Glitches in the installation of a new system at Standard Bank`s credit card
division have left its customers irate.
The bank sent its credit card holders a letter last month warning of
possible problems following the installation of the system and apologising
for any inconvenience in advance.
But clients who called Personal Finance wanted to know when the system would
be running smoothly and whether they would have to pay any extra
chargesincurred because the system was not operating smoothly.
One caller says he bought aeroplane tickets for his family to the value of
R22 000 and found that his account had been debited five times with the
amount.
He says he was also very embarrassed when he could not pay with his card for
groceries he bought at a supermarket at the weekend.
He was advised not to make an electronic payment into his credit card and
rather to make this payment inside his bank branch.
But, he says, writing out a cheque will cost him extra in bank charges. He
wants to know whether he is going to be charged interest on his credit card
account because he was not able to settle it by the due date.
Another caller says she tried for two days to get a provisional statement on
her credit card account to no avail.
She wanted to know whether she would be charged an ATM fee for drawing a
statement which gave no information and asked her to call at her bank
branch.
Other credit card holders have found items bought on their budget accounts
charged to their accounts in one go instead of being debited over a period
from a budget account.
A Standard Bank spokesman says the bank will reimburse customers interest or
charges incurred as a result of the system not operating smoothly.
The conversion from Standard Bank`s original card processing system to a
new, much more sophisticated system, took place on Sunday August 29.
This was the culmination of a complex, year-long project involving some 100
information technology specialists from South Africa and abroad.
According to the bank, it was not possible to test the new system while the
original one was still running and so there was always the chance that
unforeseen snags would affect the service to some card-holding customers.
The bank therefore warned customers in advance and asked them to be
understanding while the system was implemented.
In the event there were problems, and a number of customers had difficulty
getting authorisation for their purchases or were given incorrect account
balances at ATMs and self-service machines.
The bank spokesman says the posting of customers` accounts is now up to
date, with most authorisations and with the balances reflected at AutoBank
and AutoPlus machines. There are still some outstanding difficulties and
teams are working around the clock to fix these.
"We confident these will be rectified within the next few days, and
apologise to anyone affected by the changeover," the spokesman
said.