Outcome of my complaints

[PeteM]

Back in mid-March I sent a complaint to Barclays about the Barclaycard Avios Plus product. I was unhappy about being charged the first monthly fee without actually having received the card, the delay in receiving the card, the lack of Apple Pay, my inability to use the Barclaycard app and I also threw in that the application form didn’t really work if you live in a flat.

I didn’t hear back, so I complained to the CEO a couple of weeks later. I included the above issues, plus the fact that I couldn’t use the card online as 2FA simply didn’t work, that I couldn’t register for Barclaycard Cashback Rewards and that I had wasted hours trying to make this card work for me.

After a couple of holding emails I had a very pleasant gentleman from the executive complaints team get in touch.

He explained I couldn’t use the app or 2FA as my Barclaycard profile was clashing with a profile that Barclays still had on their system from about 13 years ago, as well as my login credentials to a business account. Once these were merged and cleansed the problem resolved itself.

He added Apple Pay is coming at some point, as we know, and Barclaycard Cashback Rewards are a Visa product, so unlikely to ever work for these cards (despite them being listed as a benefit of this product).

After a bit of negotiation we reached a compensation settlement I am happy with. He also forwarded the response to my original complaint, which was allegedly sent by post (but never received by me). It was pretty poor, to be honest, and the author clearly had a very limited understanding of the Avios Plus product – he apologised for it.

So I would definitely recommend complaining if you’re unhappy with the card and if you’re not getting anywhere with regular customer services escalate it to executive complaints. He did say they are dealing with quite a few of these…!

[duggie1982]

So how much compensation did you get? Just wondering if its worth my time you see

[h1jfg]

What mechanism did you use to complain?
I’ve had numerous issue with the card starting from day one with the infamous “envelope torn open” when I received the card in the post, through to the latest issue where my Avios points have stopped tracking against my spend since March 24th. £3000 later and zero Avios points earned.
Also got issues with my Barclays Premier Account as well.

[Aston100]

Pete, thanks for sharing.

[PeteM]

duggie1982 wrote:

So how much compensation did you get? Just wondering if its worth my time you see

Fair question – let’s just say I won’t be paying for the card for most of the first year!

h1jfg wrote:

What mechanism did you use to complain?

First a regular letter to their regular complaints department, then an email to cs.venkatakrishnan@barclays.com.

[Nomad]

Good result I’d say.
But reading about issues made me decide to hold off applying for another month or 2 I think

[Cranzle]

The problem with Apple Pay support is a wider MasterCard issue/glitch and beyond Barclaycard’s control

[PeteM]

Tell us more? I have various Mastercards that happily work with Apple Pay?

[chelynnah]

Cranzle wrote:

The problem with Apple Pay support is a wider MasterCard issue/glitch and beyond Barclaycard’s control

Are you able to explain further? Because every non Amex card we have held between us for as long as I can remember have all been MasterCard and all of them worked fine with Apple Pay. So this doesn’t seem to make sense. Tesco, Lloyds, RBS…

[chelynnah]

@PeteM pleased to hear you got a decent result.
There really does seem to be an issue with the system assigning information correctly for 2FA. We’ve never held a Barclays product before but while everything for hubby went through fine, the address and phone number for my secondary card hasn’t assigned correctly in the system.