I ask your indulgence this time around - as I vent about my ridiculous experience with a credit card company today - specifically a MasterCard from a company called Juniper.  My experience really shows why Congress must enact legislation to clamp down on these vultures.

I pride myself on always paying my bills on time - or in many cases ahead of the due date.  That has been the case for the past four years with this particular credit card.  That promptness has kept my rate at 7.99% - with the admonition that they can raise it sky high if there is a late payment.

So, I sent out a check to Juniper on January 2nd -for a payment that was due on January 9th.  That has been my pattern forever.  Well, today I get a letter from Juniper informing me because my payment was late - my interest rate is now nearly 29%!!

I checked my account - and they posted my check on January 11th.  So maybe the postal service was slow and the check may have arrived one day late - two at the very most.  But the envelope was postmarked January 2nd.

I was angry enough at this to wait on hold for 15 minutes to get a human being to finally take my call at Juniper.  Unfortunately it was a woman in Manila who spoke nearly incomprehensible english with a very strong accent and a soft voice.

She was one of those trained robots who kept reading off cue cards - no matter how I tried to engage her in a real discussion.  Of course, I asked for her manager - and waited an additional 10 minutes for him to come on the phone (he was probably just another lowly employee sitting right next to her down in the Philippines.)

Imagine this - he too had a thick accent - was difficult to understand - and just kept reading from cue cards.  I asked to speak with someone who could right this wrong - and he said, “if you want to escalate this I can give you the fax number at our headquarters.”   I said I want a number to speak to a real person - he said OK -and imagine this - gave me the fax number at headquarters.

I was about ready to take the next plane to Manila - but decided instead to call my bank.  An easy to understand voice answered the phone (I actually had met him before) - and he said I was already pre-approved for a credit card with them.  That was it.   Great customer service took over - and we were done in less than 5 minutes.

That proves once again that it is always best to do business with people you know - and people who provide great customer service.   It is also best to avoid doing business with these Juniper people who can’t pronounce - much less spell - customer service!!

Thanks for listening - I feel better already.

Jim

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Willi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.