Abbey Credit Card - just don't get it either

anyone outside the mbna group! The transactions you tried to make would have flagged up on your account as sort of reserved against when the actual transaction gets there, (done so you can't make multiple purchases that take you over your credit limit) I found that abbey themselves have become completely useless since the santander takeover, but it is probably not abbey themselves, but mbna who gave you the runaround on the phone, I once had to speak to 5 different people before getting someone that was any use.

Egg money credit card seems to work just fine, as does capital one, and most barclaycard, I am now avoiding natwest/rbs cards after sneaky charges (that they did refund.)

Abbey just errr... don't do things like other banks do.

When I tried opening an internet savings account, it all failed after filling in the first (rather lengthy) page. After about 10 attempts over four days and many suggestions from them about altering my internet settings which work everywhere else the planet, I eventually dictated the details to someone in their call centre and they filled in the forms on their screen.

Where a cheque to open the account is accepted by other banks as verifying details of your linked account, they needed a separate form and bank statement to set up the linked account.

For an internet term account with penalties for access, I couldn't access it without the sixteen digits on a cashcard and had to ask and wait for the cashcard which I ddin't otherwise need or want.

Their system does not by default offer to take money from or pay into the linked account. Instead you have to type in the branch/sort code and a/c number for each transaction - a recipe for error.

In general the call centre staff are very pleasant but seem unable to help.

Toom

I disagree... IME they were completely useless long before that (with the exception that they eventually paid reasonable compensation for giving us the run-around.)

Abbey had gone downhill after they dropped the National bit, but the real collapse occurred just before Santander took over, they then became impossible. Years ago Abbey wanted passport proof of my id before they would open a savings account for me, despite having had a current account for twenty years, I opened one with egg online in minutes.

Abbey's so-called security was so good that it allowed a face-to-face scammer to remove 17,000 from my son's account (it was money from a mortgage further advance waiting to pay the builder). This was done in two goes. They tried a third time and got caught. It took Abbey 6 weeks to refund the money.

Rob Graham

...

Er, no it was definitely Abbey giving me the runaround. No probs with my MBNA card, which is what I used to actually pay for the transaction in the end. (Not that MBNA has always been entirely clueful, but they've been OK for me in recent years.)

Abbey Credit Card is MBNA.

Both the Abbey Visa and the Abbey Mastercard?

abbey visa is for sure

Yes

So how much of the operation is actually run by MBNA? Website? Call centre?

MBNA's card history shows exactly the same thing. Basically the 3D- Secure software records any transaction you've "signed" for through it, whether it proceeds or not.

Neil

Abbey have been moving customers with their MBNA run credit cards to Santander run credit cars pretty actively over the last 12+ months. No recent Abbey credit cards issued are MBNA, they are Santander credit cards. My own MBNA run Abbey Visa credit card was stopped and a new Santander Abbery Mastercard credit card issued to replace it.

Of course MBNA then immediately sent me a new MBNA credit card to replace the stopped Abbey / MBNA card too.

Regards, Jon.

So MBNA sent you a card you hadn't applied for without you agreeing to any terms. Isn't that illegal? In the absence of any signed credit agreement with them what can they do if you spend money using the card and refuse to make any repayments?

Chris

hasn't happened to me, neither the a and l credit card or the abbey have been changed, both still serviced by mbna

How can you tell which you've got? My Abbey card was issued early last year.