Once upon a time I wrote about how happy I was with my Bank of Scotland credit card. Not now though.
To put you in the picture, I do all of my banking online. (The bank has a paper-free banking option.) I have been out of the country for a few months but I made sure the credit card was paid in full before I left and I didn’t use it overseas. When I got back to the UK I was greeted by letters from the Bank of Scotland on my doormat telling me my credit limit had been slashed and that they were going to hand over my unpaid debts to a debt collection agency.
So, what prompted such an aggressive response from the bank. It turns out that a subscription I had forgotten about had resulted in a small payment (below £10) being charged to my card. When I didn’t pay this bill, (I didn’t know it existed,) what did the Bank of Scotland do? Rather than sending me an email (they regularly send me emails advertising useless gifts) they immediately started sending nasty letters to my street address – regardless of the fact that I’m meant to have paper free banking. Regardless of the fact that I had several thousand pounds in my current account, which I hadn’t touched while I was overseas, the BOS thought the right thing to do was to send me letters to me threatening me with a debt-collector and cutting my credit limit to a fraction of what it had been.
It’s mighty annoying to get home and have to deal with the prospect of your credit-rating being slashed and debt-collectors on your case.
So what did I do?
- I paid the outstanding sum plus a bit more to cover interest.
- I rang the number on the back of the credit card and told the rep. calmly told them my situation and pointed out that if there is any issue with a paper-free account, the right thing to do is email the person rather than sending them letters.
- I requested that my comments be forwarded to management as a formal complaint.
And what happened?
- I received a phone call from customer services apologising for what had happened.
- No debt collection agency became involved.
- I received a written apology from the bank along with the restoration of my credit limit.
I must admit, however, I’m still not happy with the bank’s procedures.
It would be interesting to know if anyone else with supposedly paperless banking ever gets caught or has been caught like this.