December 31, 2007Out With the Old
Filed Under: Join the Conversation
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Along with all the warm and wonderful holiday cards I received this season the mailman also delivered a personal letter (it does start out "Dear Stanley Rapp...") in squint-sized type from my credit card-issuing bank. When it comes to illustrating what it's like to be the abused consumer I wrote about recently, this letter is a beauty.
It starts out well enough: "As your credit card company, we value your business." Then comes the bad news. A "default" has been committed. Yes, I confess, -- just this one time -- I did a terrible thing. My payment arrived 24 hours after the dreaded monthly deadline. Five years of never being delinquent doesn't mean a thing. As a de-valued customer, I now have the privilege of paying 29% interest on my credit card.
And that's just a part of the IRM (Insult Relationship Management) practiced by this and almost every other card issuer. The letter goes on to inform me that I can contact the bank when my account reflects a six month history of timely payments and they will then evaluate my account for a possible reduction in the interest rate.
Honestly, I'm not making this up. Six months of good behavior and they may or may not do something about the exorbitant rate and begin treating me like a valued customer again.
Sorry, my dear bank, I'm not waiting around to be pardoned. With great pleasure I will choose the best offer found in my mailbox next week from one of your competitors. Most likely it will offer little or no interest on transferred balances for the next six or more months. You won't have me to push around any more -- and you can now spend at least a hundred dollars in acquisition cost to replace me (could be more with your three tenths of one percent response rate to acquisition mail...).
One of my New Year's resolutions will be to always mail my payment to your competitor at least 5 days before the monthly deadline. Thanks for teaching me a lesson at your expense.
-- Stan Rapp
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Comments
Hi Stan! I'm back from vacation but that doesn't mean you shouldn't stop posting on Jaffe Juice.
In the interim, I will comment on your post!
IRM is fastly replacing CRM as a worst practice in the industry. I just flew back from South Africa where 16 (I counted) business class seats remained deserted, whilst frequent flyers, honeymooners and parents with kids on their laps suffered through an 18 hour flight.
Why won't companies learn - especially with all that invaluable data!
Posted by: Joseph Jaffe
I know exactly how you feel! And I'm glad you are switching. Unfortunately, the company may not learn their lesson. A few years back, after 7-8 years of perfect payment history (not even 1 late payment), we didn't receive a statement one month so my wife didn't make a payment. We didn't make any further purchases with the card for a couple of months and during that time didn't receive anything from the card company. The next month came a notice of sending our account for collections and a bad mark on our credit history. How infuriating that was! It would have taken one phone call and things would have been clear! Needless to say, we quickly found a replacement card and moved on.
Posted by: Ron Hayes
This has happened to me recently as well. A terse, your interest rate is being increased and will be reviewed in 6 months! I promptly paid my full balance and cashed in my accumulated points. Then but a couple of days later did i receive an unrelated call to ask me about my satisfaction as a client - HA! I said i am no longer going to be using your card, how can you possible treat a customer this way and expect to keep them even for one second longer. I have had this particular card since i was in my early twenties (20+ years) and I do not even have an account with the bank anymore. But that was it - i really cannot be bothered with companies who cannot see past the most recent transaction- how shortsighted - well that works both ways! There is nothing they can say or do to get me back, just as Ron put it , I am moving on, which is painless to do (do credit card companies not know this??) Talk about worst practices!
Posted by: Suesan Danesh
