Life, The Universe and Small Things all covered in one friendly blog.
Remember DON'T PANIC! .

09 July, 2008

Is there anyone who gets things right?

I moved house last year and there were a few problems informing organisations of the move. But as far as I was aware my bank was all sorted.

Some weeks ago a letter door dropped through the door, one via the Royal Mail re-direction, which in its self is funny because for 12 months very little has reached me on re-direction, not even the ones I sent to myself at the old address to test the system.

The letter was the house insurance, for where I live now! Um.
The major worry was that the house insurance is with the same people as the Mortgage and banking. Now before everyone starts telling me "you don't have to have your insurance with the mortgage company", I know, but it is actually the best price available, believe me I spent ages checking.

I phoned them and after 42 levels of press 1 for this 3 for that 6 for something else spoke to an advisor. I explained the problem, "Oh yes " she said, "the contact address is still your old address" , "I see, can you change it please and while you are about it I have several other things with you can you make sure that they are all correct please".
I heard the rattling of her fingers on the keyboard then, "yes everything is OK now they are all correct", "Good, thank you", "Is there anything else I can help you with today?" she asked, "Yes actually, (that caught her) I need to get a new cash card", "you need to go into the branch for that" "OK thank you, goodbye".

Three weeks later I went into the branch and spoke to the lady who stands in the middle of the place at a terminal. I told her what I needed "whats your post code?" I told her, "there is nothing with that, do you have your old card?" I handed it over, " Maybe it is under my old post code I offered, CM....... " Yes it is" .
I was just a little cross and explained why. Ten minutes later I left happy that my address was correct and that my new card would arrive "10 days before the new pin for security reasons". No I couldn't work that one out either, if they send the new card to the wrong address how does sending the PIN 10 later make it secure. Still they know best.

I have the card and PIN and thought all was well. Then I received a letter via the mail re-direction, you don't need me to say do you, your one step ahead of me aren't you. It also suddenly struck me that for the last 12 months I have not had a statement from the bank. Somewhere, either at my old address or more probably laying on a Royal Mail van floor, are my bank statements. That's nice and secure isn't it.

Deciding that writing, phoning and visiting the branch had obviously failed I send a complaint via the banks online secure message system. I got a lovely long reply today, you can hardly tell that is is written by selecting paragraphs from a list and adding my name at the top. The reply says how sorry they are that I have had problems and how they are so careful to get things right and it is so unusual that things like this go wrong.

Its signed "Kind regards Gaby Knight, Change of Name and Address Complaints Team " It might just be me, but does a company who gets things right usually have a specific team like that?

No comments:

Post a Comment