BEWARE: Just been done over by Sainsburys Visa

Everest

It seems to me that this site needs a black-list. A list of companies that people have had terrible experiences with in the past, like this example with Sainsbury's Bank. Perhaps then when users are looking for new products/services from banks they can immediately see who a touching with a barge-poll would be most unprudent.

The list could have bank name, service (ie Credit Cards, Savings etc), reasons for complaints (could be built up over time), date of complaints and notes of redemption (what the bank has done to put things right ie. compensation, new products etc). This way voting with the feet is easier to do. Those companies blacklisted could even contact the site and offer further apologies and justify themselves...

[Dear MoneySavingsExpert, we are sorry we cant organise sweet f.a, we will try much harder in future. To apologise and get ourselves off your influential black-list, we are offering free 0% balance transfers to all those registered MSE. Sorry again. Lots of love. Sainsbury's Bank]

Ok maybe not completely realistic but you get my point...


Does such a list exist?

Is this a feasible thing to start?

Any comments?

MarkyMarkD

There's already a complaints site exactly like that. It doesn't really work.

Most companies can't be bothered to reply to a public arena like that. Others reply and fob the complaints off.

I don't personally think that black-listing works either. If you took every post which said "AVOID ... company" then most of the financial institutions in this country would have been black-listed by now. Single one-off criticisms/complaints aren't really a basis for black-listing, and if it's based on number of criticisms/complaints then large companies are by definition going to get more.

Galstonian

Direct debits handle millions of payments and the overwhelming majority go through with no problems whatsoever. If you are sufficiently organised then you can make all payments yourself but for the majority of people direct debits offer the safest and most convenient way of making regular payments.

If you have a problem with DD then you can go directly to your bank but I make the first point of call the organisation taking the payment - given the chance the majority of companies will fix their own mistakes. If you are not satisfied with the outcome you should immediately contact your own bank and refer to the direct debit guarantee which can be found here:

http://www.bacs.co.uk/BPSL/directdebit/generalpublic/yourrights/

The bank have to immediately refund errors and additional costs suffered because of errors. Too many people dismiss direct debits because they have suffered problems with them but they have not used the direct debit system to resolve their problems. If they had then things would have got fixed to their satisfaction much more quickly with much less pain.

http://www.directdebit.co.uk