Like many others writing here my husband and I have been ripped off by Barclay Bank. We responded to a US Airways mastercard by Barclay offering 0% for balance transfers. We signed on and asked for a transfer immediately. We received 2 welcome letters and 1 welcome e-mail almost immediately. I had no idea how long the transfer would take, and after that how long it would be before they would send a bill or how long to pay it after I received it. I kept waiting and assumed the transfer was not happening immediately. Finally I received a phone call stating that my payment was past due. I questioned how I could have a past due payment without ever receiving a bill. She (with poor english) said it should have come by e-mail. But I never received it. I immediately gave her my bank account number etc so she could process a payment which would then cover 2 months!!!
I asked if everything would get squared away as I didn't want any problems with this since it wasn't our fault. She said no problems!!!
I received an e-mail saying my payment had been received. 4 days later I received a phone call from the collections dept saying my bill was still late. I told them I had paid it over the phone previously and he said they couldn't find my account at my bank. The woman had taken the number down wrong. So we fixed the problem and I again said this wouldn't be MY problem would it??? He said he thought everything would be taken care of.
At the end of that month I finally received an e-mail saying my statement was ready.
I went on-line to check it out only to find that my interest had been raised to 22.9%. When I called to complain they said they did refund my $39 late payment but raised me because I had TWO late payments! Still don't know how I had 2 payments late since I paid the day I got the phone call, but it probably is because THEY took down the wrong bank acct number. I tried talking to a supervisor to no avail. There is NO talking with these people.
We have of course, paid the card off by using another bank but this come-on scam has cost us a few hundred dollars. They lure you in and then don't communicate with you and play "gotcha" when you, of course, fail to pay on time. And there is no talking to anyone with any authority or common sense. It's all from a script! And it's mostly in Indian accents. So if you are checking before you do business with these people, I recommend you find a different bank!
0 comments