Abbey again

Do you remember that little incident I had with Abbey (or Abbey National)?

The case of them sending me account statements and then a credit card PIN for someone who doesn’t live here?

And me telling – I’m sorry I’ll start that again…

And me repeatedly telling them that they were breaking the law?

If it’s slipped your mind you can read the original post here.

Well, following that post things started happening, yay!

On 19th March 2008 – the day after the original post – I got an email from a chap called Chris Ainsley who said he was a manager in Abbey’s Fraud Department, based in Milton Keynes.

Mr Ainsley said: “If you would like to call me and get this issue resolved once and for all (I will do my best!) drop me a line on the [two numbers] below.”

Brilliant (I thought)! I’ll give him a ring now.

I rang.

There was no immediate answer; I could tell the call was routing itself around a group, hunting for someone to answer.

Someone did; unfortunately they picked the phone up and put it straight back down again without speaking.

I waited a while and then I rang again.

There was the same long ringing and call hunting but this time there was just plain old no answer.

So I pinged Mr Ainsley an email telling him I’d tried to call twice (and finished with the prophetic ‘I don’t think things are going very well – do you?’).

Within an hour Mr Ainsley replied by email; he apologised, said he’d been in a meeting and said he understood my frustration.

Yeah, right.

Anyway, I couldn’t spend any further time on trying to get this problem resolved – I was, after all, at work.

And let’s refresh our memory a little… it wasn’t even my problem to resolve!

But the next day I tried again; I called Mr Ainsley.

And spoke to one of his members of staff who said he wasn’t in the office that afternoon.

Brilliant.

So I pinged him another email; this one not only told him I’d tried to call again.

But this email also told him that I’d received a shiny new credit card to go with my shiny new PIN – even if the former was in the name of the same person who didn’t live in my house.

But that wouldn’t matter to a dishonest person, because I had the PIN!

Mr Ainsley responded to my email by saying he was in another building and giving me another phone number.

So I tried to call him again.

Guess what?

Success!

We talked through the problem and while he was tapping away at his computer terminal he muttered implausible phrases such as ‘possible data merge’.

This is when I went right off Mr Ainsley.

Look mate, I’m a fucking IT professional. I’ve forgotten more about real-time computing systems in a 4GL environment than you’ve ever learned. Don’t try and bullshit me. I know what’s happened. Some fucking stupid twat of a member of staff at Abbey has either entered an address incorrectly or has selected a long gone past address. Data doesn’t mysteriously merge itself through some previously unknown ability of digital osmosis. Fact.

Anyway, back to the saga.

After a little while Mr Ainsley confirmed that a historical address for their customer had somehow been selected by a member of staff.

He said he’d seen the problem and dealt with it.

And he said that we would receive no additional post for someone who hasn’t lived here for over a year.

He also said that we’d receive a letter within five working days, confirming that the issue had been sorted out.

Great.

Except for the following points:

1. Why didn’t Abbey stop sending us mail for someone who didn’t live here, when we repeatedly returned it to them marked ‘addressee unknown’?

2. Why did Abbey only react when one of their Fraud Managers read this blog?

And I hate to be picky but…

3. Why, a lot longer than five working days later, haven’t Abbey fulfilled their promise and written to us to confirm they’d eventually got their fucking fingers out and sorted their bad data problems?

Answers please, on a post card to:
Chris Ainsley, Portfolio Manager, Financial Crime, FF BL 67 , Buckingham House, Buckingham Road, Bletchley, MK3 5LD.

B.

can you tell I’m a little pissed off?