Ulster Bank giving 10 days notice of credit card suspension

pug_

I've been a customer of Ulster Bank for nearly 20 years and have had a credit card with them for most of that time. Today I received a letter stating that unless I provide information on the second card holder (my wife, who has had a card for over a decade) by June 18th both cards will be suspended on June 19th. That's 10 days from today.

This is the first letter I've received from Ulster Bank on this and to my mind 10 days notice on suspension of a credit card is not even close to sufficient. When I rang Ulster Bank they claimed to have sent one other letter in mid February, but no other correspondence. I disputed their claim that they sent a letter as I never received it and would never have ignored it if I did.

If I were on holiday for the next two weeks for example, I wouldn't have received the letter today and could be anywhere in the world to wake up one morning with my credit card suspended.

Is there any kind of regulation on minimum notice that must be provided for suspension of services like this?

Also, a more general question, assuming they did send a letter in February (which I dispute) do people think that two letters 4 months apart is good enough customer service when threatening to suspend the credit card of a customer in good standing?

slimjimmc

Moved to Banking etc

oisinog

Generally the t&cs favour the bank and not the customer. In some cases the bank don't need to give you any notice and suspend your service at any time

BuffyBot

At the end of the day, the credit is extended to you at their pleasure. They are entitled to recall it, should they feel fit.


Letters can go astray, alas. As for whether or not it's good customer service overall that's subjective.

I'd suggest that you complain to them and request some extra time to comply with their request given that you feel you haven't had sufficent notice: but at the end of the day, you'll have to submit to their wishes if you want them to continue providing you the credit facility.

bigpink

What information do they want?Have you a good record with the bank?

pug_

BuffyBot wrote: »

At the end of the day, the credit is extended to you at their pleasure. They are entitled to recall it, should they feel fit.


Letters can go astray, alas. As for whether or not it's good customer service overall that's subjective.

I'd suggest that you complain to them and request some extra time to comply with their request given that you feel you haven't had sufficent notice: but at the end of the day, you'll have to submit to their wishes if you want them to continue providing you the credit facility.

I did complain, spent nearly half an hour talking to their complaints department. Waste of time really I got the "I'm sorry you feel that way, but there is nothing we can do" response which is neither an apology nor an acceptance that I might have a genuine grievance but more of weak form of sympathising. He did say he was going to escalate my complaint, but then he admitted the escalation was essentially me receiving a letter repeating what was said on the phone, even the language used was designed to put me off, he called it the "final letter".

I work in IT, and I know if we were to give any of our customers 10 days notice of a loss of service there would be hell to pay. I find it difficult to believe that people accept this kind of practice as the norm when it comes to banks who are entrenched in our day to day livelihood more closely than almost any other industry.

pug_

bigpink wrote: »

What information do they want?Have you a good record with the bank?

They want just basic information, address, nationality and date of birth. Apparently something to do with new regulations. I've no problem giving them the information, it's the out of the blue give us this information now or we're suspending your service bit that I have a problem with.

As for my record with the bank, I've never missed a credit card payment, in fact it's almost always paid in full every month. I also have a current account which has my wages coming into it and has never been overdrawn in 20 years.

daheff

pug_ wrote: »

They want just basic information, address, nationality and date of birth. Apparently something to do with new regulations. I've no problem giving them the information, it's the out of the blue give us this information now or we're suspending your service bit that I have a problem with.

well as i see it you've 2 choices. Provide it to Ulster Bank or to another provider. Can another provider open up a new account and have the card to you within 10 days? Can the new provider offer the same deal (or better) than UB?

I appreciate they are only giving you 10 days....a lot of that is to spur you into action (as they see it the first letter was ignored).

In anycase, if there is any new information that they are requesting then there would be a good case for them to request the information. However any information they should already have (like address!!) would seem to indicate they have an issue with their record keeping and should be queried (in writing) with them.

pug_

I've already provided them with the information, posted it back to them last week. The bit I have a problem with is the short notice, I consider to be very poor customer relations. A 10 day final notice period shows no consideration for the fact that they are dealing with consumers who have lives away from the home and not a business which rarely shuts down for a 10 day period (even then 10 days to a business is 10 working days so essentially 14 days).

