MSE News: Buying online at Next? Beware – it searches your credit file

wiseshark

I must agree, this lot at Next sound like a right shower of 'YIPPEE'!!!!!

Having said that, the APR is well below that charged by Argos, Littlewoods, Very and Studio etc.

Drunk_Monkey

gmm30 wrote: »

I wanted to order something online a few years ago, and had to ring up to specifically request to pay by credit card and not have an account opened. Despite assurances from the overseas call centre operator, lo and behold (like everyone else) a credit account was set up.

Needless to say I closed the account and haven't attempted to buy online since. I have also been offered money off vouchers in store. When I asked "does this involve setting up a credit account?" I was told "no of course not, it's just a £10 discount". Naturally, the small print says you have to set up a Directory credit account.

As an employee of Next, I must say that most sale assistants are completely unaware of the technical aspects of credit account opening. Why would they? It’s not part of their job. They’re given a target number of directory cards to distribute; and get castigated for failing to hit targets. I feel a bit sorry for the customers. On the one hand, they’re prompted into a scheme that prospers on their assumptions of the standard online payment systems. On the other hand, a policy where Next losses £10 per customer ought to provoke incredulity, suspicion and eyebrow-raising. I’d ask myself “what’s the catch? And is it really worth £10”? …

The lay public assume that Next operates like amazon (for instance), but get seduced & entangled by the offer of credit (in the perilous purchasing impulses of the internet) whose termination is a Herculean mission. If you want to purchase something at Next, I would recommend popping-into your local Next shop, and ordering from their warehouse. They offer next-day delivery before 12:30 to any branch or your home.

Savvybunny2009

You can get around it by calling up customer services and have them open an account manually. Leaves no search and no credit check is done.


The soft search is for fraud prevention reasons I was told by their staff, and the hard search is for the credit application which is done regardless.

Dartlady180

I have a credit account with Next but my credit limit is 0 due to past financial problems but I have a balance of a bout £40. At present if I want to place an order online I have to pay with a credit/debit card and to do this I have to log into my Credit account. I ordered items to the value of £48 and paid with my debit card. They immediately added the payment as a credit to my account thus reducing my balance by this amount. I returned one of the items and instead of crediting the money back to my debit card (my original method of payment) they credited it back to my account! I had this happen once before and I didn't have a balance but they credited the money back to my account so to get my money back I would have had to shop in Next. I had to phone them and ask them to credit the money back to my debit card! Should always refund using the original method of payment or at least ask you how you want to receive the refund.

A_Flock_Of_Sheep

I NEVER give my real name or date of birth to any online retailer and have purchased from Next.

I used my own card to purchase so lord know if my moody name and date of birth have an account with a Next.

AHAR

Does choosing to collect your first order in-store still allow you to avoid the creation of a credit account?

cardboard_chewer

i had this problem as well, shopped on next website about 2 years ago. added items to my trolley, went to checkout and they sent me the items without asking for payment... odd. only when i looked closely i noticed they had set up a credit account. they did mention it on page 84, paragraph 8, line 45 of the terms and conditions but somehow i missed that. credit account is now closed and i won't be going anywhere near the next website again.
there should be a specific tick box/consent for customers to say they want a credit account.

gozaimasu

Good to see that Next is getting some bad publicity. I'm sure they announced some excellent profit figures for the year, so it's time they were taken down a peg or two. They can get away with treating the odd few customers like crap because they make enough money to offset it.

No matter how many people come on here, Twitter, or other social networking sites, badmouthing them for terrible service, or this credit record issue, it won't make a blind bit of difference.

I have no idea why I keep ordering from them - only a handful of orders and I've had to complain on 50% of them and take items back for a refund on the majority. I've more stress from this company that I have actual items of clothing.

The most recent complaint was when I chose to have some items delivered to store, but as the store was closing (I had no idea) so they re-routed the delivery to the billing address, which happened to be 200 miles away from the store I had chosen! I complained after the first items went there, asked them to send the other pending t item to another store, and they completely ignored me! How can a customer services representative be so thick? I already had to wait 4 weeks for the items to be become available (if they were available with my first item, then I would have been able to collect before the store closed) and now the extra delays, and the items were so badly fitting I had to return them anyway!

I give up complaining to Next, I'm considering asking them to close my account. I already had to do this in the past because of their incompetence.

David1552

Several years ago, when Barclays offered the best savings account deal around, it took 90 minutes in-branch just to open an account. Apart from the fact that most of their questions were unrelated to the savings account and only served their future marketing efforts I was also informed that a credit check would be involved. They didn't seem to grasp the concept that "saving" is the opposite of "borrowing" - I was giving them money not obtaining credit. Again, the only purpose of a credit check was to determine what other services it would be worth marketing to me. It's also worth noting that, a year later, it took another 90 minutes to close the account!

*Jelly_Tots*

This happened to me just the other day and I can't believe such a large high street company is allowed to get away with such sneaky underhand behaviour.


I rang up Next to ask why it wouldn't let me pay by card, and that I didn't want to open a credit account, and I was told I had to wait until I had received the goods, pay them off my 'account', then I could open a 'cash only' account which would let me pay by credit card.


This is nothing to do with 'security measures' and everything to do with luring people into spending more at Next by luring them into debt.


Hope this gets them some bad publicity. Maybe Martin and MSE could keep this in the news (in his TV slots etc).