Abbey Zero - sent my card to the wrong address

mistry_2

Me and the OH applied for a joint AZ card for the 0% fee on transactions abroad with me being the second card holder. We were accepted and my OH received her card, but I didn’t. We phoned and queried where my card was and they said it should have been sent out at the same time, but may be delayed for some reason and not to worry. So we didn’t worry too much.
This weekend I went up to see my parent and there I had received my card and PIN. As you can imagine I was really shocked by this as I’ve not lived there for a few years, and made no reference to this address in the application.
I rang Abbey to query this, and because I had an account with them many years ago (which I thought was closed) at this address they made a mistake and sent the card there. I stated what a big mistake that was on their behalf, and it could have been someone else with the same name. To which the operator agreed and said I would need to go to a branch with ID to resolve this.

I find this shocking that they were so dismissive of the error, and how they could make such an error.

What’s the best way to complain?
I’m also tempted to close down the account and ask for all my records to be removed from their systems.

exel1966

You could close down the account, but then you'd be shooting yourself in the foot as the ZERO is one of the best cards on the market at the momemt for BT's and is one of a few cards not to charge a foreign transaction fee.

You cannot ask them to remove all your records from their ststems as they have to keep them for legal reasons, just as you should keep your bank statements for 6 years. They of course should update them correctly though.

It's a typical ShAbbey error, nothing away from the norm as far as they are concerned. Type ABBEY in the search box and you'll find pages of complaints about them. They don't have the reputation they have for no reason ! You're right, it is shocking and concerning and as for them being dismissive that doesn't surprise me either. I'm afraid to say that's ShAbbey all over.

Your only real option is to make a formal written complaint which will have to be acknowledged and go through the system, but I'll warn you now, they Do NOT follow the official procedure as they should and you may be waiting a very long time for a response and an assurance that they have dealt withyour complaint seriously.

mistry_2

What makes it worse is they won't talk to me for security reasons, because i'm not the primary card holder. yet it's OK to send a card and PIN to a wrong address. hmmm

exel1966

That I can understand and you can't really knock them for that, but I can also understand your frustration.

As for the complaint, when writing it decide what you want as an outcome ? An apology with their systems updated to reflect your current address or something else ?

seasidepom

I wrote to Abbey and complained about them sending stuff to my old address, amongst other things. They wrote a very sincere letter of apology - also sent to my old address. I'm sorry but injury to the foot notwithstanding, I would ditch them.

HamiltonL

There shouldn't be a problem taking you off the marketing mailing list. Not sure why you were still receiving promotional correspondence.

The primary and secondary cardholder situation with cards going to different addresses is the first I've heard of such a problem. It's a surprise (as it's the old address) that the secondary cardholder was added in the first place. Unfortunately if the addresses aren't accurate on the system, even if stated on the application, these sort of problems do occur. That's why I can only recommend, prior to making an application to check at the branch that the address is accurate and updated. Ideally this shouldn't be necessary but I don't think there is any way around it.

We were having a discussion about the merits of this in the larger Zero thread recently. Speaking to people who work in customer services at a few other banks in the past few days, I'm surprised to learn they have the same problems, and do send change of address forms to the new address if the old one is on the system. It seems this isn't just an Abbey thing....

not_loaded

Santander customer service = chocolate teapot.

HeadInSand_2

mistry wrote: »

What makes it worse is they won't talk to me for security reasons, because i'm not the primary card holder. yet it's OK to send a card and PIN to a wrong address. hmmm

Why does that make it worse? If you're concerned about security, then surely it's comforting to know they're enforcing that rule!
It's just an admin error, even if the card was intercepted and abused you wouldn't have been liable, you have lost nothing aside from a couple of days without the card. Just make sure the primary holder gets address fixed and then get on with life.

mistry_2

HeadInSand wrote: »

Why does that make it worse? If you're concerned about security, then surely it's comforting to know they're enforcing that rule!
It's just an admin error, even if the card was intercepted and abused you wouldn't have been liable, you have lost nothing aside from a couple of days without the card. Just make sure the primary holder gets address fixed and then get on with life.

Your right we should just get it sorted and get on with life. But it makes it worse because I can't get it sorted easily, I'm not asking them to do anything other then what was instructed on the application. And to rectify thier error, I have to go to a branch with ID (not the primary card holder). Not quite the convienience expected when applying for a card online.

:rolleyes:

not_loaded

Quite often you get a ‘forget it’ post on here. Well yes, eventually forget it, but it is definitely of passing interest to other viewers and posters here to know how very bad things are getting with some card companies.

I have been experiencing the most astounding run-around with Santander Zero. (see the huge Abbey Zero thread on here) Abbey National were always, to me, an excellent company by reputation, and being with them since 1975 as a customer I find it hard to believe that they get bought out by one of the ‘world’s biggest banks’ and their service standards drop like a ball bearing on Jupiter. So now they get called Santander by me. (and other things…)

Some would say they now have the ‘mañana’ attitude, but that infers they may actually do something eventually, which currently I find VERY hard to believe.

Somebody there has lost control of their customer databases. They appear to be mixing very old and new data together and coming up of course with a complete disaster. I could have kept control of that data with a PC XT 286 way back in 1984, so what’s their excuse?

To rub salt into the wound, they cannot be bothered to respond to customer correspondence at all. They simply do not care.

Don’t hesitate to criticise them here, they deserve it 100%. Sending a card to completely the wrong address is exceptionally stupid, and warrants publicity.

HamiltonL

The only thing I can recommend to customers thinking of taking out an Abbey card (or with another bank) who have never previously banked with Abbey or haven't for a long time, is to firstly go to the branch with IDx2 and check it is 100% correct. Then proceed. Unfortunately if the underwriters see the address on the application and finds it differs (even slightly) from the address on the Abbey systems, the application doesn't go through usually.