OT:Barclaycard Drivel

[michael adams]

The Road To Hell is Paved With Good Intentions.

I've got a PAYG mobile which I only use once of twice a week which otherwise sits in a drawer. It also functions as the throwaway Mobile number I use on forms which insist on a mobile number.

Switching it on,on Sunday the 18th it uploaded a text supposedly from Barclaycard. This was a non boilerplate text, to the effect that they'd tried and failed to deliver a letter to my address so could I phone [phone] "with my Barclaycard" otherwise they would block my card. I automatically suspected a scam especially as when checking I found the text had been sent two days earlier on the 16th. And I'd used the card in the meantime. Fortunately before deleting the text I made a note of the number.

Only later that evening when Googling it did I realise that it was in fact Barclaycard after all. The number is also on statements. Phoning the number, and going through all the nonsense I was eventually speaking to someone in Bangalore. He confirmed that a letter had been returned, but didn't know what it was. Anyway could I confirm my address. Me:"Its the same address as is on the statement you send me each month, part of which I pay in with the cheque (I know. I know). If you look at your screen you'll see I pay every month. That's my address, the one on the statements you send me. Do you understand ?" "Yes Mr Adams but could you please confirm your address". So I did.

Then I explained how if the postie couldn't deliver something, it was sent to the sorting office where I could collect it. I also mentioned in passing that my December statement hadn't arrived and that I'd ordered a replacement at the time. Which arrived a few days later. Thinking no more of it at the time.

Anyway matey assured me "it wouldn't happen again" without specifying "what" exactly he was talking about. He then said would I mind holding and then the music started again. After about 30 seconds I rang off, as as far as I was concerned that was it.

It was only afterwards that I realised what had *probably* transpired. I live at say 10 Railway Cuttings, Camden. As a result of the Christmas rush, sorting, delivering etc Royal Mail had delivered my December statement to

10 Railway Cuttings, Clapton by mistake. The resident of 10 Railway Cuttings, Clapton kept the envelope on their hall stand for a few weeks before *very thoughtfully" writing "Not Known at this Address" on it and putting in a postbox. Their being a return address on the back. But *without* specifying what address they were actually referring to.

It was then returned to the people who process Barclaycard statements in Leicester. Who must have assumed as did Barclaycard that the address being referred to by "Not Known at this Address" was the address on the front of the envelope, my address

10 Railway Cuttings, Camden rather then the address of the person who reposted it without making it clear the address *they* were referring to was *their* address 10 Railway Cuttings, Clapton.

Now you might imagine that as Barclays or their agent are sending statements to 10 Railway Cuttings, Camden every month and those balances are being paid off as a result, that the address on the front of those statements is correct. Rather than the statement "Not Known at this Address" scribbled on the front of one of them by some person unknown; which had then been returned.

But no. Apparently not.

Today I got an email from Barclaycard asking me to phone them immediately. Or else. This time I spoke to a young lady in Newcastle. I tried to explain all the above to her, plus the fact that having spoken to the chap in Bangalore he had promised "it wouldn't happen again". After about ten minutes of cross purposes waffle she then explained the Barclaycard would be sending me a letter confirming that my "complaint" had been resolved. Another good few minutes were then wasted in my explaining to her that I didn't have any complaint. It was Barclaycard who had texted and emailed me, not the other way around.

Anyway its quite sunny in Newcastle today apparently.

Clearly I'm lucky this only happened with something as inconsequential as mislaid Barclaycard statement, no money was involved and its a freephone number. But it does help you appreciate the sort of hell some poor sods must have to go through when dealing with these idiots.

michael adams.

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[Dave Plowman (News)]

My favourite of all time was TalkTalk sending me emails saying they couldn't send me emails. And replying to an email I sent correcting them. Which didn't stop subsequent ones.

