Tesco charging interest during 15month 0% period

housesitter

I'm on month 12 of a 15 month interest free credit card offer from tesco.
My last statement had a charge for interest on the balance on the card.

I called to ask why and was told it would be removed. It wasn't.
I rang a second time and was promised a call back after it had been removed. Neither happened.

I've now called a third time, got all of someone's details and been told that it will definately come off but I "need to give them time" and that I will be given a call back when it's done.
That was a week ago.

Has this happened to anyone else?
Does anyone have a better number to contact them on? - should I try their fraud department?

One could be forgiven for thinking that they intentionally don't want to refund these incorrect charges as they seem to be doing a good job of not refunding me!

Short of writing a letter to them - which I expect they'll take a month or so to get around to reading.
Is there a "nuclear" option ?

TadleyBaggie

Has there been a late payment by any chance?

pheonixrising21

TadleyBaggie wrote: »

Has there been a late payment by any chance?

Does that make a difference? They have agreed three times to refund the interest. Whether it was correctly or incorrectly applied is unclear, but they have agreed to remove it and so they should.

If they feel it was correctly applied and are removing it as a guesture of goodwill, you may lose the remainder of the 0% deal (and thats where potentially a late payment/over limit issue applies). If it was incorrectly applied then it should be removed and the 0% maintained til the end of its term.

Maybe their system thinks you're on a 12 month 0% deal and they are struggling to swap it to the correct term?

housesitter

Nope. I have done nothing to warrant the charge. All three have confirmed that too.
The last guy I spoke to said he had heard of a couple of other instances. Seems Tesco might have an IT problem, automatically starting to charge interest after 12 months.

But they still haven't refunded me.

Perhaps it's best to just adanbon the card and close the account. But I expect there will be problems even then having the charge refunded to allow the account to be closed with zero balance.

tomsco

How much was the interest? I know in the RBS run days, if it was under 50 quid they can refund it there and then, if over they just need to consult their manager. Wouldn't think they would change their procedure that much during the changeover that it takes a week to do a refund.

On another note... why call the fraud department? There has been no fraud.

callum9999

housesitter wrote: »

Nope. I have done nothing to warrant the charge. All three have confirmed that too.
The last guy I spoke to said he had heard of a couple of other instances. Seems Tesco might have an IT problem, automatically starting to charge interest after 12 months.

But they still haven't refunded me.

Perhaps it's best to just adanbon the card and close the account. But I expect there will be problems even then having the charge refunded to allow the account to be closed with zero balance.

Well if you're going to close it, you can just pay it all off (minus the erroneous interest of course) and there will be no balance for them to charge interest on anyway.

housesitter

tomsco wrote: »

How much was the interest? I know in the RBS run days, if it was under 50 quid they can refund it there and then, if over they just need to consult their manager. Wouldn't think they would change their procedure that much during the changeover that it takes a week to do a refund.

£65.69
The excuse seems to be that this is too large for the initial people that answer the phone to refund.
I'm told that it's being handled by the complaints team adn that it could take up to 8 weeks for them to resolve. By that they do mean (I have been told) that it could take up to 8 weeks for them to refund an incorrect charge that they have made.
Obviously that is entirely unacceptible and I'm not leaving it at that.

Please if you are a tesco customer, check your statement. I do not think that this issue is only applying to me. It would be very easy to miss this if you are not checking your statements correctly.

On another note... why call the fraud department? There has been no fraud.

Depnding on your view of the strict definition maybe not. But I feel that taking money from me (I'm liable for the debt) and then refusing to refund me - pending an 8 week investigation suggest that they are in no hurry to correct their mistake, but wish to prolong debiting me without my permission.
If it's not fraud, what would you call it ?
I think we are beyond a simple mistake.

tomsco

housesitter wrote: »

£65.69
If it's not fraud, what would you call it ?

Bad customer service, but not fraud.

Mulder00

By calling the fraud department you'd simply be confusing matters. Not only would you be wasting the wrong people's time, but you will be adding to your own frustration because you are getting in touch with the wrong people. The fraud department is there to handle transactional fraud, not bank errors. Nobody will win if you go to the wrong place with it (and you may argue whether or not it's fraud, I'm not disagreeing with you, but the fraud department simply won't/can't deal with this type of thing).

housesitter

Spoken to someone in complaints who said he would look at it and call me back.

True to his word he did so and said that the charge had been refunded and also compensation to be applied to the balance on the account.
Both of these would show up on the online statement.
Confirmed that the people who initially answered the phone can only refund 50quid. but that their managers should be able to do much more. However due to the nature of the interest charge, they would not have been able to remove it immediately without further processing.

Not able to give an explaination for why the person who's details I took hadn't called back - he had not been back to the account since taking the phone call apparently.
Oh and added that I had been offered a £10 gift card on the second call and had agreed to that. A conversation which to my knowlege never took place!!



Only it's two days later and neither credits have shown up, but there are other valid transactions on the account, including a credit from paypal.
Hmmm.
I wonder how much longer to wait before phoning them once more to ask why the refund still hasn't been given.

At this rate, maybe Tesco will pay off the balance with compensation!