“Back in July, I told you I would be your canary in the coal mine as I ventured into the world of online banking,” Todd Seibt writes for The Flint Journal. “I signed up with Bank One and JP Morgan Chase & Co. to move my finances into the Internet, consolidate some bank accounts, better track my spending and saving, and just make my life simpler. And that has gone fairly well, thank you. But I have run into some snags you should know about.”
Seibt writes, “Chase’s site apparently does not play well with Apple computers and Safari browser software. What that essentially meant was that I can pay only one bill at a time, following a very specific procedure that I figured out on my own. I could not punch in a bunch of payments, save it and walk away. Chase’s answer line advice? I could move back into an old PC-based browser system. Sorry – once you’ve driven a Corvette, you don’t want to go back to a Cavalier.”
Full article here.
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These banks and other short-sighted web-based businesses and services that make things difficult for their Mac-using customers need to hop aboard the cluetrain. Those who surf the Web using a Mac tend to be better educated and make more money than their Windows PC-using counterparts. Why would any company, especially a bank, want to upset their smartest and richest potential customers?
Businesses need to cater to their customers, not to the whims of myopic IT and web development types. A business leader needs to follow their gut, not the ill-conceived dictums of Bob the MCSE down in the data center. The customer is always right. Market share does not equal installed base. If you can’t understand the very basic previous two sentences and can’t realize that there are more Mac users out here than you think, then you need to go back to business school and try again. Make your websites compatible for all or we’ll take our considerable business elsewhere. And if any business that currently caters only to Windows users or doesn’t offer full feature-parity thinks that we’re just going to forgive and forget the years you ignored and ghettoized us Mac users, you’re sadly mistaken. The quicker you fix your messes, the more inclined we’ll be to patronize your products and services.
Related articles:
16-percent of computer users are unaffected by viruses, malware because they use Apple Macs – June 15, 2005
Survey shows Apple Macs owned by nearly 10 percent of US small and medium-sized businesses – February 17, 2005
More people use Apple Macs than you think; 8-12 percent of homes use Macs – March 31, 2004
10 percent of computer users use a Mac; 3 percent is Mac’s approximate quarterly market share – February 10, 2004
Syracuse Post-Standard: 3 percent is a false stat; Mac holds ’10 to 12 percent of the market for PCs – August 27, 2003
No problems with the Berliner Sparkasse bank here in Germany’s sunny capital – using Safari that is. The overdraft is another matter.
And I’d like to take this opportunity of thanking all the posters on this site – right and left, conservative and liberal, religious and atheist, male and female – for all the entertainment, interesting ideas and useful advice.
Reading MDN while enjoying a large cold German pilsner has become my favourite pastime.
MDN–Just because I pointed out a spelling mistake…wot a larf!
But I drive a cavalier! Does my powerbook make up for that? Sheesh. What’s a broke college kid to do?
I also have a Chase account and I dont have issues, but I dont use online bill payment though.
Never go with a Windows-only bank, always find a multi-platform bank to deal with. If they can’t serve you well on the Internet, then more than likely they can’t serve you well anywhere else!
To Fred Mertz:
<raucous applause>
Hey, I’ve been banking online since 1991 using my Macs. Never had a problem.
But the banks in Finland have never diskriminated Macs.
From my experience, the grunt IT guy spends all his time cleaning up the mess from the overpriced Accenture consultants hired to determine the direction for online banking after 18 holes between the CEO and an Accenture partner.
Camino works perfectly with all my accounts, both in the UK and Spain. Sounds like the Yanks are living in the WWW dark ages.
Hooray for my bank, they are Mac-friendly! Los Angeles Federal Credit Union.
I have been using ADP’s online payroll processing service for my small business. They don’t support Safari, but IE 5.1 for Mac has worked, so that’s what I have been using. About four months ago I received a call from ADP asking how likely I would be to switch to a PC for entering payroll on the web. I told them never. Two months later I get a letter saying that starting in 2006 I MUST use IE6 for Windows to enter my payroll. They actually had the audacity to offer “special pricing” on an IBM PC so that I could continue to use their online service. Needless to say they will be loosing me as a customer come January.
Another reason I bank at http://www.wellsfargo.com — everything works beautifully with Safari. Investments, banking, bill pay … EVERYTHING.
Yep, Wells Fargo is the only online payroll service I have found that doesn’t restrict the web browser to IE for Windows. I probably will be going with them for my payroll next year.
“Sorry – once you’ve driven a Corvette, you don’t want to go back to a Cavalier.”
Do we really want Mac OS X likened to a Corvette?
Sure ‘Vettes are sexy and fast. But they’re also cramped, uncomfortable, very high-maintenance, and not very suitable for the everyday real world. Kinda like the Barbie-blondes they’re meant to attract.
As for Window PCs, a Cavalier isn’t a great comparison either. Cavaliers have far better quality.
Sorry – once you’ve driven a Corvette, you don’t want to go back to a Cavalier.
So why are you still with Chase? I used to have a big account at Citi that worked best with Exploder. My small accounts were with a bank that handled everything-BUT-Exploder nicely. Solution: Moved everything into the “smart” bank. Life has been sweet ever since. I never have to see that ballmer-ugly “e” again.
Only in Flint, Michigan could “Corvette” be synonymous with high performance and luxury…
I pay all of my bills online through my Chase Bank website. I’ve been doing this for about two years with two different Macs and two or three different browsers. I’ve never had the slightest problem of any kind. I’d even go so far as to say that even a child could do it, which really makes me wonder about the author of this article. My guess is that the problem does not lie with Chase Bank.
I guess most banks don’t really care whether Apple users can access the site. There just are not enough of them to be important.
They can always do their banking at work with their PCs, or come into a branch, since the average Apple user probably isn’t technically savvy enough yet to understand Internet banking.
Trying to support them is probably just a waste of time and money compared with having them come into talk to a teller who can help them fill out forms correctly.