Then - after just going freelance - getting a letter from the ILR saying I'd be fined for a late tax return. Despite having delivered it by hand to one of their offices before the due date and having a signed receipt. Something they themselves had advertised for those leaving it to the last minute. ;-)

[michael adams]

Before News Individual started accepting Paypal it was necessary to use a German payment system which was a right PITA. Once Paypal became accepted it was almost impossible to close the account on the German system. Two layers deep and all their help pages all reverted to German only, complete with a German flag at the top.

Like you, they kept sending me emails asking for my email address.

To close the account it eventually proved necessary to post a letter by hand through the letterbox of their HQ which fortunately was in Hammersmith.

Oh and the young lady in Newcastle, who I phoned in reponse to their sending me the email, also asked me to confirm my email address.

michael adams

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[Max Demian]

I've had similar experiences with Barclays /Bank/ twice last year. My main concern was that the text message included their (correct) phone number - rather than asking me to check my documentations for the number

- a clear encouragement to phishers. [1] When I mentioned this concern when phoning to confirm my address the nice lady failed to realise the security risk of including a phone number in the text - showing their lack of imagination in security matters.

Your suggestion that a misdelivered letter, incorrectly annotated before reposting is a good one that hadn't occurred to me.

[1] I received an email from Santander saying "Never enter your Online Banking or bank card details after clicking on a link in an email or text message," which, however, included a link to their "Security Centre", so this issue is not confined to Barclays Group.

[tabbypurr]

the security screws ups of large organisations that really should have a clue what's going on are many. Yet if you ever complain of a security related loss they insist they have no such problems.

NT

[Scott]

[snip]

I got a series of phone calls from them, asking me to confirm my Barclaycard number, which I refused to do. I asked them the number but they said they could not tell me for security reasons. I said I was not satisfied this was a genuiine call and was not prepared to provide any information of any sort.

This happened several times. It turned out it was the real Barclays.

[Martin Brown]

I have had that and always deadlock since I will never confirm anything to a cold caller claiming to be from my bank. All cold callers are presumed hostile until proven innocent - if it is so important put in writing or ring me back when you have figured out how to prove to me that you really are my bank. They always sound really hurt.

They are past masters at it. The best one is that the badged Barclaycard Protect will happily charge you good money annually to send a list of all your registered cards to an address where you previously lived.

Telling them your change of address does not update the security contact address! I got a letter addressed to another Mr Brown informing me that a credit card with a number I had never heard of had been compromised.

It looked genuine and initially I thought it was identity theft against me, but it turned out the bank had two fields for address. One for sending out regular billing and one to contact in case of problems and they were out of step. Madness doesn't begin to describe their antics!

[Bill]

House and car insurance come up with the same company about 3 months apart. Renewed the house insurance by phone and was told my hard had been rejected, so I should phone the card organisation's fraud line as the card would have been stopped. I couldn't find a number for the bank (not Barclays) fraud dept online, so had to go through an online chat. Clicked "save" at the end to have a record of the number. Then rang fraud and had the card re-enabled.

Months passed and I tried to renew the car insurance by phone the same way. Once again the card was blocked. Rang the card fraud dept, who said "Yes we know, we tried to ring you 3 times but the phone was engaged". Well, yes!

I've now given them a mobile number as well, but have told them it only works in one place upstairs and not near the landline.

Online chats were saved locally under a filename starting with "transcript". It took ages to guess and find that.

[dennis]

I had HSBC call me and ask for ID. After I declined they gave me a reference number and said phone the number on the back of the card and quote the ref number to reconnect. Easy thing to do. Just use a different phone or wait half an hour if you are paranoid.

[Terry Casey]

We used to live in Glencoe AVENUE which is at right angles to Colenso ROAD.

When we first moved there over 40 years ago, we occasionally got mail for Colenso Road at the same number as us written in an elderly joined-up style with lots of loops, so I could see how similar the two names looked and assumed that was the reason.

