Disabled Encounter Dumb and Dumber
Years after the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, some businesses still don't get it. A national credit card company refused to help a vision-impaired woman with a disputed charge and a bank refused to cash a check for a man missing both arms because he could not provide a thumbprint.
The credit card company whose workers told a vision-impaired woman that she had to fill out a written form to make a complaint about merchandise she says she charged and never received has promised to change its policies. In an agreement announced this week by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the company, HSBC Card Services Inc., says it will make changes to its website and instruct customer service representatives to offer additional help to vision- and hearing-impaired customers, reports the Associated Press.
A 71-year-old vision-impaired New York woman made the complaint that sparked the changes. She says she spent three months on the phone arguing daily with HSBC representatives about a charge for a household item she never received, the news agency reports. Not only did they tell her that she had to fill out a written form, several told her they had never heard of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which requires such accommodation.
And many banks require non-account-holders to provide a thumbprint when cashing a check drawn on a customer's account, but not when the person seeking to cash the check doesn't have any arms.
That was the issue presented last week when Steve Valdez arrived at a Bank of America branch near his home in Tampa, Fla., to cash a check written by his wife on her account there. Born without arms, the 54-year-old Valdez had two forms of identification. But, according to Valdez, both the teller and a branch manager refused to cash his wife's check without a thumbprint. His only alternatives, the manager said, were to bring his wife to the branch with him or open his own account there.
The bank has since apologized to Mr. Valdez and his family for any inconvenience. In a written statement Bank of America stated "This is an isolated occurrence and does not represent the bank's policies for accommodating customers or non-account holders with disabilities. We have ensured those policies have been underscored with all our associates across the bank."