institutional stupidity

As I mentioned before, last year I received a RSA SecurID crypto keychain intended for someone else with my same name, at my office address.

A few weeks ago, I received another one, so I finally called Wells Fargo today. After talking to one customer service rep on the consumer side, his supervisor, another customer service rep on the business side, and her supervisor, they told me to return the package as undeliverable so that the account would get flagged in their system. I told them that the package was delivered through UPS and not USPS, and they said I should call UPS.

I called UPS, and after talking to another rep and supervisor, I was told to call Wells Fargo to get a new package label to return the item. The rep told me (somewhat accusingly, I might add) that because I had opened the package, it could not be returned without a new label. I asked her how I was supposed to know the package wasn't intended for me without opening it to read the letter inside, but she didn't have a good answer for that.

I gave up at that point. I mean, even if I were to succeed in returning the keychain, I'd get nothing from the whole exercise; I was just trying to help Wells Fargo and my mysterious namesake. I'm pretty sure Wells Fargo isn't going to know how to bill the return shipping cost, I'm not paying for it, and it all just seems like too much hassle for what was supposed to be a small good deed on my part. Sigh.