We had a few of those but they ceased after a couple of years. We've still had a succession of letters at random intervals ever since, though, with clearly typed, printed and neatly written addresses. Of course, we always deliver them when we walk past and, no doubt, they do the same for us given the strange times some of the mail occasionally turns up!

A couple of years ago, however, there was a knock at the door one evening and a man from the house in Colenso Road gave us a parcel he'd found on his doorstep when he got home! Not only was it correctly addressed to my wife but it had also been sent Parcelfarce - To be signed for!

The front of their house is wide open to a view from the street so it was lucky that some low-life hadn't taken a fancy to it.

The company who sent it were livid when my wife told them what had happened!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ove had similar experiences. Eventually they said 'phone back on the number on your barclaycard' and I did on another phone (to avoid the 'we deint hang up' scam) and it was them

[Dave Liquorice]

Any one on O2 with an O2 online account? It says it sends a text to the registered phone and you need to enter the code from that text to gain entry, except you don't or at least I don't. Can't exactly remeber what you do after the we've sent a text page, but it's simple like "back", "refresh" or going through the login page again.

[Michael Chare]

When I got some voicemail asking me to ring some number I did not know and was not listed on their website I just rang a number which was on their website and asked if their was an issue with my a/c. There was, when I then rang the number they had asked me to ring it turned out that they knew the card details had been stolen, they would not tell me from whom!

[Brian Gaff]

Yes indeed. Its worse for blind customers. They are offered, lets say large print or audio statements. For many long years these latter have worked via a cd. In the last two years, Lloyds has outsourced the service to the RNIB, who have as usual completely cocked it up. I instead of human read accurate statements, get rubbishly scanned bits of paper fed into an ocr and a speech engine, which then proceeds to make 0 into 0 or 8 or s into 5 and numerous other random substitutions and reading of words running together as gibberish. I complain say it if the bank cannot actually check what their outsourcing is doing, they should not be sending them to customers who cannot understand them,. Two years this same repetition has been going on with no direct contact allowed between us punters and the rnib since its against data protection rules. It would all be solved overnight if Lloyds sent them a text file instead of a bit of paper to scan in, but since the it at Lloyds are not allowed to change things w have over 300 people at Lloyds alone in a position where they cannot get accurate statements. This is the 21st century and rocket science this is not. Words fail me. They have already had to give me over 100 quid in compensation last year, not its all starting again with a new set of customer service wallahs, who seemingly cannot resolve the issue.

I have heard hsbc also have the same issue. The answers are bleedin obvious to a blind man, pardon the pun. Brian

[Martin Brown]

I'd have thought this was one for involving your MP in resolving and/or one of the consumer protection programmes like You & Yours. You clearly have a valid point and the technical solution is blindingly obvious. (pun intended - OCR is always a can of worms)

[Brian Gaff]

Other things. A council who wanted to be inclusive about a survey and consultation offered the option to those with no internet to be able to ring a number and the helpful staff would fill in the online form for them. Unfortunately the IT department at said council had made the email address a mandatory field. Thus many devised a make believe email address to get around it. Why the general public cannot get their heads around the fact that there will always be people who have no computer of smart phone eludes me.

Then there is the nhs. In 2016, we blind people got the right to get all our medical letters and correspondence from the nhs in an accessible format. fine but here we are in 2018 and its not working. I suppose we all could take the trusts to court, but having spoken to the various people its not that they won't do it but that the it system bought by most of the nhs does not allow interception of the material till its printed on paper for security and data protection reasons. Thus we have in effect exactly the same situation as Lloyds are in, that one part of the law stops them complying with another part. I think I need a lie down. Brian

[alan_m]

I once got a phone call, to my answerphone, from the Royal Bank of Scotland to ring the branch _urgently_ about my account.

On contacting them it was only to sell me their other financial services.

It was one of the main reasons for me not having a RBS account anymore.

[Cursitor Doom]

Banks' computer security in general is so poor, god help us if we ever go cashless. This battle against the bad guys is not one we are winning. :(