Retiree declined Barclaycard Rewards card

adamp87

Oxy1 said:

adamp87 said:

Oxy1 said:

cabbie37 said:

I I have been told that they will only offer a card to someone in employment.

Their pre-application check that does not include such a restriction.

Why is that not a valid reason? It’s not necessarily age related but I suppose a pension income is limited to someone working. 

Someone working potentially can earn more, a pensioner is retired and as most card applications go off income not savings & such if the card did default/get unpaid the chances of payment are much less at the moment?

Just playing devils advocate, they are being tight across the board Barclaycard I’d just go elsewhere. 

In my complaint, all the way to the Ombudsmen,  I would advance the following four points:

1. Barclaycard offers pre-application check which allows those who are less likely to be accepted to learn of this before applying and not to actually formally apply for the card (and not damage their credit file in the process).  The checklist does ask quite a lot of information but does not search the credit file.  In particular, the applicant specified that he is retired in the checklist and the checklist nevertheless indicated that he would be accepted.  While the checklist is not a full application and in particular they do no have data in the CR files when processing the checklist they do have a duty of care to diligently estimate the chance of the applicant being accepted based on information available to them at this stage.  Hence if their policy is to decline retired people they should stated that  the application will be declined at the check-list stage.

2. I they have so blanket ban on such a big and vulnerable and well defined subsection of the population they should state it clearly even before pre-application checklist so that vulnerable people do not waste their time and efforts on the checklist which is almost as long as the application.

3. When they receive application which includes information supplied by the applicant that clearly indicates it would not be successful (such as someone selects "Retired" when they have a blanket policy of declining pensioners)  they do not have legitimate interest in collecting further information about the applicants and should not search credit reference file.

4. Age discrimination. (In my view very unjustified and unreasonable as employed person can easily be without job within a month and most pensioners have guaranteed income that tends to grow above inflation every year.)

(Added later)

5. Disability discrimination (indirect).  With pensioners having much more stable and much more reliable income the only way such restrictions could make business sense if pensioners are more likely to be victims of fraud or be a problem when they go to hospital etc.  But discriminating against pensioners on this basis is in fact disability discrimination - discrimination against a group that are more likely to be disabled because of the problems to the bank their health problems could cause.

I think it’s ridiculous to take it to the ombudsman personally. OP was rejected annoying as it is; the person they spoke to most likely made a mistake in what they said.

They certainly won’t say it was policy - an internal complaint would get the same result as the ombudsman. 

1 - Taking aside the policy - nowhere on the checker will it guarantee 100% success. Many people compete a checker to be told 99%\highly likely but get rejected. 

2/3/4/5 are pretty much extending the same reason for your complaint.

How on earth is it disability discrimination? Not all pensioners are disabled either - you are reaching here drastically.

Oxy1

adamp87 said:

I think it’s ridiculous to take it to the ombudsman personally. OP was rejected annoying as it is; the person they spoke to most likely made a mistake in what they said.

They certainly won’t say it was policy - an internal complaint would get the same result as the ombudsman.

The applicant was given a reason. If he goes back to them and tries to question the reason not believing the reason given they, chances are,  just will withdraw that explanation and will give some safer for them reason.  By escalating based on the offensive reason given all the way to the Ombudsmen he is at the very least much more likely to get correct explanation of the reasons and have his case looked at very senior level and by Ombudsmen.

In a way I would say the applicant is very lucky that he was given that reason as it enables his to lodge very excellent complaint to the Ombudsmen.

adamp87 said:

They certainly won’t say it was policy - an internal complaint would get the same result as the ombudsman.

Well they already said that! Now I would corner them on that (by complaint all the way to the Ombudsmen) and see what they will say!

adamp87 said:

2/3/4/5 are pretty much extending the same reason for your complaint.

While there is some overlap I disagree that it is all a single point or should be resented as a single point.  If someone is going to Court than he way the procedure works than one often has select just one reason in most cases and use others more like support. But I am not suggesting suing them. Ombudsmen / regulator complaints are different and no harm in spelling out the reason separately.

Oxy1

adamp87 said:
How on earth is it disability discrimination? Not all pensioners are disabled either - you are reaching here drastically.

Well understood and well settled area. Discrimination can be direct and indirect. I would say in this case it is actually, while not most direct,  is actually quite close to being direct.

By pursuing the complaint let them explain for what other reason other than higher chance of disability (leading for example to customer being a victim of fraud or struggling to pay on time through medical emergency rather than insolvency)  they would exclude quite a privileged group from income stability point of view.

I would love to have such a strong case on my hands to take to the Ombudsman and possibly FCA .

JamesPeter

Well, as a slightly disabled retiree, I applied for a Barclaycard last week and stated on the form that I was retired.

Outcome – A Barclaycard came through the letterbox today (I received the PIN two days ago).

I activated the card a short while ago and am good to go.

So being retired is obviously not a bar to obtaining a Barclaycard credit card.

I can also now close and bin my useless Jaja credit card!

adamp87

Oxy1 said:

adamp87 said:
How on earth is it disability discrimination? Not all pensioners are disabled either - you are reaching here drastically.

Well understood and well settled area. Discrimination can be direct and indirect. I would say in this case it is actually, while not most direct,  is actually quite close to being direct.

