Some of the most frustrated people I talk with are credit card customers who say they have not received the credit card terms that were approved by our credit card sales department.

This is an example of the typical type of conversation I’m having these days:

[Read more →]

In my last post I discussed the errors that credit card companies make. Mistakes typically fall into one of three categories: 

• something that should happen doesn’t 
• wrong information is generated by software
• the wrong thing happens

But an agent can also be misinformed and tell a customer that something can be done, when it can’t.

One example of this kind of “agent error” happens when a customer is told he can do a “balance transfer”  over the phone and that he can transfer funds from his credit card (take out a loan on his credit card) and have those funds deposited into his checking account. [Read more →]

Let me give you two warnings about balance transfer deals on credit cards.

Even if you are not planning on using a credit card for regular purchase transactions, but only to do a balance transfer, you should still make sure that the card is activated. If the card is not activated balance transfers usually will not transact. Even agents who are helping you to do the deal can fail to notice this problem because it can appear that the deal was approved only to be declined later.

Why does this happen? [Read more →]