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March 31, 2003
Tale of Three Credit Cards
These are all true stories that have occurred in the last couple of months. Guess which institution you should be dealing with?
Alfred (not his real name) had a credit card with a big bank (which bank?). He noticed some strange transactions on his bill so he gives the bank a call. They advise him that he is unidentifiable and so he trots into a local branch the next day at the start of his lunch break. He is still there at the end of his lunch break and most of his afternoon tea (1 hour, 15 minutes). He gets to make a "stat dec" and is then sent home with the assurance that the bank will contact him about the matter and he should pay the several thousand dollars anyway pending a better solution. Three weeks later and nothing has happened but he is dreading the next bill.
Belinda (not her real name) has a credit card with a big shopping chain (which may be affiliated with the bank above). Belinda decides to give her hubby a subsidiary card and gets the paperwork. When she starts to fill in the bit about her card number she realizes that she can't find the card. After a full scale search involving at least a platoon of willing assistants, she calls the emergency number of the credit card people. After a bit of discussion they admit that in fact her card was suspended about three weeks ago because someone (a retailer where she had used the card) found it and sent it in. To organize another card, she would have to call again during business hours. Belinda's number one question was "When were you going to tell me about this?" and the response was "If you needed the card, you would have got in touch with us".
Charlie (not his or her real name) has a credit card with a credit union. They noticed some suspicious character was generating sequences of bogus credit card numbers and realized that the sequence would run into Charlie's number in the near future. Charlie being OS (Overseas) they got in touch with the local contact provided by Charlie, passed on the news and provided a method for Charlie to have the card cancelled (and a new one issued) before there was any problem. For such superb service they can obviously be named as the NSW Teachers Credit Union. I reckon they deserve the equivalent of an Oscar for customer service.
Posted by Ozguru at March 31, 2003 07:03 AM
