversation with the customer she’d been speaking with. I asked again, “You don’t have a pen?” She said, “No.” I pleaded with her that per her instructions I had to give the machine numbers to the customer service so I could get my money back and I wanted to make sure not to forget them. She told me no, she wasn’t going to give me a pen and that the numbers were right there on the bottoms of the machines. I said, “Yes, I know WHERE the numbers are, I just need to make sure that I record WHAT the numbers are.” I then noticed a pen in the booth and I knocked on the window to the attendant inside to see if perhaps that attendant would be willing help me. The first attended then started yelling at me that the attendant in the booth is on the phone. I said, “I’m sorry, but there is a pen right there and I really need to write this information down so I can report this properly.” She continued to walk away from me, turning her back on me and having a conversation with this customer. I was forced to ask that very same customer if he had a pen. He did and he gave it to me to use. I wrote the numbers down, thanked the man for the pen and got on the train.

I do not take this encounter lightly. I am a loyal CTA customer and I have been for nearly a decade. I purchased this Chicago card for convenience and to take advantage of the locked in $1.75 fares. Since my card updates have started failing, I’ve had to pay the full $2.00 per ride, have lost $8.50 and have been treated like a criminal by your employee. Her defensiveness was completely unnecessary. She made a choice to get mad at me for something that is beyond my control and then she chose to deliberately ignore my situation. If this is how your employees are trained to treat customers then I am appalled at your methods. If this is just how this employee chose to treat me, as I’ve seen her chatting up many customers over the years I’ve been going to this particular station, then she is an embarrassing representative of your organization. In the past I have see her get impatient, rude and gruff with customers were in the midst of experiencing some sort of problem with their cards or passes. It is apparent to me that this person cannot handle assisting customers with issues that are inherent in this field of transportation. I do think that if your job is customer service, then you should be able to handle most any and all situations that typically arise on any given day. This employee has shown to be rude, ignorant, dishonest and completely unhelpful. Not to mention her behavioral inconsistencies where one day she let me board the train while another day, when the same thing happened, she turned her back on me, walked away and told me she couldn’t do anything.

Your customers should not be treated like this. I should not have been accused, berated, ignored and lied to because your machines ate my money two times in one week. I read an article in the Red Eye about the problems that riders were having with your cards and how it is advised to keep the card protected from getting scratches and cracks. I heeded that advice and I do keep my card protected. The inconvenience of having my updates fail repeatedly, making me late to work, making it so I have to pay more for a service than I should, spending 15 minutes on hold with your customer service so I could report my stolen money and then having to way 10 business days to receive a replacement card is enough to make me a dissatisfied customer. Throw in an ill-behaved, incapable and defensive employee and you run the risk of having a multitude dissatisfied customers. I use your services daily and I gladly pay your fares. I understand that systems have their glitches from time to time, but what I cannot understand or condone are people being treated as if they had done something wrong as opposed to merely being victims of a technical glitch.

This is a formal complaint and I implore you to look into this situation. I wish to have this employee reprimanded and disciplined accordingly. As I use this station on a daily basis, I will monitor her actions and I will be quick to report any mistreatment of my fellow CTA customers as well as myself. Last fall on the loop bound blue line I witnessed the physical mistreatment by of a passenger by a security guard and I sent in a letter of complaint to the CTA. Initially, I received responses via email and telephone assuring me that this matter would be investigated. I never heard from anyone again though I did follow up. I do not make it a habit to complain for the sake of complaining, please be assured that all I want is for unjust, unfair treatment of CTA passengers by CTA employees does not continue.

If you have further questions for me, please email kerri.sanford@nmfn.com.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Kerri Sanford