Moving

[deathboy]

Having just gone through four different phone systems to move my bank and credit cards, I had the following experiences:

Barclays Bank:

I called the Barclaycard number by mistake. It asked me to enter my card number, noticed it was a debit not credit card and re-routed my call. Good! Where I then had to enter my 16 digit number again. Annoying! (but predictable, and my initial mistake).

Spoke to a scouser who asked me tonnes of authentication questions, then was asked a 5-digit phone-banking PIN which I've never set or requested, so didn't know.

Result: Have to go to a branch in person with my passport. FAIL. Plus, the Scouser will surely rob me now.


Barclaycard:

Robot guided me through the authentication process, then I spoke to an Indian guy via a crappy line. He didn't recognise my data very well, but repeated and confirmed at the appropriate times, got the job done, then asked in the most wonderfully disinterested tone if he'd done all I wanted and ended the call.

Result: Success! I don't mind if the phone manner's crap or where they happen to be outsourced to if they can do their job without too many repeats.


Egg Card:

EXCITING! A robot asked me for ALL VERBAL information, which I seemed to get through completely fine! Because I wanted to do something off-menu, after authenticating, it passed me to a human in an English call centre...

... who apologised and asked me to go through the whole authentication process again as there had been a hiccup between the mega-brain and his computer. *groan*

Which also started to update itself (read: was becoming self-aware) mid-call, and caused a 2-minute pause in which the guy didn't bother to say "sorry, we're still waiting", so I was forced to check if he was still there.

Eventually, we got it all done, though, and his phone manner improved as he noticed an oddity of my post-code and we shared a crap joke.

Result: Success! But my hopes of doing business with Wintermute were dashed.


MINT Card:

Badly voiced female robot (interspersed with amusingly different female robot doing the number-entry / confirmation) asked me to please ENTER my PASS-word NOW. THANKyou...

Eventually get through to another English call-centre, where a guy gets me through the process in a minimal of hassle.

Result: BORING. OK, boring success.


Overall result: 3/4

* The least exciting and least customer-friendly-feeling service made no mistakes and did the job quickest.

* Robots still don't rule the world via wires into our minds.

* I still have to go into a fucking bank to move my address, even though three questions a chimp could guess were sufficient to re-instate my card last time they erroneously blocked it because I bought pizza on the internets.

Banks: Still not very impressive, are they?

Comments

[flavius-m.livejournal.com]

No, they're speshul, that's why they need some of our tax money....

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Well, technically, only one of those four had any of our tax money...

Barclays/Barclaycard got their recent funding from outside the UK, in the Middle East (possibly a sensible move, as they have a lot of non-UK operations, which the UK government probably has very little interest in funding...).

Egg's owned by Citibank, who didn't take any government funding.

Mint, on the other hand, is (I think) owned by RBS, so has indeed been funded by tax money...

[glitteringlynx.livejournal.com]

hahaha I had a weird experience today when I was trying to apply for an investment account with my bank. I went through all the authentication information and they asked me about my student loan, so I answered. Yeah, apparently something I answered... about MY address/phone/student loan is wrong. I even did it again and got the same result. So I have to sign the paper and mail it in. How, exactly, this is going to prove my authentication better than I had so far is beyond me.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

Yup.

and in the UK, they're starting to ask questions that they shouldn't know the answer to, like they apparently do in the states.

"who's your mobile phone provider?"

"you shouldn't know that. I've never told you that."

"well, we have one on your bills."

"that's not my phone provider. my phone is paid by my company. that's unrelated. also, stop reading my fucking bank statements and scrutinising the contents, you fuck. anyone who stole a statement from my bin could know that."

twats.

[glitteringlynx.livejournal.com]

Well I could understand them knowing about the student loan b/c it *is* automatically withdrawn from my normal bank account with them, but apparently they have a direct connection to my credit info with Equifax, so that could be the case in the US as well. Unfortunately I was dealing only with an automated process and not with a direct person. So I contacted Equifax for a free credit report. Apparently when I get it, it will contain a phone number to contact a person there directly, so I'll get this resolved and figure out where's the discrepency.

I think it's either because my branch is not in the city where I currently live, or because when you lived somewhere called "St. Whatever" sometimes systems want it either as "St Whatever" or "Saint Whatever." Incredibly annoying. It's not as though it would be a different city, mind you. lol

It's ridiculous.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Was that Barclays? Just wondering...

[megashrike.livejournal.com]

That sounds like Barclaycard (I used to work as a call centre monkey for them). It was usually a case of asking for them to confirm an amount, or the name of something. Like you said, fuck knows why, it'll be on a statement.

Of course then we could then bring that up and sell you some identity theft insurance. Just in case.

[herdivineshadow]

What I don't understand about any of the banks I have accounts with is that they ask me about things I clearly don't have as security questions.

[yuitsu.livejournal.com]

What I love about my bank is how its systems will be 2-3 days behind with my current balance...and the atm/whatever will let me take out whatever amount is on screen even if its wrong.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

I began doing that with one of them and it gave me shit, so I used the phone, and that worked better, so I figured I'd do them all that way.

[shadowofsummer.livejournal.com]

...do you live in E17?

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

Everybody.

Everybody in the house of love.

[http://users.livejournal.com/luger_/]

I've dealt with Barclays many times and they've always been awesome with me.

As for this telephone banking tomfoolery, I actually just got sent mine again very recently. When they asked for it, I just said "Sorry, I don't know it", an they asked some other questions instead.

[mechanicaljack.livejournal.com]

I prefer credit unions. Dunno how prevalent they are over there.

[welcometopablos.livejournal.com]

>>>>Plus, the Scouser will surely rob me now.

Have you seen the prices in London pubs recently? THAT'S robbery. You southern shandy drinking ponce ;)

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

can't argue there, man! :)

[tenshikurai9.livejournal.com]

The least exciting and least customer-friendly-feeling service made no mistakes and did the job quickest.

I don't care if a person's not actively friendly; what I care about is are they actively unfriendly.