New card - Abbey Zero

HamiltonL

exel1966 wrote: »

No, they'll do 100% which is what i've done for stoozing purposes.

Oh. If the BT 'maxes' the card, you get an overlimit fee usually. I've seen that with quite a few accounts, even with no BT fee.

HamiltonL

not_loaded wrote: »

I got VERY excited today when there was a letter on the mat from Abbey at Bradford.

Unfortunately it was only a letter from the head of card operations, asking for details of my change of address. Well, guess what, I haven’t changed address in 33 years.

In 1975 it was Abbey National who I took out the mortgage with, at this address. So for 25 years they wrote to me about this and that, and I dutifully paid the mortgage every month.

I would PMSL if this wasn’t costing me money.

Has anyone spotted the flaw in them writing? Elementary my dear Watson. If they think my address has changed, why write to that address?

They have three headed letters of complaint from me now, clearly showing my telephone number, and my email address. Neither of those were used, no, instead they wrote to an address that they think is incorrect. :rolleyes:

My suspicion is that at some point (or maybe permanently?) your address on the Abbey system is slightly inaccurate. This could even be down to a wrong letter at the end of a postcode, something small. That is probably why they haven't sent out the card yet. It is annoying, but it might be best if you have a spare moment to pop into the Abbey branch with IDx2 to get that all confirmed before returning anything back. Sorry, but that's the only way to get around this I think.

Cloudane

Card arrived today

Activation was, just like the A&L one, put through to a human operator as an excuse to sell insurance. However "no" was taken as an answer with no resistance.

It's an overseas call centre, but the agent and I had no problem understanding each other including telling them when I'd be overseas (as it tells you to do in the welcome booklet).

Quite happy with them so far, despite the relatively long wait for the initial communication and paperwork. An email acknowledgement would've made me far less twitchy. However once the signed agreement was sent off, the card arrived in about the timeframe I'd expect from anywhere.

exel1966

HamiltonL wrote: »

Oh. If the BT 'maxes' the card, you get an overlimit fee usually. I've seen that with quite a few accounts, even with no BT fee.

How on earth can you get an overlimit fee when you've not exceeded the limit ? There is nothing in the T&C's which states you cannot do a 100% BT and as there are no fees or interest it would be impossible to exceed any given limit.

YorkshireBoy

HamiltonL wrote: »

Oh. If the BT 'maxes' the card, you get an overlimit fee usually. I've seen that with quite a few accounts, even with no BT fee.

Could you explain how such a situation would arise. I mean, you don't go 'over your limit' yet can still incur an 'over limit fee'?

HamiltonL

It's just the way it is, that you get overlimit fees where I work if the balance is within 1p of the credit limit. I can't debate the rights or wrongs of that, but I have seen overlimit fees added as a result. Hopefully this won't happen here.

Cloudane wrote: »

Card arrived today

Activation was, just like the A&L one, put through to a human operator as an excuse to sell insurance. However "no" was taken as an answer with no resistance.

It's an overseas call centre, but the agent and I had no problem understanding each other including telling them when I'd be overseas (as it tells you to do in the welcome booklet).

Quite happy with them so far, despite the relatively long wait for the initial communication and paperwork. An email acknowledgement would've made me far less twitchy. However once the signed agreement was sent off, the card arrived in about the timeframe I'd expect from anywhere.

I am fairly sure that the Activation and Sales team is based in the UK, as I have spoken to them in the past - I think they are based in one of our overflow centres as they don't work in Milton Keynes. I know the Fraud holiday people are in Iberia though.

Seems what I said back in July was reality - bit of a delay getting the paperwork, then everything else should be quite fast.

Does your card expiry date have the month of August Cloudane? If so you've got quite lucky with virtually 6 whole months 0% there!

Cloudane

Fairy nuff, I guess it's feasible enough that it was someone of another origin within the same country. To be honest I live in an area where the vast majority are of English origin and keep forgetting that the cities where the centres are based are probably far more mixed. (That makes me sound so ignorant / racist... I'm not the latter!)

Definitely had an Indian accent, so it's easy to jump to conclusions about where they're based

Yep it's August expiry. Cool.

NickX

HamiltonL wrote: »

If so you've got quite lucky with virtually 6 whole months 0% there!

This is my bug-bear with Abbey Zero. It should not be a case of luck to get a whole 6 months at 0%.

It is advertised as 0% for 6 months, so this is what you should get, otherwise the advertising should say "maximum of 6 months 0% interest free period if you are lucky."

I am not blaming you HamiltonL but it is not fair, and I am now awaiting a response from the complaints department.

HamiltonL

Let us know what the response is Nick.

not_loaded

HamiltonL wrote: »

My suspicion is that at some point (or maybe permanently?) your address on the Abbey system is slightly inaccurate. This could even be down to a wrong letter at the end of a postcode, something small. That is probably why they haven't sent out the card yet. It is annoying, but it might be best if you have a spare moment to pop into the Abbey branch with IDx2 to get that all confirmed before returning anything back. Sorry, but that's the only way to get around this I think.

I really don’t know how to handle this. There is no change of address, so I should travel 5 miles to my nearest branch to do a ‘change of details’ where nothing has changed? They will think I’m bonkers, as there is no change. My address on the Abbey system agrees with my actual address.

It isn’t rocket science.

They wrote to me (at my address of the last 33 years) to say ‘here, have a card, it’s guaranteed acceptance.

Whoever is managing this shambles at Bradford should be out of the door and down the job centre ASAP.

Cloudane, I’m pleased to hear it worked for you in the end. How long was it from the very beginning? I sympathise with the foreign accent problem. Some accents/intonation are extremely hard to get on the phone. I couldn’t care less where they are in the universe, just as long as they provide the customer service needed.

I ain’t getting this from Santander at the moment. (let’s stop calling them Abbey shall we?)