Help! Barclaycard treatment is disgraceful

sjameson43

Hello, I'm a newbie here.

Need some help and advice, I applied for a credit card on the 26th March with Barclaycard and was approved, with a balance transfer of £1932.78.

Now my card came out on the 31st, (yesterday) I duly rang them to register it, the girl was really nice and went through all the stuff she needed too, and told me that my balance trf was pending and it normally takes 8 days.

That was fine the call ended and I went on-line and registered to use my Barclaycard on-line service, and as expected my balance transfer was pending.

I made a payment that day using my card and it went through OK.


Then today I went to check the account on-line and I noticed that the balance trf wasn't pending any more, however the payment I made was.

I rang them up, and to my amazement I was informed that the account has been CLOSED, due to me not meeting the" relevant criteria"


This has left me in a right mess to be honest, my old card has a very high interest rate, and this was sorting my finances right out!


Can they actually treat customers like this?

I have arranged a manager to ring me back, what can I say to them here?

All help would be greatly appreciated.


Sorry just moved this thread, think it outta be on this part of the forum

BugsyBrowne

You are about the 100th person in the last month to have the same treatment and unfortunately you can not do anything about it.

Apply elsewhere!!

[Deleted User]

This is very common with Barclaycard at the moment. You can try to appeal, but I've not yet heard of any success stories.

sjameson43

Deleted_User wrote: »

This is very common with Barclaycard at the moment. You can try to appeal, but I've not yet heard of any success stories.

I think I will appeal, thanks anyway.

Unreal how they act.

KingElvis

Been doing this lots over the last twelve months, you'll get nowhere with an appeal so I wouldn't waste your effort.

chattychappy

With so many threads of this sort, it is obviously a systemic failure at Barclaycard. No doubt at some point a regulator will get involved...

If at any point you were told that the transfer had been authorised/confirmed and you relied on this then perhaps you have a claim - by "rely" I mean spent some money, closed another CC account you could have used, etc. But it sounds like neither condition applies.

So I think you're a bit stuffed...

You can appeal, but likely they will have a good reason to turn you down. They probably don't have a good reason for their manner of rejection, though. If enough people complained to the FOS or OFT, then perhaps something would happen.

Degenerate

OP and anyone else, can you please post the EXACT wording of the letter you received informing you of the account closure (redacting personal info of course). Most importantly, did the letter make any acknowledgement of the fact that this was a brand new account they were closing?

I have a strong suspicion that this is being caused by a systems failure at Barclaycard. Such a failure could go undetected for a long time, because their useless Mumbai customer service drones refuse to apply common sense or in any way deviate from their scripts. Even the first level of complaints is handled by them, so they have effectively prevented most issues from escalating to a level where problems can actually be solved.

Fiddlestick

Degenerate wrote: »

I have a strong suspicion that this is being caused by a systems failure at Barclaycard. Such a failure could go undetected for a long time, because their useless Mumbai customer service drones refuse to apply common sense or in any way deviate from their scripts. Even the first level of complaints is handled by them, so they have effectively prevented most issues from escalating to a level where problems can actually be solved.

It's extremely unlikely that the daily testing would be performed by an outsourced team in Mumbai, and I say that as someone who was once responsible for performing daily system testing for a bank.

Degenerate

Fiddlestick wrote: »

It's extremely unlikely that the daily testing would be performed by an outsourced team in Mumbai, and I say that as someone who was once responsible for performing daily system testing for a bank.

What do you mean by "daily testing" and how is it relevant to this issue? Let me be clear that when I say I suspect a "systems failure", I mean a logical error with how their systems are set up, rather than computer hardware/comms type failures.

2sides2everystory

It's extremely unlikely that the daily testing would be performed by an outsourced team in Mumbai, ...

Some banks now appear to have more or less their entire IT function based in India.

... and I say that as someone who was once responsible for performing daily system testing for a bank.

And you worked in the UK? That figures doesn't it?

chexum

I think it has more to do with the fact that they primarily rely on Equifax, and that's what they base their immediate decision on. However, many other lenders prefer Experian, and Barclays actually check them later in the process, among other databases, so in many cases, the defaults, or address discrepancies don't show up on the initial credit check, only later, when the card is already with the customer.

It's still a very experience, but I think most of the customers actually refused this way had (or are having) black marks on their credit history that they thought no longer matter.