Really-rather-dodgy-ca rd (Accucard)

Member Name: SueMagee

Product:	Accucard
Date:	08/11/02 (459 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Generous cashback

Disadvantages: Poor customer service, I have daoubts about the privacy of online records.

I'll admit it. We were seduced. MyPoints wanted to offer us some points if only we would pop off to this website, have a look and possibly take out a credit card.

I went. I had a look. The site was a little slow to load, but cashback at 0.8% and double cashback for the first six months sounded very good particularly when Egg was only paying a rather miserly 0.5%. On principle I won't pay cash for anything if I can pay by credit card and get cashback. In the meantime my money's in the Bank earning me some interest so more than trebling the cashback was a draw. There's up to 51 days interest-free credit too which is better than quite a few of the cards around.

'Feel you've had the wool pulled over your eyes with short-term gimmicks, leading to a painful catch?' says the website.

Well, no we couldn't say that we had. Our finances are quite straight forward; whatever goes on the credit card is paid off when the bill comes in, so we didn't need to make much of an effort with regard to the different options offered. You can opt for the maximum cashback and no annual fee but if you don't pay off all your balance you'll pay a higher rate of interest. If on the other hand you're planning on making a major purchase then you can pay an annual fee (currently £10 or £20) and pay a lower interest rate. You can change your options in the course of the year, although you'll pay a £10 administration charge if you do it more than three times in the course of a year.

The current interest rates can be as low as 9.9% but the site's a bit coy about telling you how high they can go. The illustrations demonstrate that it could go as high as 16.4%, but if you look closely at the screen you'll see that the rate could go higher. The rates, though, are probably not far off the industry norm.

You can transfer balances from other credit cards but there isn't any interest-
free period so it's probably not worthwhile unless you're paying a swingeing rate of interest elsewhere, in which case I would think that there are many better options. You'll pay 6.9% per annum for the first six months and after that it's the same rate as for purchases.

So an application was made, in my husband's name for cards for both of us. You need to have a permanent address in the UK (excluding the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man), be 18 or over, have a gross annual income of at least £5500 or over and to be free of any County Court Judgements. You get an agreement in principle (if appropriate) straight away and you're told what your credit limit is likely to be. Strangely enough the limit offered was only just over a third of the one offered by Egg some time ago, so don't be expecting them to be generous.

You get to chose what colour card you'd like, but as the design is simply stripes in shades of a particular colour this seemed to me to be just a bit of an affectation. You can even change your choice later if you'd like, but there's a £10 administration charge. However, we chose our colour scheme. You need to have handy your Bank sorting code and account number so that payments can be collected.

There's an option to receive paper statements, but we decided to operate the account online.

Within about a fortnight we had our cards and had activated them. It?s a MasterCard issued by the London Scottish Bank plc and operates in just the same way as every other credit card we've ever had. We were notified by email that the first statement was available online. It checked out OK and I made sure that the full amount due was in our current account ready for collection.

A couple of days after the due date we had a phone call. There was, said Mr Accucard, a problem. Our Bank account did not exist and Accucard's request for payment had been returned unsati
sfied. Would we mind checking that we had entered the details correctly? We checked. We had entered the details correctly and Mr Accucard confessed that the details had been entered incorrectly on their system.

"Tell you what" said Mr Accucard "I'll refund the interest we'?ve charged you and we won't bother collecting this month's payment. We'll leave it over until next month."

"No" said my husband "the money's in the Bank account. I'd prefer that you took it now then I know I'm straight with you."

And so Mr Accucard debited out Bank Account as we requested. Life went on and the card was used. The next statement was received and the funds made available in our Bank account. Then another statement was received showing that no attempt had been made to collect the amount due the previous month and a rather hefty sum of interest had been added.

We clicked the "Contact Us" button and headed the email "COMPLAINT" and opted to be rung in the evening so that the matter could be sorted out. A week later we received an automatically-generated acknowledgement of our email. I attempted to use the credit card, only for it to be refused. We sent a further email, complaining in rather stronger terms and asking why they thought we should continue to use them as our credit card providers. This didn't even provoke the automatic acknowledgement.

The full amount (what we had spent, plus the additional interest charge) has now been taken from our current account. We've had no explanation, no apology and no assurance that our cards would be accepted if we were to use them.

Everyone makes mistakes. The test of any business is not whether it makes mistakes but how it deals with them. The first mistake I can accept. A "4" was entered as a "1" - easily done if you are using a number pad. At that point th
e account should have been checked to ensure that it had been set up correctly to collect future payments, but this, obviously, was not done. Even that, I suppose, can be forgiven if you're feeling generous, but it is indefensible to allow letters of complaint to remain unanswered.

Apart from this, would I be happy with the card? Well, no, I wouldn't. You see I'?m not happy that a third party with just a little bit of personal knowledge couldn't access the account online. On the login screen there is an option to reset the password. One day I entered the username and accidentally clicked this. I needed to know:

? First name
? Surname
? Date of Birth
? Postcode
? Mother's maiden name
? The last four digits of the card number.

and bingo! I changed the password. There's none of that information that's exactly difficult to obtain, is there? I live in a village and I could probably provide the first five items for the majority of my acquaintances and I would only need sight of the card to be able to provide the sixth. I always advise people never to use their mother's maiden name on applications of this type. It is simply another password and anyone who knows my cousin knows my mother's maiden name. Be inventive. If you've always fancied being the Queen, now's the time to say that your mother'?s maiden name was "Thequeenmum". Just be certain you can remember it and don't tell anyone else. Make certain too that your username is not just your own name ? which is what a lot of people use.

No, we're not happy with the card. In fact we'll be happy to lose the cashback we've earned to be rid of it. As the website says: 'Feel you've had the wool pulled over your eyes with short-term gimmicks, leading to a painful catch?'

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