I just logged into my internet bank. All I want to do is send a locost builder member some money. Set up the payment and now I cant send as I have not upgraded to pinsenty (barclays). The most annoying thing is I have, and I have a pinsenty card reader sitting on my desk infront of me. Phone help line.

Me: I cant make a payment as I apparently have to upgrade account to pinsentry, which I already have.

Bank: Sorry Mr W you cant have a pinsentry as you need to upgrade.

Me: Well whats this little card reader with "barclays pisentry" written on it then?

Bank: It cant be yours

Me: What? You sent me it, I use it to set up all my standing orders and online payments, which all go through, and you think its not mine.

Bank: Correct.

Me: Silence.....................

Bank: Hello Mr W?

Me: Sorry I just woke up from my dream, strange thing is that there is a pinsentry card reader in front of me.

Bank: (short pause as they digest sarcasm) We have to inform you Mr W that obtaining a Barclays Card reader and using it against our authorisation is account fraud.

Me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Bank: Please dont shout or we will end the call...

Suddenly there is a loud bang and my house phone is slighlty worse for wear Broken, laying out in the hallway where it landed.

So, a message to Strontium Dog (Si) , Im sorry I didnt send the money tonight as I text you saying I would. Will sort tomorrow!

Now enjoying a large whiskey

well, thats what happens when people with short tempers phone banks and are cheeky
he's given you the default response (incorrect as it may be) you've given him sarcasm, and straight away thats put them off helping you. thats whats hapened right there

[Edited on 24/5/11 by blakep82]

you should have wound them up a bit.
You could say you are from Nigeria and that your uncle died and left the card reader to you in a will and my friend you can have it back just give me your back details.....

i cant understand call centres in the uk.



in the uk you call up pissed off because something is wrong. amazingly they are surprised that your pissed off because they messed up, then get the hump with you and become even less helpful than they already were.

in the us you call them clearly pissed of because something is wrong, they understand that your not happy and fix the problem. in the us they expect you to be unhappy or you wouldnt be calling them.

if there is an us number and a uk number i always call the us one now, especially for reward clubs, credit cards, flights, holidays etc.

quote:

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Originally posted by ashg
in the uk you call up pissed off because something is wrong. amazingly they are surprised that your pissed off because they messed up, then get the hump with you and become even less helpful than they already were.

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quote:

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Originally posted by AndyW
I just logged into my internet bank. All I want to do is send a locost builder member some money. Set up the payment and now I cant send as I have not upgraded to pinsenty (barclays). The most annoying thing is I have, and I have a pinsenty card reader sitting on my desk infront of me. Phone help line.

Me: I cant make a payment as I apparently have to upgrade account to pinsentry, which I already have.

Bank: Sorry Mr W you cant have a pinsentry as you need to upgrade.

Me: Well whats this little card reader with "barclays pisentry" written on it then?

Bank: It cant be yours

Me: What? You sent me it, I use it to set up all my standing orders and online payments, which all go through, and you think its not mine.

Bank: Correct.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ninehigh

quote:

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Originally posted by AndyW
I just logged into my internet bank. All I want to do is send a locost builder member some money. Set up the payment and now I cant send as I have not upgraded to pinsenty (barclays). The most annoying thing is I have, and I have a pinsenty card reader sitting on my desk infront of me. Phone help line.

Me: I cant make a payment as I apparently have to upgrade account to pinsentry, which I already have.

Bank: Sorry Mr W you cant have a pinsentry as you need to upgrade.

Me: Well whats this little card reader with "barclays pisentry" written on it then?

Bank: It cant be yours

Me: What? You sent me it, I use it to set up all my standing orders and online payments, which all go through, and you think its not mine.

Bank: Correct.

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Imo anything after this is deserving of sarchasm at a minimum as the tool has basically confirmed they've sent something that you don't have, can't have and is fraudulent to have, but you use all the time and they let you...

Reminds me of the time missus got sick of Barclaycard hanging up on her so I had a ten minute conversation with them after giving her name and details...

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I do appreciate the plight of the abused call centre worker, I'm just saying some of them bring it on themselves. Like the random caller (from a legal department) that kept calling our work phone who then admitted they knew nothing about UK law... and the O2 technical support who refused to go any further until I hung up to switch the phone off one more time because the past 5/10/275 switchings off didn't fix it but the next one might.

