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M&S Call centre asking too many questions
andyca
Posts: 163 Forumite
in Credit cards
Hello all,
Just got a call from my elderly mother, who always pays her M&S credit card off IN FULL every month, but due to an oversight at her bank she paid the wrong amount and was charged some interest, she called the M&S call center to find out what happened and being the savvy pensioner she is she asked if they could wave the interest. They agreed to refund the interest but then asked her a lot of questions in order to approve the payment including:
Full name, email address, mothers maiden name, DOB, full address etc.
This seemed like a lot of details to get a refund of interest, and she was worried she had been scammed, but checked the number she dialed and confirmed it was the M&S number. She is still worried about how much she has divulged to a random call centre employee. Call centre was in the Philippines, in case that makes any difference.
Is this normal for M&S?
Any scams we should be aware of?
TIA
Just got a call from my elderly mother, who always pays her M&S credit card off IN FULL every month, but due to an oversight at her bank she paid the wrong amount and was charged some interest, she called the M&S call center to find out what happened and being the savvy pensioner she is she asked if they could wave the interest. They agreed to refund the interest but then asked her a lot of questions in order to approve the payment including:
Full name, email address, mothers maiden name, DOB, full address etc.
This seemed like a lot of details to get a refund of interest, and she was worried she had been scammed, but checked the number she dialed and confirmed it was the M&S number. She is still worried about how much she has divulged to a random call centre employee. Call centre was in the Philippines, in case that makes any difference.
Is this normal for M&S?
Any scams we should be aware of?
TIA
0
Comments
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Just got a call from my elderly mother, who always pays her M&S credit card off IN FULL every month, but due to an oversight at her bank she paid the wrong amount and was charged some interest, she called the M&S call center to find out what happened and being the savvy pensioner she is she asked if they could wave the interest. They agreed to refund the interest but then asked her a lot of questions in order to approve the payment including:
Full name, email address, mothers maiden name, DOB, full address etc.
TIA
The questions sound like the process of 'passing security' which is normal before they discuss account details with you.0 -
Its all standard security questions when dealing with a financial institution.Mortgage started 2020, aiming to clear 31/12/2029.0
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She has made a mistake, and she's asking them for a favour. It's worth jumping through the hoops they set up.
That's how they ensure it is her on the phone.0 -
It’s perfectly normal.
No “scam” is taking place here.
One could say that you phoning up to get the interest removed was a bit dubious...0 -
MovingForwards wrote: »Its all standard security questions when dealing with a financial institution.
Thanks the odd thing was she had already passed the automated security at this stage and spoke extensively about her account, this extra security was just to "Authorize the refund"
It was more her banks mistake, she asked them in branch to pay the bill in full, unfortunately both my mother and the branch missed the mistake. But she and I both accept she has a lot of the responsibility here, and she's setting up a Direct Debit from now on.She has made a mistake, and she's asking them for a favour. It's worth jumping through the hoops they set up.
That's how they ensure it is her on the phone.
I had hoped I made it clear she was phoning up to find out why she had been charged interest because she paid her bill on time, it was only when on the call the mistake was identified. A little bit of jumping to conclusions here.It’s perfectly normal.
No “scam” is taking place here.
One could say that you phoning up to get the interest removed was a bit dubious...
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Full name, email address, mothers maiden name, DOB, full address etc.
This seemed like a lot of details to get a refund of interest, and she was worried she had been scammed,
TIA
All information they will have had on the system.
TBH when automated security is used that when making a money adjustment that they do recheck details. As while the account owner (hopefully) has gone through security. You can never be sure that the phone has not been passed to someone else.
I have had it where someone has been passed to me & the acc details state Mrs & you are clearly speaking to a man....
How they hate it when you have to take them back through security again. Then say if you are happy for me to speak to Mr....Life in the slow lane0 -
Complete guess:
An automated system exists to authenticate customers phoning in, and only authenticated calls are passed through to the team in the call centre.
They can see the customer details required for the things they can process - but they can't see some of the details required to pass security checks to prevent fraud.
Moreover, they can't process these refunds themselves and have to pass the request over to some other team who can.
Again, to prevent fraud the other team require some security details to ensure that they are applying the credit to the right account etc. So these then have to be taken again to be supplied with the request.
In a proper joined-up system none of this would be required, but who wants to pay for that...?
Again, complete guess...Nothing I say represents any past, present or future employer.0 -
It was more her banks mistake, she asked them in branch to pay the bill in full, unfortunately both my mother and the branch missed the mistake. But she and I both accept she has a lot of the responsibility here, and she's setting up a Direct Debit from now on.
She obviously did well. It wasn’t the lenders fault, and it certainly wasn’t the fault of the call-centre person she spoke to. Lenders tend to be pretty good in such circumstances, as long as the person phoning ‘owns’ the problem. Getting annoyed / aggressive generally doesn’t have such a positive outcome.0 -
Hello all,
Just got a call from my elderly mother, who always pays her M&S credit card off IN FULL every month, but due to an oversight at her bank she paid the wrong amount and was charged some interest, she called the M&S call center to find out what happened and being the savvy pensioner she is she asked if they could wave the interest. They agreed to refund the interest but then asked her a lot of questions in order to approve the payment including:
Full name, email address, mothers maiden name, DOB, full address etc.
This seemed like a lot of details to get a refund of interest, and she was worried she had been scammed, but checked the number she dialed and confirmed it was the M&S number. She is still worried about how much she has divulged to a random call centre employee. Call centre was in the Philippines, in case that makes any difference.
Is this normal for M&S?
Any scams we should be aware of?
TIA
The only scam here is the usual practice of lots of firms to use conversations with customers to extract more information than they need.
Most firms hide behind a plethora of excuses to gain information which is itself valuable for other purposes. Some even blame legislation intended to protect the individual's data for their fishing expeditions or use their duties to report money laundering for their questions.Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions.0 -
rest assured if its a scam your mum will be covered because its a credit card and M&S will not have a recording of the call from your mum will they? Mum just reports any transactions as a scam deduction. The scammers will have taken the money from M&S wont they ?0
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