New card - Abbey Zero

HamiltonL

Well I don't know about that person but the majority aren't having problems getting the card - swings and roundabouts? It seems there is a minority that have had quite bad problems, some on this thread. That is still unacceptable regarding the lack of correspondence. Did you write to Abbey's Complaints department or the customer address? You should at least have received a recognition letter of your query. I'm sure the 'front line' staff have done all they can to help. It seems there is an issue on this occasion with the next level of management. I hope you hear something very soon, *crosses fingers*.

exel1966

TBH Hamilton Abbey has had vastly more than it's fair share of problems, particulalrly since the tie-up with Santander. The FOS has recently rapped their knuckles on more than one occasion due to its inconsistent approach and wilful negligence displayed towards it's customers coupled with it's misleading advice handed out by what Abbey currently call Financial Advisors, but are in fact no more than poorly trained CSA's.

Just think what A&L's customers have to look forward to and the additional problems that will cause when Santander impose it's hopelessley inadequate systems on them.

I admit my own credit card application was flawless because it was done in branch. A little knowledge goes a long long way when dealing with Abbey and how their systems work but it shouldn't be like that. The average man/woman on the street should not have to put up with the nonsense mentioned within this thread.

I also appreciate your comments are helpful to people here, but again it just should not be necessary and wouldn't be if Abbey were to follow FSA guidelines and do what they should be doing as a matter of course.

I have vast experience and numerous compensation (goodwill payments) in dealing with Abbey complaints and can assure you that it is not easy as they do NOT follow set procedures, perhaps from being overworked !

I just wish Santander would wake up and realise the turmoil they cause and spend more time and money on training staff to a satisfactory standard rather than have a substantially large complaints dept. being overworked through self manufactured errors. Rant Over !!

Cloudane

Don't worry, they'll soon be shown how customer service is done by the highly reputed Alliance & Leicester

Average experience applying for the online management of the card. Looked up the geographical number (0845 costs a fortune on my mobile and doesn't come out of the free minutes) and got told off by the auto attendant but it let me off and put me through. That's better than normal as most companies if you bypass their profit-making 0845 or 0870 numbers they just hang up on you.

Got straight through to a chap with an accent and did the security stuff then got passed through to another department and listened to music for 15 minutes. Found out why - this one was in England

The details will eventually find their way thorough snail mail. I'm expecting the usual week-or-so wait.

I don't really have any complaints about them... I wouldn't say they're stellar (oh how nice it would be to be given a choice of geo and non-geo numbers, not having to hold, not having to be passed across departments, getting your forms next day by 1st class post etc) but nobody said money saving meant you would get 1st class red carpet service. *something* has to give way so that they can afford to offer fee-free transactions and such.

I'd be curious to see the quality aspect factored in to this site one day as opposed to just the "best deal", but that's for another topic.

exel1966

Like you, 0845's / 0870's / 0800's are not free on my mobile so when calling the geographical number I often get queried as to my use of it, but usually just say I'm calling from overseas so they just transfer me to the correct dept.

A&L to Abbey - A case of out of the frying pan and into the fire !

not_loaded

Exel1966 in post #163 you mirror my feelings on this fiasco. Well put!

Thanks for the input HamiltonL. Yup, I wrote to the Customer Relations Unit at Grafton Gate over a week ago. Again, the letter shows my email, my phone number and of course my address. Guess what? No response.

I similarly wrote to the head of card operations (by name) at Bradford. No response.

I feel the front-line staff are doing what they can, but the information systems they have are abysmal, and in addition the staff are clearly not empowered to actually solve customer problems. Almost every call has ended in ‘sorry I don’t know.’ I’ve had three occasions where I’ve been told I will be rung back, then nothing; and one occasion where I was told the paperwork was ‘going straight in the post’ that day. Again, nothing.

There’s obviously no competent management chain at Bradford. Customer Relations at Grafton Gate should have burnt somebody’s ear with an immediate phone call on seeing all the detail in my complaint letter.

Somebody somewhere ought to realise that it’s a complete waste of Santander’s resources to do a mailshot to ‘valued’ customers and then proceed to hack them off with atrocious service.

Somebody somewhere ought to realise it is totally unprofessional to ignore customers’ correspondence.

Somebody somewhere ought to realise that the ‘valued’ customer might be considering putting other business their way pretty soon. I wasn’t aware that Abbey had disintegrated before this episode. I suppose I should be grateful.

As I said a few pages back HamiltonL, I appreciate what you’re doing here, helping with some background knowledge. I’m afraid there’s no way I could work for a company with those standards.

LXGB

I've given up on my credit agreement arriving in time, let alone my balance transfer. What a joke!

LXGB

I've just applied for an Ulster Bank Visa card instead. Whole process took less than 10 minutes online, including setting up the balance transfer and signing the credit agreement electronically.

Card ETA 7 to 10 days.

LINK

Sod Abbey!

exel1966

LXGB wrote: »

I've just applied for an Ulster Bank Visa card instead. Whole process took less than 10 minutes online, including setting up the balance transfer and signing the credit agreement electronically.

Card ETA 7 to 10 days.

LINK

Sod Abbey!

The credit limit you'll be requiring is £3.5K or less I trust as that seems to be the limit most people get on that card.

not_loaded

…but nobody said money saving meant you would get 1st class red carpet service. *something* has to give way so that they can afford to offer fee-free transactions and such.

Well yes, but… they are paying people to sit there with an appalling ‘system’ that does not actually allow them to assist customers. That’s a total waste of money on their part.

Ulster Bank seem to be on the ball systems-wise if you can get it all done in 10 minutes AND sign the credit agreement electronically. How cool is that?

It beats Santander’s Amstrad PCW 8256 into a cocked hat.

HamiltonL

Cloudane wrote: »

Got straight through to a chap with an accent and did the security stuff then got passed through to another department and listened to music for 15 minutes. Found out why - this one was in England

Hope you enjoyed the Beethoven serenade!