By pursuing the complaint let them explain for what other reason other than higher chance of disability (leading for example to customer being a victim of fraud or struggling to pay on time through medical emergency rather than insolvency)  they would exclude quite a privileged group from income stability point of view.

I would love to have such a strong case on my hands to take to the Ombudsman and possibly FCA .

They can turn around to the ombudsman and say he wasn’t the right profile we were looking for. They don’t have to explain it. Credit cards aren’t a given right.

What outcome are you expecting?

Oxy1

adamp87 said:

Oxy1 said:

adamp87 said:
How on earth is it disability discrimination? Not all pensioners are disabled either - you are reaching here drastically.

Well understood and well settled area. Discrimination can be direct and indirect. I would say in this case it is actually, while not most direct,  is actually quite close to being direct.

By pursuing the complaint let them explain for what other reason other than higher chance of disability (leading for example to customer being a victim of fraud or struggling to pay on time through medical emergency rather than insolvency)  they would exclude quite a privileged group from income stability point of view.

I would love to have such a strong case on my hands to take to the Ombudsman and possibly FCA .

They can turn around to the ombudsman and say he wasn’t the right profile we were looking for. They don’t have to explain it. Credit cards aren’t a given right.

What outcome are you expecting?

Why are you and many others are just so keen to persuade OP not to pursue the matter to the Ombudsman / Equality Comission / FCA?  It is not like taking someone to courts where you could end up liable for huge costs for the other party (as well as your own) if you loose. Ombudsman complaint route is risk-free for the consumer.

In his particular case they already explained a reason to OP:  they told him that it is because they do not give these cards to retired.  They now have some answering to do. I do not think it will be just the case of them saying "or no, no he was told wrongly that it is because he is retired. We have some other reason but will not ell you what it is because we do not have to" and Ombudsman accepting it and ruling in their favour.  Even if for some bizarre reason it were to go like that the OP will not incur any costs and will have a pleasure of knowing that chances are Barclaycard will have had to pay to Ombudsman for the complaint.

MattMattMattUK

Oxy1 said:
Why are you and many others are just so keen to persuade OP not to pursue the matter to the Ombudsman / Equality Comission / FCA?  It is not like taking someone to courts where you could end up liable for huge costs for the other party (as well as your own) if you loose. Ombudsman complaint route is risk-free for the consumer. 

Largely because it is a waste of time and wasting lender's time drives up costs for everyone. As pointed out above by others there is no right to a credit card, the lenders risk criteria will more than satisfy the ombudsman as to why they did not wish to lend.

Oxy1 said:
Even if for some bizarre reason it were to go like that the OP will not incur any costs and will have a pleasure of knowing that chances are Barclaycard will have had to pay to Ombudsman for the complaint.  

So you wish someone to waste their time so that they potentially drive up costs for everyone, which is what spurious complaints do. It appears that you have some sort of grudge against Barclaycard (or lenders in general), it would be better not to let that cloud your judgement, especially when offering your opinion to others.

Oxy1

MattMattMattUK said:

Largely because it is a waste of time and wasting lender's time drives up costs for everyone. As pointed out above by others there is no right to a credit card, the lenders risk criteria will more than satisfy the ombudsman as to why they did not wish to lend.

You make it sound like the outcome is certain and is going to be in favour of Barclaycard.  What basis do you have for such an opinion? (That is actually a rhetorical question.)

I have taken a matter to the Ombudsman that everyone on forums was negative about and as a result my family ore than 100k better off.  In this case, chances are, even if the OP gets some compensation it will be minimal. However it is his best chance to get explanation (which he stated he wanted) and having the card issues.

Now you keep talking about lenders and decision to lend. But often when people get offended by such decisions it is because it is not really about decision to lend. When people get this credit card it is often for Section 75 protection and to get excellent rate of exchange when spending / drawing cash abroad.

And one thing that has to be remembered that banks are not really capitalist entities in free market world. They are more like benefits claimants (or even benefits cheats)  and not just due to massive bailouts during financial crisis - they continue to exist due to deposit protection schemes underwritten by taxpayers.

Oxy1

So you wish someone to waste their time so that they potentially drive up costs for everyone, which is what spurious complaints do. It appears that you have some sort of grudge against Barclaycard (or lenders in general), it would be better not to let that cloud your judgement, especially when offering your opinion to others.

That is you personal view that it would be a spurious complaint. I take a different view.

That is a very sad mentality that forces  you to take and express such views.  Extending this, lets just scrap hugely expensive courts and CPS -  lets just pole decide whom to lock up - surely it would reduce costs!

My view is different - such complaints could make lenders more fair and diligent in the future and wipe out those who compete by lowering costs through poor service rather than through being efficient or innovative.

cabbie37

Thank you all for taking part in the discussion. Clearly retirees are permitted to have a Barclaycard (post from JamesPeter) - whether a Rewards card has different criteria, we don't know. Anyway, all my attempts to contact Barclaycard have been thwarted (though I never got round to writing to them, I will admit - though I may well still do that) Anyway, this evening, I applied for a Halifax Clarity card and appear to have been instantly granted one. So that ends it, I guess. I have the style of card I need for the travel I have to do.. 

Thanks once again for all the input...