First Direct online statement faults

chrisjj_2

Anyone else finding First Direct's online statementing is suddendly full of faults, e.g. below?

The most serious for me is transactions missing from statements. Thank god for the paper ones...

Chris

Problems with "statements > XXXXgoldcard":

1 The statement "select a period" list's first "March" provides a statement that is labelled "statement for March statement date 31-03-2005" but is missing all six of the printed statement's entries 1st to 6th of March. No statement offered by the list contains these.

2 The statement "select a period" list contains two entries for March, the second of which provides a statement labelled "statement for March" containing transactions only for Februrary.

3 The statement "select a period" list's "Februrary" offers a statement mis-labelled "statement for February" containing transactions only for January.

4 The statement "select a period" is missing all months before February.

5 The Excel-format downloaded statement's Balance column contains erroneous values - 0 throughout.

6 After selecting a statement order e.g. date ascending, the Excel-format downloaded statement is is the wrong (i.e. not the selected) order.

7 The Excel-format downloaded statement's Date column doesn't say which date.

8 The displayed and Excel-format downloaded statement does not contain the Transaction Date.

deffo

I've been using fd visa on-line for years and have never had a problem. :j You get at least 3 months worth of statements at any given time - the current period and the previous 3 months. The statement date periods relate to the your monthly visa cycle, which will tie up with paper statements that come in the post. Not had any problems downloading into Excel either, though I believe that the XP Service Pack 2 update, if you've done it, has caused a few problems relating to various download formats. If this is the case - check your file associations.

Reaper

I checked mine after your post and can't see any problems but I only have 1 transaction per month as it is just used for stoozing.

When you say

The statement "select a period" is missing all months before February

I don't imagine they keep the data online any longer than that. That's as far back as mine goes.

As I say I don't have enough data to check but another reason entries may apear in the wrong month is there are more than one date that can be used - transaction date and processing date.

klondyke

A few days ago, I went to check card statement. It was completely blank, except for total owing. No credit limit, nothing in any period, no recent transactions (tho that was expected). I emailed to ask what had happened. Reply email said 'could confirm no recent transactions' - and to tell them which period I wanted to know about so they could check. By that time, I didn't care very much, but went back to check myself and found all info was back again. Shouldn't have done that, of course, because FD delete secure emails as soon as (they think) you have read them, so couldn't reply directly. (That really annoys me; get distracted by something else, timed out, secure email gone for ever:-( )Sent another email to confirm all was well now, but I doubt if they knew what I was on about, especially as they didn't seem to know about blank statements.

In a way, glad to hear it happens to other peeps and I'm not just going mad (well, maybe, but not about that:-))

chrisjj_2

deffo wrote:

I've been using fd visa on-line for years and have never had a problem.

Are you saying e.g. you get correct results instead of

> 5 The Excel-format downloaded statement's Balance column
> contains erroneous values - 0 throughout.

?

chrisjj_2

klondyke wrote:

FD delete secure emails as soon as (they think) you have read them, so couldn't reply directly. (That really annoys me;

Me too. FD apparently do not know the meaning of "secure"

deffo

chrisjj wrote:

Are you saying e.g. you get correct results instead of

> 5 The Excel-format downloaded statement's Balance column
> contains erroneous values - 0 throughout.

?

...you need to put in an Excel formula once you have imported the transactions...that will then produce a running balance which you can update with future downloads

chrisjj_2

Well, for anyone's who'se interested, FD's replies are below. Leading me to wonder how can this system be the work of a banking IT dept, rather than a shabby dot-com.

I mean, how difficult is can be to produce a simple four-column statement consistently in three versions? Seemingly too difficult for FD:

paper version: Received by us (sic), Transaction date, Details, Amount
HTML version: date, reference, details, amount
Excel/CSV version: Date, Description, Amount, Balance

Sigh.

Chris





Problems with "statements > XXXXgoldcard":

1 The statement "select a period" list's first "March" provides a statement that is labelled "statement for March statement date 31-03-2005" but is missing all six of the printed statement's entries 1st to 6th of March. No statement offered by the list contains these.

FD "The 'statement for March' shows only the most recent transactions for March. To see the missing transactions, you have to click on 'more' at the bottom of the page."

2 The statement "select a period" list contains two entries for March, the second of which provides a statement labelled "statement for March" containing transactions only for Februrary.

FD "With think this is due to your card being replaced recently."

3 The statement "select a period" list's "Februrary" offers a statement mis-labelled "statement for February" containing transactions only for January.

FD "With think this is due to your card being replaced recently."

4 The statement "select a period" is missing all months before February.

FD "Only 3 months are available, and January is missing we think due to the 3 monts being used up by the erroneous March entry."

5 The Excel-format downloaded statement's Balance column contains erroneous values - 0 throughout.

FD "The downlaoded statement is supposed to show all the standard VISA statement fields and Balance is not one of them. Sorry it is showing a Balance column with [wrong] values. We'll pass that on for investigation."

6 After selecting a statement order e.g. date ascending, the Excel-format downloaded statement is is the wrong (i.e. not the selected) order.

7 The Excel-format downloaded statement's Date column doesn't say which date.

8 The displayed and Excel-format downloaded statement does not contain the Transaction Date (shown on the paper statement).

FD "Sorry, we'll get back to you on that."

9 The Excel-format downloaded statement does not contain the "reference column" (shown on the displayed statement).

chrisjj_2

> an Excel formula... will then produce a running balance

It will produce /a/ running balance but not the correct one. Which also I notice FD don't show it on either the paper or HTML version.

lemongirl

I actually cant stand using Fisrt Directs online banking system. Feels glitchy and uncertain generally. Halifax and lloyds too. FD is better than Halifax and Lloyds though, but definately not the best out there.

The RBS and Natwest ones are very efficient and quite intelligent and easy to use, but worrying as it runs on ASP. The other major banks are very quirky with their efforts too.

I've often found FD to make ad-hoc changes which take a few days to recover from before it returns to normal. Annoying.

Lemongirl

chrisjj_2

> Fisrt Directs online banking system. Feels glitchy and uncertain

I know what you mean. Just the fact that if I phone customer service whilst using the web site every time the site starts giving "We are expereincing diffuculty" errors, makes me wonder what a prehistoric software architecture must be behind it.

Having said which it does have a staid unadventurous feel that gives me confidence. And I truct it more than the slicker competition such as Egg because I really do rate FD's overall service as the best I've found by a big margin. They just employ far smarter people and train them better, it seems.