Thought you might like my Response to Egg

doitmyself

Originally Posted by doitmyself
Just silly. As a thought for the future it's no way to communicate

DevilGoesDown2Bristol wrote:

Really? How so?

Seeing as you ask I would say for your own future reference always just state, clearly and concisely what it is you want. This applies to everything including for example negotiations with insurance companies re. a claim or perhaps with your boss re. promotion/payrise. It's why, incidentally there are template letters and a clearly defined process for claiming bank charges.
I wouldn't expect anyone at Egg to have the time or patience to read or to be remotely interested in your 'funny' mail. You have stated (in caps) your desire to close the account and no doubt this will be achieved, what's the point of the other nonsense?
Remember also you may have had some bargaining leverage here (in the event they wanted to retain you as a customer). Don't cut your nose off to spite your face.

Anyway good luck and I hope you are not too disappointed with the response from Egg once they ungoose themselves, which I suspect will be a standard template response.

Paul_Herring

I haven't had one of these mails from Egg. Can I clarify if it's Egg Card or Egg Money (or both?!) they're sending them out for? If Egg Money, any mention of an increase in the interest rate paid on a positive balance?

DevilGoesDown2Bristol

Well, I got a reply... I'm feeling a bit surreal this afternoon and somewhat curious to find out just how human the CSR's on the other end of the "line" actually are in these circumstances

Here's my followup mail: the original response from Egg is in quotes...

******

Good afternoon Kr

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,

"'m sorry to hear you want to close your Egg Card."

Well, I'm sorry that Egg made me want to, so I suppose we're even...

"I've started the closure process for you. I just wanted to remind you of some of the reasons that attracted you to the Egg Card:"

Well, thanks for the memory jogger!

"Why it's worth sticking around
* Great anniversary offer"

This is the only thing Egg still has going for it, and it's just not enough. I do occasionally make use of credit cards for purchases, but haven't made use of Egg for a long time due to its highly uncompetitive interest rates. Making them even less competitive just means I want to get rid of the card. All the anniversary offers are for is to make customers less inclined to ditch-and-switch credit cards to take advantage of introductory rates. Now your standard rates are poorer than ever - more than DOUBLE that charged by my Post Office card - I think you'll agree that I'd have to be a complete mug to avail myself of your services in this regard.

I hope you don't think I'm a mug. A teacup, perhaps, but not a mug.

In exchange for your helpful reminder, I'll jog your memory too!

"* Special deals with selected online retailers"

You and everyone else. I get much better deals from my Virgin card. The main thing with these of course is that they're only pertinent if you a) want something that's on offer, and b) can't find it cheaper elsewhere. These two conditions have never simultaneously appertained since I first acquired an Egg card. What's really, really relevant is the total cost of credit once interest rates and any cashback have been taken into account. On that score, well... I'm sure you know your business and I'm not the man to try teaching his grandmother that Egg sucks.

"* Internet shopping guarantee"

Exactly how much protection do you offer over and above the legally-mandated minimum?

"* Active fraud monitoring"

Standard practise these days: it would only be a market differentiator if you didn't do it! Again, most anti-fraud and loss-prevention tactics are mandated either by legislation or by industry standards.

"* 24hr online account management"

And how many credit cards offer online account management that runs, say, for 21-and-a-half hours? The days when having a decent Web presence made Egg a fab and groovy company to sell your soul to are long gone. "24hr online..." is a bit of a redundant statement anyway: the entire point of an online system is that it can be accessed 24 hours a day! In any case - given the recent performance of your website - I would question the legitimacy of that statement.

On the other hand, fair play, you didn't actually say "24hr PER DAY" online account management: for all I know, it's 24 hours a week, which would seem to be a more accurate reflection of my account's accessibility over the last little while.

Did the last e-mail Egg sent out which "personalised" everyone's interest rates up cause a bit of a commotion, by any chance?

"It's not too late to change your mind. Just call our customer service line on 08451 233 233 and we'll arrange to keep your account open."

Tell you what: you get them to call me with an offer of interest rates at 10.5% or below and I'll change my mind. In the meantime, I've got to go and grab my binoculars because there's a flock of pigs circling over the office roof...

"The closure process will take 17 working days but may take longer if you've used your account recently."

I haven't, Praise Be to the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

"When your account has been closed, you'll receive a confirmation e-mail. We may contact you within the next 14 days to talk about your request, just so we can continue to improve our service."

