I’d be interested to know how others have got on with them?
I used their in app chat to get my billing and direct debit dates changed and they were excellent. No issues sorting it out for me, none of the faffing around telling my to call some rando number because ‘they can’t do it in chat’ which I’ve had elsewhere, all done in app in a few minutes.
Even the verification was all in app integrated right into the chat functionality. Asked me to verify which popped up a in app window to enter the details securely without the agent seeing it.
I didn’t have a very good experience with the in-app chat when I last used them. I was getting duplicate informational messages in the transaction feed (e.g. two “Payment due reminder” entries) and also getting the informational SMS twice. I had a hard time getting them to understand that it was only the informational feed entries that were duplicated and not the actual transactions themselves.
In the end they just escalated it to their technical team but they did finish the chat with this interesting comment:
“We apologise for the inconvenience and we adjure you to not let this incident turn our relationship on an acrimonious page”
I get the frustration on both sides of that kind of issue, I’ll admit I prefer text but it can be hard to convey a technical issue like that. I wonder through if a phone call would have got better results or not… hard to tell sometimes
Often a phone call can actually be worse, as chat allows you to copy and paste error messages and things like that directly and in full for the proper people to look at.
This is something that is more difficult for the average call handler to note down fully over the phone, so the technical team (understandably) may struggle to get to the bottom of the issue.
Of course, you equally might get though to someone quite technical or who happens to have seen the same issue before, so there’s always a chance it will get resolved quickly on the phone.
The only other time I’ve contacted them was to downgrade from the cashback card with the annual fee to the no annual fee one. That was via telephone and I spoke to a woman in a UK call centre who was very pleasant and efficient.
Yes they can. The upgrade (or downgrade) will usually take place overnight, but can take up to 3 days. New artwork will appear in your mobile wallet before your new card lands on the doormat.
A few years ago - prior to lockdown, I was using my Amex card to pay for something in HMV and the transaction didn’t go through. I paid with another card, but, irritated, I spent 20 minutes waiting to speak to one of the CS staff who told me that my card had been blocked because…a letter had been returned to sender. That’s it. No attempt was made to contact me, and this was apparently standard practice. No email, no phone call, no SMS. This apparently guarantees that you will get in touch.
Customer service aside and I know it’s good from the couple of interactions I’ve had with Amex just updating phone numbers and also when I stupidly forgot my PIN, they are still the only credit card provider that gives an almost instantaneous balance update after payment. Paid my latest statement off just this morning through my Starling account, I received a balance notification within a couple of minutes and my App reports a zero balance. With my other cards, it still takes at least 3 working days, which in 2021, is poor in my opinion.
I can honestly say, I’ve never paid a credit card statement by D/D, always when the bill comes in on the day, so I can’t comment on your update balance the day before scenario.
I’m aware Virgin Money, MBNA, and Tesco Bank credit cards all update your “available to spend” as soon as they receive a Faster Payment during a day, but your payment won’t generally show in your online statement until the next business day.
And Amex can be weird indeed. I’ve had the “thanks for your payment” notification two days before the DD was coming out of my bank some months, and last month I got the notification 3 days after the DD payment had left my account.
Sounds like they give you the notification as soon as the Direct Debit payment is requested, rather than when it arrives.
It seems like their systems treat Faster Payments and BACS Direct Debit as the same, so they “assume” that both clear instantly (when Direct Debits, of course, use a three day BACS clearing cycle).
did the technical team sort it?