I have just had automatic payments made on my Sainsbury’s Bank credit card refused because a statement was returned.
We knew nothing about this.
A few days ago they questioned a payment and rang us to see if the payment was valid, which it was.
Speaking to the bank, they say that their process is if a statement is returned they assume that they cannot trust their information and it is passed to the back office to have the account blocked.
They do not even consider that there could have been a problem with the post.
If they had looked at the account they could have seen that they had been in contact with us within the last few days.
They have e-mail, a UK mobile number and our French landline to use to contact us.
I pointed out that as we knew nothing about this I could be relying on my card to pay a hotel bill, or filling my car.
I could have been left stranded without any idea why.
Has anyone else been subjected to this appalling treatment?
Nope, but I read today in the Connexion that UK pensioners in France had their pension payments threatened with suspension by the DWP because their ‘life’ certificates had not been returned… (they hadn’t even been requested, by all accounts!)
Phew… glad it wasn’t just me then… got a letter, shocked the life out of me.
I phoned the number on the letter and spoke with a helpful lady. Explained that I had sent it back in the envelope provided… and the following week OH had done the same thing. (I had copies of everything in our files).
Hence my query/worry was that both our PoL had gone astray.
Cut to the chase: she asked me all sorts of questions and finally cleared the “hiccup” against my name in the computer.
Then she spoke with my OH and confirmed that his had arrived and all was well.
Phew, nasty moment… I can tell you… but thankfully, due to her help actions my payment arrived on time… yippee…
One way of reducing the pension burden I suppose…
Funny thing though… yesterday I took a phone call from someone who was trying to tell me about a blockage…
I was stressed and finally snapped… “Blocked!! which drains are blocked… which property are you talking about” … deathly hush… and the phone went dead… It was only when relating the tale to OH that he said it was probably a scam about an account being blocked and I hadn’t twigged… 
not just yet… too many things to do…
Ha. Reminds me of the ‘windows’ scam doing the rounds a few years back.
I had a great conversation with one of them from India explaining that my house was new and had only just had new windows installed 
Unfortunately, this was not a scam but sheer ineptitude.
I will be writing to the CEO.
When we get scam Microsoft calls from India, I say that they are criminals and does their motger know what they are doing?
End of conversation.
Hah, I get those via email sometimes, it’s always fun (for me, at any rate, being an IT geek) to fire up a virtual machine with Windows on it, and let them do their whole schpiel about needing remote access, then letting them, only for them to find out that all those juicy documents are in fact loaded to the gills with viruses and other … interesting payloads.
What goes around, comes around…
Nice idea Ben, but
isn’t that illegal?
Theoretically? Gray area. It’s not like they’ll report you for it, after all, that’s like a burglar going to the cops to complain that the stuff he stole from you wasn’t actually silver but nickel.