When I get on the phone to customer services I am extremely aggressive and persistent.
I got really mad on when MBNA sent me a letter this week notifying me of a late payment charge because a direct debit to a credit card bounced even though
THEY TOOK THE DIRECT DEBIT TWO DAYS EARLIER THAN THEY USUALLY DO
IMMEDIATELY THE DEBIT BOUNCED THEY APPLIED A £12 LATE PAYMENT CHARGE
The day after the debit bounced I paid them manually over the phone.
When I got the letter I was livid. I phoned them and they said they would phone me back, but my policy is not to accept callbacks (I find this takes me off the boil), then they put the phone down. I phoned back immediately (the next person I speak to always has a harder time) and within 20 minutes – of my shouting at them – they refunded the late payment charge.
On Tuesday one of my websites renewed even though I had set it to expire – with domain privacy too, another $10. I emailed them immediately and they refunded my money. Just to be safe though, I phone AMEX, who processed the payment, and are in my experience extremely aggressive with companies who take money when they should not.
Then today I discovered that Barclays – everyone’s most hated – had been paying £23 a year for the past three years out of my account though I had cancelled that particular standing order. It being Barclay’s, I left dead bodies in a branch before I had to leave to go to work. Later though, I rang customer services and they refunded me all the standing orders from the date of cancellation.
Needless to say, I bought a beer on Barclays, Britains most reviled.