Oo, please do. I really look forward to it. Just to give you an exciting sneak preview of the likely resulting conversation though, it's probably going to be along the lines of:

Egg: "Hi there! We notice you've closed your account with us and we wondered whether there's anything we could do in the future to improve our service?"
Me: "Lower your interest rates. Fix your web site. Don't patronise me by informing me of interest rate rises under the guise of 'treating me as an individual'. Really, does anyone fall for that?"
Egg: "Oh yes, all the time."
Me: "Wow. Well, bye then!"

There you go: I've saved one of your people a few minutes' work, right there. Never say I don't do anything for you.

"If you've any questions, please feel free to contact me."

Not unless you can tell me whether the word "mug" as used earlier in this e-mail is etymologically related to the word "mugu", as employed by Nigerian 419 scammers? I've often wondered that.

It has been a pleasure chatting with you!

Have a nice day,


J

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DevilGoesDown2Bristol

doitmyself wrote:

Originally Posted by doitmyself

Seeing as you ask I would say for your own future reference always just state, clearly and concisely what it is you want.

As a general case, you are of course absolutely correct. However, in this circumstance there's nothing they have that I want and there's no conceivable harm I could do myself. I don't even care if they don't actually cancel my account. I was making a point and having a laugh doing it, and that's actually a perfectly valid end in itself for the majority of people.

This applies to everything including for example negotiations with insurance companies re. a claim or perhaps with your boss re. promotion/payrise. It's why, incidentally there are template letters and a clearly defined process for claiming bank charges.

:rotfl: Funnily enough, I've just clawed back two-and-a-half years' worth of premiums - plus interest - on an insurance policy that didn't do what it said on the tin, and started my new and better-paid role last month. I've been claiming bank charges back quite successfully ever since I was a student... what makes you think I don't understand these things, merely because I chose to engage in a little humour?

"I wouldn't expect anyone at Egg to have the time or patience to read or to be remotely interested in your 'funny' mail."

You may be surprised. I work for a company with a very large call-centre presence and such letters - provided they are not abusive, which mine was not - quite often receive special attention.

"You have stated (in caps) your desire to close the account and no doubt this will be achieved, what's the point of the other nonsense?"

Frankly: to raise some smiles, both here *and* there. There's value in that.

"Remember also you may have had some bargaining leverage here (in the event they wanted to retain you as a customer). Don't cut your nose off to spite your face."

You're contradicting yourself! Either "nobody will have the time or patience to read or be remotely interested in my 'funny' mail", OR they will do so and take umbrage as a result. You can't have it both ways...

"Anyway good luck and I hope you are not too disappointed with the response from Egg once they ungoose themselves,"

Not even slightly. Why would I be? You didn't find what I wrote in the least bit funny, clearly, and are probably somewhat irked that lots of other people did, but it in no way invalidated the message: in caps, if you please.

Every day, customer service people get the whole gamut of different caller types, but I can tell you right here and now that the humorous ones are one-in-a-hundred compared to the po-faced businesslike approach... and one-in-a-thousand compared to people getting fairly incoherently upset.

If my mail had no effect other than making half-a-dozen people chuckle, I consider it a wholly worthwhile effort and am sorry that you didn't find it interesting or amusing yourself.

MarathonMan1981

Thats the same bog standard response i got when i closed my egg card! Although my close card request was only about 2 lines and not as funny!

doitmyself

Hi devil
I was thinking in terms that possibly any extra advantage you could gain for yourself (in addition to the stunning anniv offer) could get lost in the 'cleverness'. Anyway as you say nothing lost for you here and a few of you, possibly even including the person at Egg seemed to have some fun with it so well done.
You are polite at least and there's a lot to be said for that!

Cheers

Triker

Excellent post OP, I too received my personalised account terms, just the same as yours funnily enough.

I may complain that the terms aren't really 'personalised' as I guess I'm sharing them with a few hundred thousand others.:rolleyes:

I rang up, tried a bit of reasoning, told 'no way', so will be scouring around for another balance transfer card. Asap.

mortified_penguin

This a great response to Egg. I just wish that I could write the same letter but unfortunately, I have a balance of nearly £5K and I can't cancel my card! I too got an email to say that they are hiking my personal rate to 21.9%. My credit rating isn't brilliant so I don't want to risk applying for a cheaper card/loan for fear of bing rejected and making my rating worse! I am going to complain to them but looks as though I will be stuck with it unless anyone can come up with any ideas??

pinkthinks

Thanks for this post Devil, made me smile anyhoo.....