SCB Headache

Sometimes, certain promises may be too good to be true, even if they are corporate banking giants.

I am frustrated by SCB's inefficiency.

After applying for SCB's credit card, I opened my mail only to discover this. Clearly, the tele-marketeer who called me over the phone had failed to inform me about this. After contacting him, he "added" the extra info that company name will be printed on all platinum business c.c.

So, fine. I had to call customer care to make the necessary change as I absolutely will not carry a c.c. with a person's name in place of company name. Therefore, my previous 'company' name, "XY", was printed there.

Next, I received the first e-statement and found that I had to access it with a default password. Following closely to the instructions given, I failed to open up the document. I thought I must have gotten something wrong. Yet, I wasn't too concerned as I knew I'd be getting the paper statement and it arrived a few days later.

Within one month of receiving their first paper statement and e-statement, I received a letter in March informing me that the bank will cease to send paper statement to their customers as they are adopting an environmentally friendly approach to "save" trees and cut down on the use of paper. Should I wish to continue receiving paper statement, I'd have to call customer service to activate it and I'd be charged a fee. I wasn't too happy about this as I prefer to keep hard copies especially on credit transactions for my references. I had specifically asked the marketeer about this and was assured that there will be paper statements at no extra charge and the box for 'paper statement' was clearly pre-checked in their application form.

So I went online to check on their policy but could not find how much they are charging. So I thought that my web-surfing skill was flawed. Still, I could not access the second e-statement and yet I wasn't too concerned as the second paper statement arrived a few days later and I knew how much to pay.

I knew I wouldn't be receiving any paper statement this month  and I still couldn't access the third e-statement. Finally, I called up the customer service to inquire about accessing the document - just to double-check where I had gone wrong. The instructions given were exactly how I had been keying in the  default password. To give them the benefit of doubt, I tried again upon hanging  up but to no avail.

So I called again, this time to the BM line, to inquire why I still couldn't access it. He suspected that the bank has yet to update my birth date and true enough, after clicking on his keyboard, he confirmed that it wasn't. So for three months, this fine bank has been sending three password-protected documents to me which could not be accessed since it has yet to update my particulars! Don't they know that? Isn't the system linked or something or whatever? Why do they insist on e-statement when they did not even get their data correct? The fact that the operator could guess beforehand why I couldn't access my password-protected document shows that this must have been a common problem. Why is it still happening? And I had to call twice just to get to the bottom of the problem!

I was very annoyed by now. The operator said that once updated, I'd receive new documents which would be accessible. It would be emailed within 24 hours but since Saturday and Sunday are non-working days and Monday's a replacement holiday for Labour Day (Sunday), I'd get the email on Tuesday. Double annoyed.

Upon asking him about the charges of paper statement and informing him that I couldn't find the info on their website, he said he wasn't sure as it is a newly implemented policy. However, he said  that if I were to request a printout from the branch, I'd be charged RM5 per piece and then proceeded to inform me that the bank would be charging me RM5 per statement if they mail it to me. Sigh... Does he know or not know?

The operator's line: "The bank has yet to update my particulars" sounds familiar and I immediately recalled that the lady operator had said the exact same thing when I called them in January to remove the company name. She said that I must put my exact company name and yet asked me for the name again and said, "The bank has yet to update my particulars" and the company name wasn't listed online. I could have just rattled off 'Bloomberg', 'Pfizer', 'HSBC', 'Ernst & Young', etc and they wouldn't know. But silly me was too lost for words and chose "XY".

Actually, I am now quite lost for words though the post is lengthy and seems incoherent. There is just too much inefficiency during such a short period of time in using just one of SCB's products. SCB's inefficiency does not live up to its aggressive effort in gaining a new credit card user. For a bank of SCB's status, this is too much of a disappointment. I guess my expectation was too high.

And by the way, I find the customer service quite 'icy'. Had spoken to three different operators in three months. Can't really put a finger on it but somehow there's this iciness or am I being defensive?

I doubt I will be using SCB's credit card for the long run. Sigh... my quest for a good credit card for my convenience and advantage remains illusive.