Our holiday flights were paid on my BMI, British Midland, credit card, which is owned, or managed, by mbna.
So the letter stating we have been unable to process your recent Direct Debit to your account for one of the following reasons:
After one hour on the phone I find out that I have not used the card for 13 months and all direct debits mandates linked to the card are automatically cancelled.
mbna, the biggest card issuer in the UK does not have a routine in its vast computer network to check this. I would assume that this is not an unusual occurence.
So mbna send the direct debit to Barclays.
- Barclays then debits, not I’ll use real English, removes the cash from the account
- Barclays then realises that it should not have removed the money and so they pay the same amount back in.
So then starts the saga of Barclays call centre. As I have never bothered to get the 5 figure telephone pin number, as I never use telephone bankin, I feel a little bit awkward.
Still we go through the security checks and fortunately my date of birth has not changed since I signed up with the bank.
The place sounds like it is in the Caribbean. Certainly the hold music is upbeat and the woman dealing with me had a charming accent Barbadian accent..
It takes me a time to understand the reason as in banking terms the direct debit is unpaid, yet I can see with my own eyes, on the computer screen, that it has been paid and then replaced. (in English it should not be – unpaid, but something like not authorised to be paid)
Then onto mbna call centre. I do not have their telephone secret passwords or codes, as my ‘phone-a-friends’ tend to want more than just talk about credit cards.
My date of birth is still the same, another set of questions and then I am told by a cheerful chappy that the direct debit failed because of the 13 month rule.
In a cheerful way there was only a vague attempt to apologise, but the interesting point was how am I going to pay the outstanding amount. I did point out it was their fault, which was cheerfully agreed, but I ought to pay.
I said I would prefer to pay by Direct Debit, but I was told that would take 30 days and the money had to be paid before then.
So to avoid damaging my unblemished credit record I paid by debit card.
And the reason I don’t use their credit cards very much
They used to keep sending me sets of blank cheques, which I could use for cash, paying off other credit cards or for whatever use I wanted. These cheques are automatically charge the same rate of interest as getting a cash advance from an ATM, possibly more.
There’s a great safety risk as all my bank details are on the cheques and if stolen and used by somebody else would have caused me a great deal of hassle to try an dcorrect the problem.
They also seem to be targeted at those already in financial trouble and let’s face it – this is the sort of banking initative that has caused the present credit crisis.
B – B – B – Bankers