UPDATE 16:45 10th March 2010: The Unit Manager (managers manger) for MBNA has contacted me and confirmed that my account is now closed, will be sending me a letter confirming this and that no black mark will show on my credit record, it would seem he reviewed all the contacts with customer service as he had a good understanding of what is going on, he also gave me his direct number should I need it.
Thanks for your tweets/retweet and facebook postings in support and also for the tip off about the email address, you know who you are 
.
This web page is to highlight my ongoing struggle to pay off my MBNA Credit Card in full and all the road blocks and obstacles MBNA have put in the way of doing this, and conveniently I am told by them it’s my fault. The latest thing they done to me on the 9th March 2011, has made me have to take people power action to highlight to anyone who is an existing customer of MBNA or is thinking of taking a credit card with MBNA just how bad it is to try and pay off your credit card in full and close your account.
I have been working towards the goal of paying off all credit cards I own and in January 2011 I was finally in the position to pay off my MBNA Credit Card in full with an outstanding amount of £7,994.71. I thought this would be as easy as to pay the full amount and that would be that, how wrong I was.
A few days before the 27th January 2011 I paid off the full amount from my debit card, the total amount owed in my last statement. Then on the 28th January 2011 they took a further £96.14 from my bank account via direct debt. Now the girl at MBNA customer service explained that due to my payment being so close to their automatic minimum payment via Direct Debt that they couldn’t stop this and so it would come off, however interest was due on the outstanding amount as I was paying the full amount so close to end of the month, fair enough. She said, because the interest payment would be for less than the £96.14, they would keep this amount, deduct the interest and send me the balance, she made a reminder for herself to check this happened.
On the 3rd of February 2011 they refunded to me £96.14 and on the same day charged me £58.94 in interest, I get the statement 5 or so days later and I am upset to say the least that they have kept the account open and did not do what they promised. I called up Customer Service at MBNA and had to deal with the worst possible person in their “customer service” team, he basically made out that it’s not their fault and that I am somehow at fault here, furious I make the payment of £58.94 and I am told that would be the account closed this time, unlike when I was told it would be last time.
I explained that the “customer service” team said this before and I want it in writing for reassurance, I am told they will not do this and I must wait until the next statement in March… I tell him this is not good enough and I want to speak to a manager and I am told I can’t, so this goes on and on, and he winds me up more and more. Now, it says on the MBNA site you can ask for a manager and that you will get to speak to one. However basically to him I have no complaint, he then cuts me off with no warning just puts the phone down on me. Annoyed I call back to complain, but instead of MBNA in Chester I get the call centre in Ireland, they start the same run around and I am like, no not accepting this poor level of service, I hang up and redial, finally get someone to listen to me and she assured me that my complaint could be heard by a manager but could be 48 hours.
In the end I get call back later that day, the Manager could not believe what he was hearing (so he said anyway, maybe it’s common place who knows), I asked him to check the tapes of the call but if he did not have them I have recorded all calls also for my own protection. Anyway he agrees this should not have happened, apologises and promises to write me letter saying that my account now has a zero balance and is now closed.
I get the letter, think that’s the end of that and will have a zero balance statement at the start of March, a month later than I should have got it. Today (9th March 2011) I get the statement and in it they have charged me £12 for non-payment of a £0.00 balance, yes that’s correct MBNA Credit Cards not only did not close the account and issue me a £0.00 balance statement, they instead issued me with a “Return Payment Default Sum” for non-payment of £0.00 you can see in the statement below I owed exactly nothing but they still went ahead and tried to take the same £58.94 I already paid 15 days earlier from my bank account but they couldn’t as the direct debit was stopped. I had paid off my account in full and they did not cancel the direct debit their end and told me nothing about not cancelling it my end, so they failed to close the account, failed to stop the direct debit, and now I have a potential black mark against my credit rating.
So I called up and complained about this, but said straight from the start I want to speak to Justin Barret, Head of Customer Satisfaction but was told he will not speak to me and that they could not get him to call me. I explained how upset I was at this ongoing fiasco and that I have been trying to close the account since January, the “customer service” person blamed me for the £12 charges but was willing to remove it, this really upset me, how dare he say that this is my fault. I asked for it in writing that my account is now closed and was told MBNA can’t do that and I will have to wait until April to see my statement. 4 months to close an account, this is just crazy! I am worried that due to their made up “default” my perfect 10+ years of paying every single bill on time will be destroyed I pleaded over and over to get to speak to a manager, ideally Justin Barret, the customer service rep eventually agreed and one of the managers will call me in 48 hours.
But this low level of customer support is simply not good enough; they could potentially be destroying my chances at future credit by giving me a default due to their errors and their communication and system failures.
So I have turned to social media to highlight this crazy situation and see if someone high up at MBNA will finally take this serious and close my account in full and make sure that no black marks from MBNA end up on my credit record because this is not my fault.
I have also reported this matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service in case they fail to act. Help me by spreading the word via social media as to what’s going on, the only language huge multi-nationals understand is people power, “bad press” is what makes them act, otherwise your just another ant in their global debt system, thanks.