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Unusual Credit Card Process

Back in August I started a new credit card with my bank. I am pretty confident that I signed a DD mandate to pay off full amount each month.

I looked at the status of the CC online yesterday - and saw that there was a current balance of £700ish to pay - I knew that I had not spent £700 in the last month.

When I looked at the statements since August - I saw that I had in fact not paid any amount off the outstanding balance - and that amount has slowly crept up each month.

I must admit - I was happy that there was a very healthy balance in my current account!!

I spoke to the bank to see what was going on:

They said that no DD had been taken - as I had not completed the form. There was no interest added to the account - as I am in an interest free 6 months. The reason that everything was in order - even though I had not actually paid off the minimum amount each month was because the account had been credited with amounts (more than the minimum payment) each month as I had returned items to the shops where I bought them from. (I have been buying clothes and shoes - taking them home to try on - and then returning to the shop if I did not like).

So : the system seems to check if there have been any payments at all in to the account - even if they are for returned goods - and those amounts are then "accepted" as payments!!

I said to the guy on the phone that there is a minimum payment of 13 quid this month - if I go to M&S and buy something for 20quid in the morning and take it back later - that'll sort out the minimum payment again.

He said that you are not supposed to do this !!!

Get away!!

Reply to
JMS
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You mean a bank suggested that you should put ethics above taking advantage of loopholes in financial rules? Those don't sound like words that would ever come from the mouth of any self-respecting banker.

Reply to
Chris Blunt

Do you mean to say that you took out a new credit card and then waited FOUR MONTHS before bothering to check that things were working properly?

That's nothing short of culpable negligence!

Reply to
Roger Mills

OK - so you have no evidence that M&S throw away returned items.

No surprise there then - as they obviously don't.

In which case you will be able to give an answer to the question previously raised which does not require learning/using macros.

Myself and another poster have given working Excel answers - your turn now - just using Excel rather than VBA.

I will understand if you can't do that.

Reply to
JMS

There doesn't necessarily need to be a single answer to this question. Its quite possible that they make an assessment of the condition of the returned item and decide whether it can be resold or needs to be disposed of.

Reply to
Chris Blunt

There are many items which you cannot return just because they do not fit or you do not want them.

Most shops will obviously reject a return if it is not in a re-sellable condition.

The PP was implying that all returns were thrown away and therefore you should not return goods as it is wasteful.

They aren't.

Reply to
JMS

The report is over 10 years old now, but this article talks about how Marks & Spencer destroy at least some of the items returned to them.

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Reply to
Chris Blunt

Plac probably can't even do it *with* VBA macros! Did you look at what he posted? It doesn't work... Even if you correct the syntax to remove the run-time errors, it doesn't do what RR requested!!

Reply to
Tim

And this "report" is from 1 Feb 2010

"Marks & Spencer emerges as one of the sector's saints: clothes that haven't sold in the sales end up in one of 51 UK outlet stores, but it also donates some to Oxfam."

So odd - they give clothes which they haven't sold to Oxfam - and yet they routinely destroy all those returned by customers

Reply to
JMS

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