-- Business blog now available --

A quick note to say that I've set up my Business blog, to be able to speak with a clear voice on both personal and work issues (i.e. by having separate blogs).

Tuesday 13 January 2009

Is Diners Club listening to the Groundswell?

diner's club
A different type of diner’s club ;-). Photo credit to MamaT
A rant about not being able to get my money from Diners Club – the charge card people.
Set of bullet points to summarise the situation (from my perspective, of course):
  • I have over-conscientiously credited £550 to my Diners Club account – i.e. to pay off what I thought was an outstanding balance
  • I would like the money back – i.e. I don’t want to spend it
    • Anyway, not many places actually take Diners
    • I’m not staying in hotels, so haven’t got any big ticket things to spend the balance on…
  • I first start asking for my money to be wired to my current account, probably back in October
    • however, there’s some technical issue or other
  • I also wanted to pay off my credit card – but they couldn’t do that either
    • I thought the credit card was owned by the same company, but I now find that Diners Club has been sold by Citigroup [find out who has bought them]
  • Because it hasn’t happened, I’m wondering whether Diners Club is deliberately retaining my credit balance because they are affected by the Credit Crunch
    • I’m rather worried I’m not going to see the money again
  • Supervisor
    • There never seems to be a supervisor to talk with
    • I have been promised a supervisor call-back on two occasions – it hasn’t happened
    • Either they haven’t called, or they haven’t called my mobile
    • Presently I have no messages on the landline number they have for me, and I don’t recall their supervisor calling on my mobile
  • That said, Diners have a great first line
    • Plaudits especially to Juliet – extremely helpful, patient and courteous
    • Also, Shirley
    • There’s no point having a pop at the call centre people – they are told to speak to a script, and have little discretion.
Anyway, I have no confidence in Diners Club as an organisation, and I’m writing this because I want my money back!
The title of this blog relates to whether I will get satisfaction from Diners Club in the UK because they are listening to people like me to blog and tweet about corporations – although I think not.
If that’s the case, then I will use this post in future to agitate for better Customer service through social media tools like Twitter etc..
I have posted to my personal blog, as it’s a personal matter, but it could be an interesting case study!
I’m going to get in contact with their UK head office – Google led me to this post with contacts details for the Chief Executive’s complaint wrangler.
Update: I've hopefully removed all the apostrophe's from Diners, apart from the photo credit...