brucek
Intern
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2002
- Posts
- 67
After the collapse of Ansett we looked very closely at alternate credit card
reward schemes. After much reading and telephone converation we decided to throw our lot in with Citibank (Gold Visa) and continue with Diners Club.
Despite being an existing Citibank (CB) cheque account customer and having been a Diners Club (DC) member since 1993 (DC is owned by CB) we initialy had hurdles and bariers put in the way of our application and eventual acceptance to become credit card customers.
When we tried to contact a person of responsibiblty at CB both in writing and verbaly in regard to the problems that we were encountering we got no where. CB's customer service staff are obviously well trained to keep the customer away from, and provide protection too, their managers and decission makers.
Once we eventually got our credit cards we then went about trying to set up automatic payment of the card account through the CB web site. We used to schedule all of our bill payments through B-Pay via the Westpac web site (very convenient for busy people) and once the payees details have been entered they remain their for 6 months so that you don't have to re-enter all of the payees detail in again to make a future payment.
When we got into their web site to try and set up payment schedules and automatic account payments we found it to be very user unfriendly, not having many of the facilities of a full blown banking web.
E.g. You can only execute a B-Payment on the day you wish to pay the bill, you cannot schedule it for a specified date as you can with Westpac and other financial institutions. Once you enter payee details and the payment has been executed, all details are lost so when you want to pay your power bill again next month for instance, you will have to re-enter all of your power companies details in again. They are not retained for future use.
Given that financial institutions are forcing consumers to use electronic means to conduct there business I find the problems and lack of facilities with the CB site to be at odds with their competition.
As a result of this we find ourselves having to retain our Westpac credit cards so as to take advantage of the excellent facilities provided on their web site. It is totaly impractical for either of use to have to remember to pay bills on a certain day when we may not be in our offices and at a computer in order to execute same.
If you are like us and run a line of credit, having the facilities to schedule payments is vital.
From our position the bottom line appears to be:
1. CB have the external appearence of being a slick organisation and being a cut above the rest. The reality is that they are just another bank albeit with a good card reward scheme.
2. If you need a bank with a good web site to transact your banking business, think twice before throwing all of your eggs into the CB basket because you will be dissapointed. Both the CB and DC sites are primitive from a functional view point. They look nice, provide information, but lack user friendly features and functionalty. (DC do not even provide an e-mail address or portal to contact then via, merely a fax number!)
3. Until CB remedy the above and provide a web site with functionality similar to Westpac and the other major financial institutions we will continue to use the Westpac web site to pay bills.
4. We had converted many friends and colleagues to the Ansett FF scheme and their partners Westpac and DC. We often get asked what FF scheme and cards we now utilise. We would not recomend CB to anyone, at this time, until they remedy the problems and improve the quality of their web site.
reward schemes. After much reading and telephone converation we decided to throw our lot in with Citibank (Gold Visa) and continue with Diners Club.
Despite being an existing Citibank (CB) cheque account customer and having been a Diners Club (DC) member since 1993 (DC is owned by CB) we initialy had hurdles and bariers put in the way of our application and eventual acceptance to become credit card customers.
When we tried to contact a person of responsibiblty at CB both in writing and verbaly in regard to the problems that we were encountering we got no where. CB's customer service staff are obviously well trained to keep the customer away from, and provide protection too, their managers and decission makers.
Once we eventually got our credit cards we then went about trying to set up automatic payment of the card account through the CB web site. We used to schedule all of our bill payments through B-Pay via the Westpac web site (very convenient for busy people) and once the payees details have been entered they remain their for 6 months so that you don't have to re-enter all of the payees detail in again to make a future payment.
When we got into their web site to try and set up payment schedules and automatic account payments we found it to be very user unfriendly, not having many of the facilities of a full blown banking web.
E.g. You can only execute a B-Payment on the day you wish to pay the bill, you cannot schedule it for a specified date as you can with Westpac and other financial institutions. Once you enter payee details and the payment has been executed, all details are lost so when you want to pay your power bill again next month for instance, you will have to re-enter all of your power companies details in again. They are not retained for future use.
Given that financial institutions are forcing consumers to use electronic means to conduct there business I find the problems and lack of facilities with the CB site to be at odds with their competition.
As a result of this we find ourselves having to retain our Westpac credit cards so as to take advantage of the excellent facilities provided on their web site. It is totaly impractical for either of use to have to remember to pay bills on a certain day when we may not be in our offices and at a computer in order to execute same.
If you are like us and run a line of credit, having the facilities to schedule payments is vital.
From our position the bottom line appears to be:
1. CB have the external appearence of being a slick organisation and being a cut above the rest. The reality is that they are just another bank albeit with a good card reward scheme.
2. If you need a bank with a good web site to transact your banking business, think twice before throwing all of your eggs into the CB basket because you will be dissapointed. Both the CB and DC sites are primitive from a functional view point. They look nice, provide information, but lack user friendly features and functionalty. (DC do not even provide an e-mail address or portal to contact then via, merely a fax number!)
3. Until CB remedy the above and provide a web site with functionality similar to Westpac and the other major financial institutions we will continue to use the Westpac web site to pay bills.
4. We had converted many friends and colleagues to the Ansett FF scheme and their partners Westpac and DC. We often get asked what FF scheme and cards we now utilise. We would not recomend CB to anyone, at this time, until they remedy the problems and improve the quality of their web site.