The Joys of Barclaycard

Yesterday I ordered Office, and realised that the new Cheltenham address may make my credit card company whine, as my other new addresses have in the past.

Eager to avoid any delays, I rang them up, told them that I was ordering something expensive off the internet and having it delivered to a different address to normal. I was then put through to another local call centre to give them a temporary address, this time in India. The nice lady I spoke to was very polite, it's just that she didn't understand anything that I said. She asked me over 15 security questions - I lost count - and I had to tell her what I wanted to do three times. No, I don't want to change my address, I want to add a temporary one. No, I don't want to make an enquiry about my latest bill? I just want to add a temporary address.

I then had to spell 'park'.

After 15 minutes of madness, she said that she had added my temporary address, and that all was fine. Woo.

Well, needless to say, today Dabs e-mailed me telling me that my credit card company had refused the payment. Yay.

I rang Barclaycard, this time getting through to the fraud department in a UK call centre. I had just answered the first 3 security questions when my other phone started ringing, with a with-held number. I told the lady I'd ring her back.

On the other line was the Barclaycard fraud department. Again. I answered some more security questions, and then asked them why it had been blocked. They said they didn't know. Great. But at least they promised me that it has been unblocked, and that now it will go through just fine.

It's a bit annoying for me, but at least it is good to know that if someone had stolen my details they wouldn't be able to order Office. Unless they went into a PC World - spending £500+ on the high street doesn't make Barclaycard blink. Even when it's in a random town you've never been to before.

I've e-mailed Dabs again, so we'll have to wait and see if it actually will go through fine. But what do you want to bet that they don't auth the payment in time for it to go out in today's post? It's going to arrive on Friday morning, when I'm out taking my car to the garage. And then I'll have no car to drive over the parcel place to pick it up.

Internet shopping - great until something goes wrong.

Comments

Mark S

Ohh dear. There was some indian sounding lady calling us on Saturday late afternoon. "Hello could I speak to Dahir Espraguier please" WTF? Sorry, who? "Davhir Espraguasder" ... I think you have the wrong number... "Is this 012254....." I have no idea...
Got another call later, this time I asked who was calling "Haches Besay" ... ... OHH HSBC... from that I was able to figure out that she wanted to talk to David S in my house (the only HSBC customer). I went to get him, when I got back she'd hung up!!!

GAH! All the indians that can speak English good enough to provide service properly have been made into managers, leaving the poor speakers to actually do the talking.

Good luck getting your car sorted - hopefully they will just plug in the engine management console and fix your idling problem straight away!

radiac

Hopefully! Although when I took it to the dealer they charged me something like £90/hour for the privilege of being told that they couldn't find anything wrong. This time I'm going to a local garage that was recommended to a friend by a taxi driver - they usually know what they're talking about, so fingers crossed!

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