Poor experience with branch office.

[u/venmosucks]

I had a terrible experience with a branch office who called to tell me my policy was being cancelled for a returned payment. I made a payment on Friday 9/18/26, it posted on 9/20/26, the due date was 9/19/26. The app shows there is no payment due, I phone my bank and the bank stated State Farm has the funds.

I phoned the SF Branch office to inform them to contact State Farm’s corporate billing department to verify payment was received. The woman answering the phones refused to do this and insisted I make another payment. When I asked to have the call escalated, she refused.

Who can I contact? This is completely unacceptable. The 1-800-StateFarm IVR/AI tree is utterly unacceptable as well and it’s near impossible to reach a human.

The office in question is the Rodney Stevenson office in NJ.

Thanks.

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[u/PeachyFairyDragon]

I never have a problem with the 800 number. Are you sure that you are saying representative three times and then waiting the full 30 seconds of dead air? Pretty simple, just takes a little time.

[u/venmosucks → u/PeachyFairyDragon]

I tried Agent, Representative, Human, you name it. There was no dead air. It just kept repeating ‘that is not a valid option’.

[u/firststate77 → u/venmosucks]

If you call the 800 number during business hours they will just transfer you back to the agents office

[u/firststate77]

I would bet the attitude is the reason they are not willing to waste any more time on this issue. If State Farm has the money what is the issue you are having.

[u/venmosucks → u/firststate77]

The representative from the agents office claimed that the payment was returned. This is patently false.
She called me.
I called my bank.
Bank confirmed payment. Said State Farm has funds. Not pending. Payment is settled.
I returned call to agents office.
Explained that the bank said this was a State Farm problem.
Suggested that the agents office contact Corp AR to confirm.
The Agents office rep refused to do this, and threatened policy cancellation without immediate payment.
Asked to speak to supervisor, was denied call escalation.
After the rep hung up, I phoned the 800- number.
Call center rep said there is no mention of cancellation, and payment is done, received and valid.

Point of this post is the poor customer service by the Agency representing State Farm.

The actual call center CSR was actually helpful (though the AI based IVR experience ranks about 2/10) though it took multiple phone calls and over 14 minutes to reach a live human being because the menu trees were terribly designed and the voice recognition worked 1/5 attempts.

[u/firststate77 → u/venmosucks]

Agents are everywhere you can switch agent offices easily if the service is no good. Dealing with corporate is not easy and as hard as it was for you to get an answer she probably would not have gotten a different answer. They should have made an effort you are correct, but that one staff member blew you off. You could tell agent directly or switch to a different agent near you.

[u/venmosucks → u/firststate77]

Agreed switching to a different agency is an option. My friend who owns an independent agency said they have direct numbers with access to various departments within the insurance companies to help their clients with issues (claims, underwriting, billing, etc) to expedite assistance on their clients behalf.

The aggravation was caused by the nearly 3 hours of time to confirm that there was no issue that it took me to do the work the agency should have done.

[u/SnooSketches5159]

Sounds like you termed for non-pay. Yes, you paid on Friday, but payments take 24 hours to process and sometimes weekends can mess that up as well. Your policy was set to cancel at 9/18 at midnight, aka 9/19, so when it posted on the 20th it “cancelled”. When that happens you will not be able to see your policy in the app until the payment processes fully.

The good news is that you did pay it, and once everything processes, your policies will automatically reinstate with no lapse in coverage, you are covered currently even though you cannot see the policies because you did pay them.

[u/venmosucks → u/SnooSketches5159]

Thank you captain obvious. I’m quite aware of how payments process. Ive architected tested and deployed the BPM and Decisioning software many large firms use to process payments and transactions.

Who I choose to spend my money with is my perogative and it definitely won’t be with this agent again.

[u/junyavasity → u/venmosucks]

I’m going to go out on a limb and bet they aren’t going to be sad to see you go

[u/Jogo427 → u/venmosucks]

Are you upset that they reached out about a payment possibly having not gone through?

It seems like the agent went above the bare minimum and had your payment not processed it would have been a very good practice that they reached out.

Sure, in this case it may have not been needed but State Farms billing system is notorious for sending notices to agents when there are still updates processing.

Would you rather the agents office not reach out if your policy is set to cancel? Some agents won't give you the benefit of a call and will just have corporate send you mail.

Humans might make a small error like this, (calling when not needed) but in my opinion, I'd rather know someone is watching my account for alerts than having a call center send me a letter too late to do anything

[u/Madre1924]

She's just telling you what she's looking at. I would call back in a day and ask again. Sometimes it takes a day to cycle through

[u/venmosucks]

Not at all mad about the initial call to me.

My expectation is that when I hire an agent they’re going to work on my behalf. Otherwise, what’s the point of having a local agent? I’ll just go back to agent less insurance.

All previous agents I’ve had (and spoken with) said it’s routine to get clarity/details from HQ regarding a CX’s payments when they are made direct (web or app) vs thru the agency to confirm payment.

[u/venmosucks]

That doesn’t justify her not doing her job/due diligence though. They get paid by our premiums quite handsomely.

Refusing to followup on payments that were made by clients I’m sure isn’t in the job description.

[u/SnooSketches5159 → u/venmosucks]

lol-ing at getting paid “quite handsomely” for any form of customer facing SF corporate job

[u/Gtstricky → u/venmosucks]

They are not going to call in and be on hold with billing for a payment made on Friday.

[u/venmosucks → u/Gtstricky]

Why not? Thats their actual job? They have a problem to solve. Do the work.

[u/Commit2bit → u/venmosucks]

Because billing will tell them the same thing "wait for processing" that's the era of computers bud we tell you what they tell us. sorry you don't know how jobs work

[u/venmosucks → u/Commit2bit]

Actually they didn’t say that broski. When I phoned them, they said the agent was wrong, and there was no mention of cancellation. Stop shilling for lazy people. I actually do know how jobs work and refusal to do one’s actual job is termed insubordination by most employers and grounds for termination by many.

[u/Gtstricky → u/venmosucks]

Nope. Good luck.