"Who's Merrick Bank, and who are those interest rates for?"
From the moment I received the notice that we were changing to a company that doubled our interest rates, I decided I would get rid of the card within the next 3 months.
Well, today I called customer service to ask for help with the new online service they have recently initiated - bill paying online. Their customer service was busy... Not that they put me on hold, but I actulaly got a busy signal. So I called another customer service number. Busy signal? Again? I have now called 6 different numbers, including the card activation number, the lost/stolen "hotline, " and numbers offered on the web site. Every single number gave me no response but a busy signal - except the Payment Protection Number - it gave me an automated voice line.
On my statement it did say that customer service was moving on October 12 for the hours of 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM. That of course was over 2 weeks ago. Would you believe that in between writing this, I am still getting busy signals for all the numbers?
This means that if my card was lost or stolen, I couldn't get in touch with anyone. If I needed to activate my card, I couldn't do it. If I wanted to be charged $10 to pay the bill over the phone (yse, $10), I was out of luck.
Once upon a time when I did get customer service to answer the phone, I asked why the interest rate was so high. I still don't know why - the rep wouldn't directly answer the question. Well I can at least say it wasn't payment history. On my most recent statement it said, "Congratulations!!! To reward you for your excellent payment history with us, we have increased your credit limit." Thanks.
Oh, by the way... The online service I tried to sign up for in order to pay my bill online?
I filled out every single piece of information, and in the end when the processing was completed, I received an error message. No reason was given as to why there was an error or what the error could be. Their sytem does have one saving grace -it's a new system so it might just have some bugs in it.
This company is bad news. I am lucky that I am not enmeshed in debt with this company. However, this does not excuse it from its high interest rates (can you believe that these rates are almost as high as the typical cash-loan places off the street?), its non-existent customer service, or its faulty online system.
The great irony to me is what is printed on the back of our statement stubs: "Thank you for choosing Merrick Bank!"
Val
Kansas City, Kansas
0 comments