I'm currently in the process of applying for a halifax card and my application is now in it's fourth week and I still havent had anything to sign yet. I have spoke to them and I was accepted weeks ago but my application is still working it's way through the system.
Every other card I have had has taken this length of time too.
How come you can arrange mortgages in hours but a credit card takes weeks and weeks?
Means you get a month less of the '0% til April' type offers ?!
But the CC company also loose a month of commission while your purchases go on your old card instead of theirs!
It's just typical of the British way of lack of planning and estimating demand. Whenever you find any company doing a special offer they usually become overwhelmed by the response, much to their surprise (yeah, right!) and then suffer badly when their customer service goes out of the window. The same thing happened with ING Direct when they opened their doors (so to speak). And I do know that ING Direct is owned by a Dutch Bank but it's obviously got British people calling the shots.
The same thing happened to me with MBNA where it took eight weeks from initial application to receipt of card. By the time the card arrive, I'd lost two weeks from the 0% APR interest free period.. MBNA put it down to overwhelming demand - I put it down to incompetence.
I'm sure you'll find other have had similar problems with other suppliers.
So does the 9 month interest free start from the application date or the date they issue the card?
When the interest free period starts varies depending on the card issuer. Some companies give you 6 months from when you transfer your first balance, others from the "card open date" which tends to be at least a fortnight beforeyou actually receive the card itself!
Regarding on why it takes so long to issue a card.... whilst i can't speak for all credit card companies the one i work for is so slow for a number of reasons, these being:
1) The credit card computer system used is over 15 years old and was designed for american companies, the result is its slow and badly designed and this often leads to mistakes as data is misinterpretated by staff2) The company is half way through closing its "all-in-one" credit card centre and laying off staff. These means there are less staff to deal with credit cards as the work is being distributed to existing *overworked* customer service and processing departments.
This is bad enough, but instead of one location we now operate out of eight different sites (Two of which are in India - including the important fraud and processing work - which isn't getting done properly....)
The end result of this is greater inefficiency and regular "blame games" - in which customers get passed from pillar to post as each department "doesn't deal with that"!!!
Oh, and with all these problems the company is focusing all its effort into attracting new customers...... so much so that we've been informed the budget has been cut on developing a replacement for our credit card system.... which means the inefficency and failures of the current set up will continue for the foreseeable future.
I'm not naming the culprit organisation but they are one of the biggest banks in the world........
OK Guess No. 1............................HSBC?
Marcus
I'd go for Capital One. Never used them, but ...
My money is on Barclays.
Regards, Zen
five points for marcus!
I would imagine that both barclays (fluent in f**k ups) and crapital one... oops, i mean capital one are just as bad.... don't start me on Royal bank of Scotland..............
tip of the day. use an internet bank so you don't have to speak to call centres in india!
It must be. The processing centre in India was the giveaway. HSBC have two in Hyderabad which do work for their overseas offices.
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