It was about time we switched credit cards. Moving cards allows us to take advantage of zero interest for a while on an oustanding balance and also adds a level of security by effectively resetting our credit card number (so long as you cancel the old one).
The main reason for moving from Egg to the Post Office card was the fact that the Post Office card does not levy a foreign exchange fee on purchases from abroad (in person or online). Being fed up with being fleeced 2.75% on avergae, finding a card with a 0% foreign loading fee was a must. We found one.
The other thing I wanted was a card that I could manage online. Yep. The Post Office Credit Card does that too. You get sent a user id and a security number seperately in the post and have to call in to activate it.
That duly done, I try and log in. No joy. Maybe we typed it wrong? No. Definately correct. Do it really slowly this time… hang on. Out user id is seven digits long and the userid box is six digits long. Ah! It seems they have issued enough cards to exceed the maximum customer count of 999,999 customers. Obviously they are being very successful. They must have been signing customers up at quite a rate for nobody to notice the arbitrary “1 million” ceiling figure arriving and flashing past until customers like myself started to ring in.
It must have occured in the last few days too as when I called to activate my unnaturally high user id, the chap in the call centre did not batter an eyelid (not that I could see him – maybe he was batting away but being reserved in his conversation with me).
The lady I spoke to about my login problem was very apologetic and declared there was a “technical problem with some recently issued numbers”. From my user id, I’m reckoning about 20,000 of them. That’s 20,000 customers who cannot login to the online service. Quite a good feat – denying access to your own service.
So there you have it. Post Office credit card. Very successful. Lots of new customers every week. Shame their website developers have a very small abacus.