What I'm really unhappy about is that if this is taken as the default time period then it could happen again, and next time I might not be so lucky to receive the letter in time which is why I complained. I'm just surprised that no-one else seems to think 10 days is unacceptably short.

BuffyBot

At the end of the day, they say they gave you notice, you say they didn't. No one here can provide otherwise: but things do get lost in the post, and you have to take that possibility into account.

If you're not happy, you can choose to move on if you cannot get past the issue, or you can choose to stay if you can.

pug_

My point is that Ulster Bank should take that possibility into account. If they are going to send just two letters then the second one should be a minimum of 30 days in advance to take into account postal delays, people taking holidays, illness that might prevent them from responding on time etc.

daheff

I appreciate your point on the short notice...but look at it from their side. They sent you a letter requesting the information to which you never responded. They need to resolve the issue one way or another...so have to put a timeline on it. Otherwise it would keep going on.

pug_

A time-line is fine, I have no problem with that, but 10 days is too short. 30 days would be better and still accomplish the same thing.

If I look at it from their side I think "how can we get this done in a way that is reasonable to everyone involved" 10 days notice is not what I think.

I haven't seen the letter they send in Feb, but I'm guessing it also had the June 19th deadline in it. Would it really have been so much trouble for them to send a letter on May 19th as a final reminder to give people who either didn't receive or didn't act on the initial letter a chance? I don't think so.

Nervous Wreck

So, you say 10 days is not enough notice but freely admit they gave you 4 months. Postal delays/slip ups aren't UB's concern, in fairness. That's like asking RTE to make provisions for the possibility of your UPC box breaking.

I also find it bizarre that you spent 30 minutes on the phone making a complaint. Like, when you ring UB, I assume you get their call centre. The guy in the call centre answering phones isn't going to be able to change their policy and the guy in the big office who has the power to change the policy certainly isn't gonna be answering the call centre's phone. Since I can only imagine it taking about a minute and a half to say "I feel 10 days notice is far too little and would like this to be lodged as a formal complaint," I can only guess that you spent the other 28.5 minutes getting yourself worked up over something that's not gonna change. Why bother? You could have bought a stamp, posted the documents, and forgotten about the whole thing in that time. I hope this doesn't come across as an attack, I just can't see the logic in getting so bent outta shape over some that, while annoying, is so so trivial.

pug_

I freely admit that ulster bank claim they gave 4 months notice, I've seen no evidence to back that up and when I asked for it they couldn't provide it.

From my perspective I received 10 days notice and nothing more. Your analogy doesn't make sense to me; RTE are not responsible for UPC, and a box breaking is an unforeseen fault. Ulster bank are responsible for the handling of their credit cards and have it in their remit to provide 30 days final notice if they so choose.

Nervous Wreck

pug_ wrote: »

I freely admit that ulster bank claim they gave 4 months notice, I've seen no evidence to back that up and when I asked for it they couldn't provide it.

From my perspective I received 10 days notice and nothing more. Your analogy doesn't make sense to me; RTE are not responsible for UPC, and a box breaking is an unforeseen fault. Ulster bank are responsible for the handling of their credit cards and have it in their remit to provide 30 days final notice if they so choose.

Exactly. RTE are not responsible for UPC, just as Ulster Bank are not responsible for An Post. The failure of a letter to be delivered by An Post is an unforeseen event that Ulster Bank cannot be held responsible for. And of course they can't provide evidence of a letter posted. The only way they could do that is by registering every piece of sent mail, which is a crazy notion.

pug_

I'm not trying to hold Ulster bank responsible for the letter in Feb, my only issue is with the 10 day final notice period.

RossieMan

Its these type of complaints I don't get. If you missed the deadline, I'd understand. Youve sent it off within the timeframe, what are you complaining for? Just move on, life's too short to be following a bank around.

pug_

I didn't miss the deadline this time, but if Ulster bank use 10 days as a default period of notification then I might not be so lucky the next time. That is the heart of my complaint, that as a general rule 10 days is not sufficient notice for a consumer.

Nervous Wreck

pug_ wrote: »

I didn't miss the deadline this time, but if Ulster bank use 10 days as a default period of notification then I might not be so lucky the next time. That is the heart of my complaint, that as a general rule 10 days is not sufficient notice for a consumer.

They gave you 4 months.

pug_

Their final notice period was 10 days.