What are Egg 'Collections Specialists'?

bargains83

Egg have become beyond a joke. Just before christmas I ended up going overlimit on Egg Money by £9, now if they had processed deposits before debits like most banks seem to then this wouldn't have happened. What happened was there was a payment GAME PLC for £19.99 which shows on the statement dated 8th December (taking me £9 overlimit) immediately followed by 'Payment Recieved - Thankyou' of £250.00. on the same date of 8th December. I also made other payments into my account taking me down to under HALF my credit limit.

Now following this they refused to pay my AOL broadband subscription which I have paid on this card for the last 2 years every month. This was on the 12th. I heard nothing from Egg or AOL but AOL attempted to re-take the payment 7 days later and probably forced it through as it then appeared on my Egg statement.

Then Egg started bombarding me with Phone calls on my mobile, leaving messages asking me to call back and speak to someone in 'Collections'. They also started ringing the house phone which we don't answer unless we recognise the number.

They then sent me 2 snotty letters asking me to phone them to talk to a 'Collections Specialist' and If I don't contact them in 7 days then I will no longer be able to use my account for spending.

I have had really bad flu over christmas, with nose bleeds and the works and I'm still not right now so I have no intention of contacting them anytime soon. I have more important things to worry about, like getting better.

'Collections' sounds like a debt collection team, I can't believe they'd put a credit account with such a team for going overlimit by £9. May I also add that this is the first time I have EVER gone over it, have never missed direct debit payments. I don't know how they've the cheek.

The account will be paid off soon anyway so im not bothered about their petty little block. I'll be glad to get rid if Im honest, phoning you up to confirm 2 out of 5 transactions and putting a semi permanent block on your account if you don't answer the calls.

Egg are one of the worst credit card companies ever, and have got worse since Citi took them over.

normanmark

Well if you go over the limit what do you expect?

Simple answer to solve that problem is don't go over the limit. One pound or One Hundred, you're still over the limit.

Bearing in mind that your deposit on the 8th might have taken some working days to clear this would of stopped your AOL transaction from going through until the second attempt.

Just put this down as a learning curve & just manage the finances better.

bargains83

normanmark wrote: »

Well if you go over the limit what do you expect?

Simple answer to solve that problem is don't go over the limit. One pound or One Hundred, you're still over the limit.

Bearing in mind that your deposit on the 8th might have taken some working days to clear this would of stopped your AOL transaction from going through until the second attempt.

Just put this down as a learning curve & just manage the finances better.

The payment on the 8th had cleared as available funds, because I made it as a debit card payment 4 days prior. When transactions hit the statement with Egg, they are cleared.

I'm not been funny but I thought normally when you went overlimit on a credit card you get next months statement and you find a charge at the bottom of it of £12 - £15 along with the interest for your mistake.

I've never heard of being Harrassed all for the sake of £9 and starting to do it a week after you've gone over the limit and already payed it back on the same day you were originally over it!, and Harrass me is exactly what they've done because they have no business ringing the landline. I have never given them my landline number so they've obviously gone digging through directory enquiries.

I suspect they will apply an overlimit charge in addition to all this rubbish they've given me anyway which I don't have a problem with its the stupid and childish attitude.

To pass my account onto a team which sounds like its on the bottom step before the debt is sold on to someone else is absolutely disgusting.

With regards to the AOL payment, there were plenty sufficient funds on the card when they took the first payment. I have a £2k limit and the outstanding balance was £819.46 on the morning of the 12th due to the additional payments i'd already made to the card. Leaving nearly £1200 of available credit. Yet they still declined a £9.99 Broadband subscription. The second transaction I think AOL would have forced as its a subscription and subscription payments can be forced on credit cards.

It was only after this they started with the bombardment of Phone calls and letters.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

bargains83 wrote: »

The payment on the 8th had cleared as available funds, because I made it as a debit card payment 4 days prior. When transactions hit the statement with Egg, they are cleared.

I'm not been funny but I thought normally when you went overlimit on a credit card you get next months statement and you find a charge at the bottom of it of £12 - £15 along with the interest for your mistake.

