Change of address by Abbey

flumper

My Husband has a credit card with Abbey National. The last statement we received from them was last July. In the September he phoned up to question why we had not received a statement and was told that they had been having problems and would try and sort it for him. We still did not receive any statements. It turns out that a computer error changed our address to another similar local one and our statements were going there.

We were told to fax details of our correct address, which we did. Still nothing was done. They then put a block on our account to stop statments going out and told us to go into the branch to change our address.

Their error, yet we had to do all the running around. When we did go in, there was no record of our address, no previous address in the history and the only way our new address could be changed was to add it as a change of address from that moment, leaving this wrong address in our history.

Surely this wrong address will now stay on my Husbands credit history, despite the fact that we never lived there.

Secondly have they not broken the data protection act by sending out personal information to the wrong address??

Thanks for reading!!

jdavtz

Abbey have been similarly useless with addresses for both me and my wife.

Me:
I opened a Cash ISA in about May, and had all the usual stuff through the post to my current address, with a letter saying internet banking details would arrive in a few days. A week or two later, phoned to ask where they were, and was told my registered address was where I'd lived 20 months ago and that's where they'd sent them. I've moved the ISA to Icesave now.

In June I applied for the Abbey Zero credit card in the branch in town, had ID/proof of address/etc. photocopied there, and was sent the card in the post after a couple of weeks. Called up the other day to find out how much credit I had left on the card, and, during the process of going through security, found that again on their computer the card is apparently registered at that old address from 20 months ago. Despite this I've received a statement from them at my current address! I'm told I have to go into my local branch with two forms of photo ID to get the address changed on their system.

My wife:
Applied in branch for Abbey Zero credit card at the same time as me. Five weeks later, and after four phone calls, she still has had NO paper work through from them. They keep saying they've sent the paperwork (three times, apparently) in the post, to our current address, and it STILL hasn't arrived. I'm suspicious someone in one of our old addresses is receiving multiple copies of the credit agreement or the card or whatever it is that Abbey are sending.

I don't think I'll be dealing with Abbey again. (Though at the moment I'm making a few £££ from them by stoozing their money for 6 months!)

HamiltonL

The customer service team must surely have gone through security with your wife and confirmed the address. I hope the application is still on the system as a conflicting address often prevents the processing of an application. Best she chases it up with them again, sorry.

jdavtz

Update! 5 weeks and 4 days after my wife's application was handed in in branch, she has a credit agreement to sign - arrived in the post today!

Small credit limit, but that's about just over £50 free cash (according to http://stoozing.com/calc.htm) for 10 mins in Abbey in town, 5 phone calls, and a long wait. Just about worth it.

(Forgot to mention the first application in branch was actually 'abandoned' by Abbey as they'd read our previous address (from 6 months ago) instead of the current address as our current address from the application form - on the first phone call to Abbey it apparently became a new application).

Pathetic service overall.