The ones that will pull information out of their backsides (the entire virgin internet in the north west went down last week, and the 3 mobile mast near me gets an upgrade whenever it rains and it gets really slow) are just the worst. I'd rather be told "buggered if I know" than "bull-bull-bull"

However I digress

I find the people you get first are the most helpful, it's usually when they put you through to a specialist or engineer that things go to pot. I've had that with so many things, Sky was the worst. there call centre staff were good but obviously they can't do much more than ask you a few questions and pass you on, then you'd get an 'engineer' who'd just say it's working this end and hang up, then you have to phone up again and go through the first 20 minutes again and it would just go around in circles.

Once you've worked a crummy job where you have to put up with idiots who either can't read, or think they're funny, or think they have some kind of right to be abusive or what have you, you'll understand it better.

You should never wee someone off if they have access to stuff that will effect you when you can't see them (I'm sure you've all seen Tv shows where they show you what waiters sometimes do out back, It happens in so many other ways and do it to the bank and they can cause you awful problems by pressing a few buttons).

I think the main thing here is that you are ringing about a security issue and they don't know you have the pinsentry thing. This is your security device they should know absolutely where every one is and who is the owner, if they don't, they have a security issue. I would ring back (and stay calm) and get them to check about your device,if they don't know about it demand to speak to there security department as they have a problem with their system. I think they will deal with it very quickly if they don't act as you like just say your going to call watchdog or a paper they should sit up and listen then.
Good luck Pete

Bloody bank!

A few months ago paypal took $975 out, which equates to something like £620. After some complaining to the bank and paypal the bank refunded the £620 on the basis that they'll be investigating it. Then paypal puts back £615 (just to keep even numbers here) so I left it there and waited for someone to say something (surely two multinational companies would have thought to talk to each other?)

Yesterday HSBC took out £640... apparently I had to sign stuff and letters have been sent (along with phone calls and other bull) so now I'm down because someone creamed the top and bottom off the exchange rate (in a currency I've NEVER used) and because I've been charged for, well I'm yet to find out

A few years ago a wonderful woman took over our IT helpdesk. She introduced something called ITIL. Its basically principles for running a helpdesk. Talking to her I learnt a few things that have got me what I've wanted over the last few years.

Basically accept the person on the end of the phone is doing their job and probably board. Annoy them and you've lost.

Politely explain the problem and get their name.
when you've not got the answer you want, explain you appreciate they're doing their job, they've tried to help but you're not happy and would like to know the name of their supervisor and then be put through. At this point start writing down names, times and details.

Speak to their supervisor and start again. Except if you're not happy you ask one more question - how long till you fix the problem or get someone to speak to me who can fix the problem.

Each time get the persons name and if you don't get the solution you want escalate and agree when the next person will speak to you. If they don't you note it down. You'll soon work through the system till you get a boss. The boss will realise you're working the system, have a justifiable complaint and want rid of you - you'll get what you want most of the time.

Ok, it doesn't always work, I did once fail to get my european rights on delayed air travel in Geneva airport at silly AM, but i did get the head of the airport to personally apologise to me infront of all the passengers & explain exactly who was stopping him from providing our rights (cheapo british airline refusing to pay).

Losing your rag doesn't get you anywhere - as the g/f found out when our freezer broke after 3 months. When she let me speak to the company I got through the "i'm sorry sir, its perfectly normal to have to reset your fridge, its computer controlled and you have to periodically reset them like a laptop" (it had failed 3 days after getting a new part). Within the hour I had a full refund, an apology from the head of the helpdesk and the promise he'd review the conversation with the initial person and retrain as necessary. Who cares if he did - i got what I wanted.

^ very good, but in most cases the supervisor doesn't know the answers, they're there to manage the people in the department, not do the job.
if you speak to the first persons supervisor, do they put you on hold a lot? i can almost guarantee you they're asking for the answers from the first person you spoke to lol

My friend had trouble with her internet provider and went weeks without it.

Chased up a few times with customer services call centre with no resolution and got really pissed off.

Eventually she used LinkedIn to track down the e-mail address of the head of customer services! Sent him an e-mail at 10pm and got a response! lol Problem sorted within 24 hours!