I've never heard of being Harrassed all for the sake of £9 and starting to do it a week after you've gone over the limit and already payed it back on the same day you were originally over it!, and Harrass me is exactly what they've done because they have no business ringing the landline. I have never given them my landline number so they've obviously gone digging through directory enquiries.

I suspect they will apply an overlimit charge in addition to all this rubbish they've given me anyway which I don't have a problem with its the stupid and childish attitude.

To pass my account onto a team which sounds like its on the bottom step before the debt is sold on to someone else is absolutely disgusting.

With regards to the AOL payment, there were plenty sufficient funds on the card when they took the first payment. I have a £2k limit and the outstanding balance was £819.46 on the morning of the 12th due to the additional payments i'd already made to the card. Leaving nearly £1200 of available credit. Yet they still declined a £9.99 Broadband subscription. The second transaction I think AOL would have forced as its a subscription and subscription payments can be forced on credit cards.

It was only after this they started with the bombardment of Phone calls and letters.

It used to be the case that you never heard from companies until you had missed two payments or unless you had gone overlimit by a bigger margin and stayed that way. In more recent years, companies have really got stricter over this. Even about three years ago I was pestered by an inhouse collector (Lloyds TSB) for being about three days late with a payment. He actually became so annoying that I ended up screaming abuse at him down the phone (it got VERY personal) and made a complaint about him - not that anyone would have acted on it. He wasn't prepared to accept that I had already made a payment by BACS (which they hadn't yet received) and kept up some mantra of insisting on me giving him my bank details so that he could take the money himself. Basically insinuating that I was a liar. That was the stuff I complained about - not the fact he had phoned me.
Some of these people seem to have no idea that rattling someone's cage is actually counter-productive. I still have a card with them but they are a lender of second last resort (nudging closely behind MBNA due to their near loan shark interest rates).
Funnily enough, I've never had any issues with Egg (yet). I think you would find this is quite common though that some people are troubled a lot by a particular company and others not. I believe a lot depends on the individual at the other end of the phone. I just happened to end up with someone who probably got a power trip from annoying people.

Janey51

Hello bargains83.
I think you are wise not to speak to Egg on this occasion. In spite of what another poster has said, sometimes you do get your finances a bit muddled through no fault of your own. When my Dad died I was late with one payment (after 5 yrs) and got a horrible man on the phone (a week after the death) demanding payment there and then. He wouldn't listen to my explanation. I wrote a letter of complaint and got an apology.
How would you feel about emailing Egg to say "lay off and stop phoning me".
You are within your rights to tell them to stop phoning you.
And don't forget, any late payment charges can be reclaimed eventually when the stay is lifted.
Hope you are feeling better after your flu.

normanmark

bargains83 wrote: »

I suspect they will apply an overlimit charge in addition to all this rubbish they've given me anyway which I don't have a problem with its the stupid and childish attitude.

To pass my account onto a team which sounds like its on the bottom step before the debt is sold on to someone else is absolutely disgusting..

Like i said, £1 or £100, you're overlimit. Which puts you in that position to get phone calls from the people you're borrowing money off so they can establish just why you went over limit & whether or not they can diagnose you as a potential customer who might have a problem in the long run (Overlimit is the first signs)

Collections is just a term used for a team who deal with overlimit customers & customers who are past their due date for the statement.

Your point about your contact number would be more down to the information you've given to the company. They don't go fishing on directory enquiries to find customers numbers. (Talking from experience of working for a CC company previously).

The second AOL transaction wouldn't be 'forced'. It merely went through as the available funds allowed the transaction of £9.99 to go through. Somewhere along the lines i think someone isn't telling you the right dates of when payments were attempted to be taken, in could be in a case of when AOL tried to take the first payment, when your funds cleared on your card or when Egg removed the block on your card (Which is usually the case when a customer is passed to Collections).

YorkshireBoy

Some comments:

As far as I'm aware, anything other than a BACS or CHAPS payment has a clearing time associated with it. So that's a delay (before funds are available) for clearance of both direct debit and debit card payment methods.

