They are evil! (H.F.C Bank)

Name: emmylou.d

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Product:	H.F.C Bank
Date:	04/11/03 (623 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: better that a hole in the head - er actually no!

Disadvantages: bad customer services, sales team who would sell their grandmothers for a day out paintballing, halitosis - I expect

And now called Household bank - but you'll never fool me!!!
I brought my fridge freezer and washing machine from them through Interest free credit for a year - over 3 years ago now, and yet my experience with them was so bad I still feel the urge to warn people about them nearly 4 years later!

We brought our goods from a big well known electrical goods place, and as we were moving into our first house money was tight and the interest free credit for a year was more that appealing – in fact kind of essential!

Our first hint of a problem perhaps should have been in the store, I realise it was partly their fault that the following occurred and they gave me £30 voucher for my trouble. Anyway, whilst still in the store, we had to go through the palaver of having our previous addresses checked for the purpose of the credit check. As anyone who has recently moved (as we had in the last 6 months) it is a real pain and the inexperienced lad who took our details got mightily confused. Firstly he tried to sell us the wrong fridge freezer, then after I pointed it out, he made our delivery address our present address, despite my telling him about 5 times that we were about to move and wanted to goods for our new house.

I actually had to go back in the store from the car where I noticed this mistake, and his supervisor manually wrote the correct delivery address on the slip. This is the crucial bit remember this!!

So a year goes by, and I’m thinking, I really should be hearing from HFC soon about settling the account, but no word, so I contact them and to my dismay discovered that my interest free period ended the previous Wednesday, and now I would be subject to a years worth of interest around £140 on top of the price of the goods, which came to less than £500.

I argued my case until I was blue in the face, I hadn’t received any letter to inform me the date was due – which they did not believe ̵
1; and why – because it was sent to my old address as the store I brought it from had made the change manually and not updated their computer system!!

I argued it was only a couple of days late through no fault of my own, but to no avail. Eventually, the woman I spoke to suggested I swap my account to a loan account and in doing so I could claim £30 cash back and £50 bonus. This made the interest I would have to pay back around £60 – feeling I had no choice I agreed.

A week or so later and I had received all of the bumph and even a cheque book I think, but had no mention of the £80 I was due to be credited. I called again and was told the person I originally had spoken to was away, and they would see what they could do. Another week and I was credited the £30.

I called again and was told that the person I had originally spoken to was no longer working for the company. I asked to speak to the manager and asked where my £50 was? She said that was a “recommend a friend incentive” and therefore I couldn’t have it and the original girl was wrong to say I could – but I would not have opened the account if it hadn’t been for the money!!!

I wrote a letter, and then another one and eventually after about 6 months they agreed to credit my account with £50.

I believe it could be argued that it was my responsibility to ensure I paid before the year was up – although I would dispute this! But the worst part of this whole experience has been calling again and again, fighting my way through the sales people to speak to the manager, the uselessness of the staff never returning calls, and the general bad service I had received.

Until recently, I still had calls from them, almost monthly, from their horrible sales teams, trying to chat about “would I like to go on holiday this year, did I fancy a new car” they could help because I had such a good credit rating! I would
tell each person to remove me from their calling list, that I did not want to be contacted except for via letter, yet I would still get them hounding me like the hounds of hell they really are!!

Ok calm down. Basically I never want to do business with them ever again, but they are everywhere doing their interest free offers in comet, currys, courts and probably plenty other places too.

Please just be warned….

Thanks for listening, this has been quite therapeutic actually, I feel the tension of the last 4 years just slipping away!

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