It began as a dead standard e-commerce purchase. It became a tale of banking so terribly backward that I`m still reeling from the discovery.
I confess that I`m finding it very hard not to pepper this column with exclamation marks.
Basheera Khan, UK correspondent, ITWeb
A friend of mine purchased a mouse from the UK e-commerce site of a well-known original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of such equipment. As still sometimes happens, despite the advancement of e-commerce technology, the order was inadvertently processed twice, and the first my friend heard of it was when he received confirmation via e-mail of two separate orders.
The customer contacted the merchant, notifying it of the error which had transpired, and was assured that the second order had been cancelled, and that he would not be billed for the second mouse.
Somehow, this information was not communicated within the merchant`s e-commerce fulfilment engine, for a short time later, the customer received another e-mail, saying that they couldn`t cancel the order because the product had already been shipped. Two weeks later, still no sign of a mouse - which when one considers the speed with which Royal Mail delivers, is a telling factor that something is not quite what it seems.
Eventually, my friend was billed twice and sent two packages. Though he had notified the OEM of the error, he took the additional measure of taking the issue up with the bank, requesting that the transaction be repudiated.
The situation worsens
And this is when the horror truly began. The friend reportedly had to first convince the banker dealing with his request that the rules governing an e-commerce transaction are identical to those governing transactions carried out on the High Street, for example - and if he hadn`t managed, the bank would have turned him away with those timeless words, "There`s nothing we can do about it."
But he succeeded - and then watched in stunned amazement as the banker ignored the terminal and keyboard in front of her and proceeded to fill out an internal query form, on paper, to be sent to the card-issuing branch of the bank. It took her about 15 minutes, during which time, my friend reports, the banker referred to a physical policy guidelines manual.
Think about it - this is the 21st Century and they`re still using paper-based forms and books? In an industry where time is of the essence, in the age of e-mail, instant messaging, and if push comes to shove, fax technology, they still use post? It`s absolutely appalling - and what`s worse, it comes from one of the UK`s big five in banks - Barclays, which everyone here thinks is the most advanced in online banking. I confess that I`m finding it very hard not to pepper this column with exclamation marks.
I am not a Barclays customer, but after some digging, this is what I found. Signing on to use the Barclays Internet banking site requires a bank-assigned 12-digit customer ID, a 5-digit numeric code, which the customer may change, the surname of said customer, and two random letters from a secret word. And there I thought Standard Bank`s dual password system was a bit of a chore.
Once they`ve fulfilled all those requirements, Barclays customers are allowed access to a banking site comparable to the very first attempts at online banking made by South African banks. Should a customer want to manage more than one type of account, she will have to sign out of one site, and following an equally complex procedure, sign in to another site.
The situation, in a word, is dire.
The only reasons I can imagine the standard of online banking is so low in this country is that consumers either aren`t aware that they`re getting the raw end of the stick, or are just accepting of the fact that customer service in the UK is generally dreadful, and there`s no use complaining, because history has proved that nothing will come of it.
My money is on the latter.
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