As another poster said, there's no difference between a first and second 'authorisation seek', so forget anything about "forcing" the second one through.

They'll probably have obtained your phone number from one of the Fraud Prevention Agencies (National Hunter possibly), because you gave it another provider on a previous application for a financial product.

But the reason you were overlimit (on the 5th/6th/7th, though possibly not on the 8th, of December) is as follows:

The 8th December was a Monday. If the transaction was posted to your account on the 8th, the chances are the actual authorisation (from Game) was sought some 2-3 days earlier...and it's that 'authorisation seek' that put you overlimit. See http://new.egg.com/visitor/0,2388,3_11084--View_1765-bID_ECManagingFAQ-dva_1,00.html#whydon'tmytransactiondatesmatchthedatesonmystatement?

NickX

I agree that the OP breached their Credit Limit and they have acknowledged this. However the actions of Egg do seem rather disproportionate on this occasion.

Perhaps if you make an official complaint about the way they have treated this minor indiscretion will produce some positive results.

Good Luck.

bargains83

Thats what annoys me most about the whole thing, the fact that they passed my account to some collections teams AFTER the account was all put back straight. What YorkshireBoy said about the GAME PLC authorisation probably taking me over the limit is probably right, however when the transaction came up on the statement, other payments into the account also came up and were also cleared. So Even if the authorisation to GAME PLC took me overlimit it was only for 2/3 days maximum.

Egg started with the phone calls and letters on the 20th, this was all when the account was back well within its limit. I got one letter on Christmas Eve and another on the 30th December.

My payment of £250.00 which appeared on the statement (same date as GAME PLC transaction) even if it isn't 'cleared' just because its shown on the statement (which I know it is anyway with Egg as if you make a Bacs payment they themselve say it takes 3-4 days to clear and it always appears on the statement within 3-4 days). If it hit the statement on the 8th, my payment in is not going to take another 12 days to actually clear is it?. It had cleared and everything was straight but they still felt the need to hassle me.

With regards to the landline number it is NEVER given out, I never give it on any application purely because a mobile is easy to switch off or change your number when you get irritating 'marketing calls' a Landline can't be switched off only unplugged and its an inconvenience at best. They must have got it off Directory enquiries or some kind of FPA. Seems a lot of expensive hassle to go to for the sake of £9, and £9 which was already paid back before they even decided to start giving me grief. I guess these are the 'expenses' they justify when charging you £12.

Incidently Egg still won't allow me to spend on my card, I tried it this morning as I wanted a DVD from Amazon and the card was declined. This is despite there being almost £1200 available credit on the card.

YorkshireBoy

bargains83 wrote: »

which I know it is anyway with Egg as if you make a Bacs payment they themselve say it takes 3-4 days to clear and it always appears on the statement within 3-4 days).

They actually say 7 working days in the FAQ, but I assume this starts from when you initiate the payment at your bank?

If it hit the statement on the 8th, my payment in is not going to take another 12 days to actually clear is it?

Unlikely, but if there are two weekends involved then 7 working days could mean 11 days (if they don't include the BACS transit time)?

Seems a lot of expensive hassle to go to for the sake of £9

If everyone gets a £12 charge, regardless of the amount involved, then everyone should receive the same treatment?

That said, I do believe they went 'over the top' on this one.

You're going to have to make your peace with them though, so you can start to use the account. Could I suggest you find a geographic number from www.saynoto0870.com rather than call their 0845 number?

bargains83

More problems with these jokers. AOL have tried to take payment for this month 3 times now from my Egg Money card and all have been declined so I've had to pay it manually with a different card, tried my standard Egg card and that got declined. Abbey VISA debit went straight through. What a shoddy attitude. £1200 available credit on one card and £500 available credit on another yet they can't pay a payment of £9.99 thats been coming off the same card for years.

I'm guessing my regular Egg card has also been passed to 'Collections' a card I have always paid on time and not once gone over the limit. Won't be long before they are both paid off in full anyway and I'll be glad to see the back of this awful company!.