Post Office Credit Card - a cautionary tale...

consumptive

As this credit card is supposed to be particularly favourable for use overseas, we opened an account and used it on our summer holiday.
My wife sent a cheque to clear the account 9 days before the due date - plenty of time one would think.
However, it seems the cheque did not arrive on time, so believing the cheque must have got lost, she then arranged payment from our bank account over the telephone. The cheque then appears to have turned up and been paid in. We therefore paid some £750.00 twice.
No problem we thought, just ring up and get them to credit our account. Apparently, they have no facilities to do this and one has to write in and ask for a bankers draft to be posted to our address.
We duly did this and a week later there was no sign of any bankers draft, so my wife telephoned and was told they haven't received our letter, so she asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor then said there is actually a note on the screen to say a letter was received and the matter has been referred to their complaints department in Bristol! However, nothing at all had been done about refunding our money...
She was then told that we could have got the money back by visiting a cashpoint machine and withdrawing up to their cash limit per day, i.e. multiple visits to a cashpoint plus at least one visit to a bank to then pay the resulting cash into our bank account!
The siuation now is that 'on this occasion' they are going to refund the money into our bank account but not electronically (as they don't have the facilities to do that!) and this will take up to (another) 10 days!!

I note that a presumably regular poster says that moans such as this tend to come from new posters such as myself (I wonder why that would be?), so he wonders if they are really true. I say 'You couldn't make this stuff up!'

CLAPTON

a lot of CC companies don't seem to have very user friendly systems for returning 'positive' balances
however maybe rethink sending cheques in the post next time (think internet banking maybe)

JJ43

Seems to me it was your fault for sending a cheque. Ever heard of internet banking, paying online, paying at a bank, paying at a post office ?

I note that a presumably regular poster says that moans such as this tend to come from new posters such as myself (I wonder why that would be?), so he wonders if they are really true. I say 'You couldn't make this stuff up!'

You did.

david39

Ever heard of internet banking, paying online, paying at a bank, paying at a post office ?

So, if the OP had paid by any one of the other methods suggested and it had gone wrong, you would have struck that out of your list and replaced it with "paying by cheque" ?

JJ43

I think not!:rotfl:

consumptive

You did.[/QUOTE]

I can swallow your assertion that we brought this upon ourselves by being stupid enough to pay by cheque but I seriously resent this implication that it's all a fabrication :mad:

consumptive

CLAPTON wrote: »

a lot of CC companies don't seem to have very user friendly systems for returning 'positive' balances
however maybe rethink sending cheques in the post next time (think internet banking maybe)

Thanks for this positive advice. I guess we did it this way because we always have - this will be the last time though!

PNPSUKNET

thank goodness cheques soon wont exist

CLAPTON

PNPSUKNET wrote: »

thank goodness cheques soon wont exist

yes there were only 3.5million cheques isssued each day in 2009 i.e.
1.27 billion per year

clearly absolutely no demand whatsoever

JJ43

consumptive wrote: »

I can swallow your assertion that we brought this upon ourselves by being stupid enough to pay by cheque but I seriously resent this implication that it's all a fabrication :mad:

Shame!!!!!!

consumptive

Ironic isn't it that the original problem is deemed to stem from having been unwise enough to try and pay by such an outmoded method as a cheque but the only way the credit card company can refund us, after having paid twice, is by the same outmoded method!