ANZ have lost it - don't want loyalty, cancelling card!!

[markis10]

The assumptions are:
- that spending in December is only 1/12 of yearly spending
- that the accounts are all personal accounts, and that the number of accounts are spread evenly over the number of people who are eligible to hold one.
- That only 1/3rd of persons eligible by age hold accounts. Where is your data that only 5 million individuals hold cards? The RBA doesn't have the abililty to collect that kind of data AFAIK - they only have aggregate account statistics without unique identifying features - and it's certainly not in the census.


And ultimately, saying 'the average card spend is' is different to 'the average card-holder spends x' which is *completely* different to saying 'the average Australian spends x on credit cards'.

Thanks for clarifying your thoughts on the assumptions made, my calcs were fairly quick and dont separate business from personal as its all the accounts in Australia which number 12.7M as of Jan 2010. The December figure is high, however it averages $750 a month over the year for every person if you take a rolling month average.

The card holder numbers can be drawn from the census data in terms of household debt levels and household makeup, I dont think 5m is that far off the mark.

Its quite possible that the particular bank manager works for a bank that does not have low limit cards, like the NAB Unit Student scheme, so in fact he may see an average spend in his sample that does not match the general population, but relating credit card spend to average weekly earnings is also flawed.

To be quite frank, the fact that every man woman and child spends $750 on a credit card every month on a rolling 12 month average indicates the mean spend per cardholder must be high, whatever the real figure is there is no doubt its big business for the stake holders.

 

[medhead]

Well I've had a bit of good news today, amongst the bad news. Bad news being that SWMBO didn't really like her birthday present, so it has to be swapped for one of the other 2 items that I was considering for her. But the good news is that I'm going to have a $1600 return on my ANZ gold qantas card. What a shame that the bonus points offer is finished, so I'm no longer spending on that card. I can't wait until 2 months time when I cancel the card with a -1600 points balance.

Well I suppose in reality they'll deduct the points from my QFF account, as the T&C for the bonus points offer says that I have to keep the card for 2 months to keep the bonus points. So I assume they have a general ability to get points back from QFF.

 

[BlueAU]

Hi All,

I haven't been on for weeks because I've been working 18 hour days 5 days a week, yes crazy

At least I got 4 flights in that time!

I have good news. I did receive a call from an ANZ Exec in Customer Service and they wanted to apologise. They agreed with everything in my letter, and said my card should never have been cancelled, even if it "sounded like a threat". They will be taking it up with the card retentions department, and they'll probably get disciplined. ANZ do not want to lose customers like me (customer for over 10 years apparentally now)

They refunded my annual fee that was coming up and also refunded $15 in exchange fees. There was nothing more they could give, but more the less I was happy with the phone call. The person was very apologetic. It is the way customer service should be, none of the rubbish I put up with from the "team leader" who kept saying it was my perogative, my interpretation etc.

So in the end, they do want loyalty? This month I maxed out my point earning potential (but only because insurance didn't take AMEX LOL)

Thanks everyone for your comments. My original post still is what happened - I didn't make any phone calls to cancel or threaten.. I think the "confirmation in writing" now is a result of all this, as it was highlighted offshore or non fluent english speaking backgrounds are not permitted to interpret things.

 

[Flashback]

So in the end, they do want loyalty? This month I maxed out my point earning potential (but only because insurance didn't take AMEX LOL)

That's an expensive insurance policy! :shock:

 

[medhead]

Glad it worked out.

hopefully, I can get a similar response when I attempt to cancel my card in a month or so.