Some of the worst offenders of being "not global"

Are "multinational" banks headquartered in the US.  No joke.  You would think that Citibank and Chase Manhattan, multibillion dollar financial institutions, could get their act together and support customers that don't live in the US.  Nope.  It's taken 5 calls and 3 months to get a replacement card and I still don't have one yet.  For Chase, I've been trying to get a replacement refund check since they sent one to me while I was deployed last year.  

The problems?  

1. Legacy computer systems that don't allow you to update with addresses that have a foreign country (no foreign country dropdown box) and make you call in

2. In-house database systems that don't have sufficient fields.  With both systems, they kept running out of space or told me that if I wanted a zipcode, I could only use one street address line

3. Call center people who don't know where or what Shanghai is and how to take dictation when a romanized Chinese street name is spelled to them.  I swear, I was so hoping that an Indian call center guy would answer my call

4. Stupid fraud detection process that automatically flags and freezes your card when you make online purchases.  This happens regularly no matter how many times I call them and tell them that I am living in China and frequently traveling in Asia.  Their systems are set up against the average American who never leaves the country.

4. Ok, this one's not their fault.  Either the US or China postal system sucks when it comes to receiving foreign mail.  1 month is average, and success rate of arrival is about 50%

So, these "multinationals" actually are only global in the sense that they have presence in multiple locations.  If you're looking for consistent service or portability of your account, etc.  they suck.  Sorry, America, but you're really not helping yourself out here -- I think the international banks (HK, UK, etc) are much better at dealing with customers that actually move around the world.

Thanks for listening to my Monday suck.