The Shit Companies Blog

As a regular Amazon user I thought it would be a good idea to take out an Amazon credit card. Boy in hindsight what a mistake. A mistake I wish to help others avoid, or at least help influence their decisions based on my experiences.

I had the card for only 1 month before I was pretty much forced to cancel it. I've now spent 2 stressful months to date trying to break free from the relationship, without success. Instead I continue to receive daily harassment and ongoing complete incompetence and the most disastrous attitude.

For the benefit of others I will provide an overview of my experience to date by means of quoting the various correspondences.

The people I feel really bad for are people on low incomes and with poor education as they tactics employed are even hard for me to continually bear (I’m a company director and used to disputes for example); I receive 2-3 harassment calls per day now. Yet the situation is extremely simple and even people inside the Halifax (who provide the Amazon credit card) agree whole heartedly that I am being mistreated, but appear unable to help.

*** WARNING DO NOT TAKE OUT AN AMAZON CREDIT CARD – TREAT THIS AS A REVIEW ***

On receiving the VERY FIRST bill, I went to login to pay the card and instead found I had to blow a whole morning on the telephone getting nowhere trying to inform somebody that the Internet login was not working. The problem was further compounded by the fact that nobody knew who was responsible and all parties pointed to each other. Once I got dizzy with the phone number loops and a morning wasted I fired this email off to Amazon:

21st August 2006
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I received my Amazon credit card recently and as I have the first bill looming and the first statement failed to arrive (I've reported it) I decided to view it online and went to:

www.amazon.co.uk/halifax

This then asked for Amazon username/password and then redirected me to here:

https://www.partnerandaffinitycards.co.uk/Servicing/Logon.aspx?brand=AMZ01

This page then states:

"To access the site you will need your Internet ID and password.

You created your Internet ID and password when you registered your account for the online servicing. [how the hell do you register the account for online servicing is the question. Nobody seemed to know the answer]

If you don't have your Internet ID and password available please ring our customer services team [which feckin number?] or refer to your Online Service Guide for further information [where is this?]. Unfortunately you will not be able to access your account without this information."

The page contains both an Amazon and a Halifax logo and provides no number to call. I proceeded as follows:

0845 850 7617 amazon card services, said it was nothing to do with them (!) and to call the following number:

0845 6020000 halifax, they said it was Amazon customer services that should be called as it was nothing to do with them:

0800 2796620 amazon cust services -> Said I should call Mastercard and it was certainly the right number:

0800 3896677 mastercard -> Said they only deal with new applications and to call Halifax on:

0845 850 7617 halifax serving -> Said to call Affinity cards on the following number:

0845 850 0519 Affinity cards -> Said it was easy and to simply register at:

https://www.partnerandaffinitycards.co.uk/Servicing/RegisterAuthenticate.aspx?brand=AMZ01

After entering my details (authentication) the site then spits back:

"Out of service Sorry, but the system is not available at the moment."

When I call back Affinity cards they just say yes there is a problem.

So I had wasted a morning on the phone calling numbers, being presented with deep IVR menu trees, long hold music, speaking with intellectually challenged zombies just to find out that the Internet login service was down anyway!

I left the issue for some days waiting on a response from Amazon that never came. I hoped that the login issue would now be fixed as the lady at Affinity cards said the online login should “only” be down for some hours. But no, even days later the online registration that I badly needed to pay the bill was still not working. I asked to register over the phone but was told I had to do it online BUT I could not since it was still DOWN!

I tried calling Amazon Customer services on the 23^rd but got nowhere (later on I would find out that the retarded agent that day instead screwed my login to Amazon itself, so the call just created more problems to come). So I had no choice but to fire yet another email off to Amazon:

24th August 2006 (morning)
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I emailed Amazon on 21st August. Site said expect a 24 hour response. I still had no response by 23rd August so rang Amazon customer services around 8:30am (International call). The person who answered the phone said he would respond to the email within 15 minutes and it was clear he was doing his best to get off the phone ASAP (to clear calls quick I guess).

It is now the 24th and no response so I have to email again! Given much more of this I am going to tell Amazon to stick their card up their ass and put my experience into writing to them and to every concerned forum I can find.

By lunchtime I was so gut sick of the situation I decided just to cancel the card because if it was THIS BAD I was better to cancel it after the very first month as I could not afford the vast amounts of time and stress they were consuming – all I wanted was an online login so that I could pay the damned first bill!

I called up Halifax Bank of Scotland who are the people behind the card and said that I wished to cancel the card because I could not login and there was no help or will to resolve the situation; in addition it seemed the arm was not speaking to the leg in that no party seemed to know who was responsible for what (too many cooks came to mind – Amazon, Affinity Cards, Halifax and Mastercard).

I was told that before Halifax could cancel the Amazon credit card I had to clear the card in full (a few thousand pounds). I said fine and went to give switch (debit card) number and they informed me that they do not take payments over the phone (no phone payments and the issue is I can not pay by Internet!). So I called my bank and issued a BACS transfer of what they categorically told me was the full balance. I called them back and said that I had cleared the balance and to please cancel the card.

The Halifax (operators of the Amazon credit card) said I had to speak to a customer retention agent before I could cancel and after a long queue it was answered by Rachel in customer retention. She was far from a person to retain customers and read a few scripts with an attitude of “don’t give shit” this is all a fun game and lets see if we can wind the customer up. After she had read her unappealing scripts she asked if I still wanted to cancel, I said yes. She said that I could not cancel as 53 pence (yes half a pound) was still to clear. I informed her that I was told categorically by the agent before her what the balance was so it was not my mistake. Furthermore I asked her to waiver it to save everyone time. But no, she wanted the 53 pence even though it was the fault of the previous agent (for giving me the wrong total balance). I hung up, called my bank again (international call) and issued a BACS transfer for 53 pence!

I called Halifax back again and repeated that I wished to cancel the card. This time I was told that the card was cancelled in full.

I then fired off the following email to Amazon:

24th August 2006 (afternoon)
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Went to login online and still could not register at:

https://www.partnerandaffinitycards.co.uk/Servicing/RegisterAuthenticate.aspx?brand=AMZ01

Called Halifax as Amazon don't even reply to emails. They do not even take telephone payments! So I have done a BACS transfer to clear the entire

balance and CANCELLED the card! What a waste of time that was. Cancelled after first bill. (note that URL I gave has Amazon logo on it)

All Amazon has achieved is great brand damage and a complete waste of time.

Please have someone SENIOR review my emails and come back to me.

The summary so far: I ordered an Amazon credit card (they partner with Halifax, Mastercard and Affinity Cards to supply this). I had not received the first bill so I had decided to login online to check balance. I could not login as you needed to register. I burnt off a whole morning trying to find out which of the companies you need to register with since they all said each other in a loop. Eventually I obtained the details but then found out that the online service was down. I waited days but it was still down and the payment time was looming. Since nobody seemed bothered about fixing it I cancelled the card.

# posted by Arthur Daley @ 1:01 PM