Disabled people get help disputing credit charges

September 02, 2009|Associated Press

ALBANY, N.Y. - A national credit card company has agreed to do a better job serving customers who are blind or deaf after it told a vision-impaired New Yorker she had to complete a written form to dispute a charge.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced the agreement yesterday with HSBC Card Services Inc. The company will make several changes in customer service and on its website to help customers with vision or hearing loss or other disabilities challenge charges on their accounts. The company has millions of customers, but there was no figure on how many are disabled. Cuomo’s investigation into the issue throughout the industry continues.

Barbara Ruel of East Aurora, 71, who is confined to her suburban Buffalo home because of a sensitivity to chemicals as well as vision and hearing impairments, remembers the sense of outrage that drove her to launch the case.

She had used her credit card to buy a household item costing a couple of hundred dollars, but it never arrived. So she contacted HSBC, asking its customer service staff to fill in the required form with her answers. She was told they didn’t do that. She says two of the workers said they hadn’t even heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires that sort of accommodation.

“I was so angry, and I just decided this has got to change,’’ she said. “It took me almost three months of several phone calls a day . . . to get the charge taken off my account.’’

Cuomo said that failing to provide disabled customers with a way to receive help is discriminatory and illegal. He praised HSBC for its cooperation in what he calls a precedent for providing customer services for the disabled.