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New Marketing Trick from Credit Card Companies

Thursday, June 24, 2010

I’ve received at least two phone calls a week from credit card telemarketers, and from what I observed, here’s a new trend of how they do things:

Telemarketer: Selamat siang, dengan Bapak Bellamy BeneDITO Budiman? (Yes, they never got my name right)
Me: Ini dari mana ya?
Telemarketer: Saya XXX dari bank XXX.
Me: Ada apa ya?
Telemarketer: Apa betul Bapak mengajukan aplikasi kartu kredit ke kami?
Me: Ngga tuh.
Telemarketer: Tapi data-data Bapak sudah lengkap, apa mau saya bantu proses?
Me: Ngga.
Telemarketer: Sayang nih, Pak, datanya sudah lengkap.
Me: Fuck you and everyone who works there. NGGA! *hangs up*

And, yes, that’s just about it, around twice a week.

Sorry, ANZ, Your Trick Won’t Work on Me

Monday, January 25, 2010

Yes, it’s still about ANZ. Not only that they mistyped my name on the credit card, they are apparently sleazy enough (or at least they thought they are) to pull some tricks to get me to pay the annual credit card fee up front and get away with it.

So here’s the story, some time ago, a sales called me if I wanted a gold credit card, and I asked him back if the first annual fee is free or not. He said yes, so okay, fine, sign me up for that. Then, that stupid name mistype fiasco came up. Now, they are sending me the first bill, with a 300k charge printed on it for the annual fee. This is not what I signed up for, so I called them.

They said, there is this promo that if I spend 100k before the end of this month, I will get a “dana belanja” that is worth 300k to be credited to my credit card next month. The customer support said, their policy is to charge the annual fee up front, and this so-called “dana belanja” can be used to cover up my bills. Yes, just as long as I spend another 100k with the card. She said that I should just make the payment for this annual fee, it’s going to be free anyway in a sense, according to them.

So what if I don’t want to use the card next month, or in fact for the entire year? That means, that 300k worth of “dana belanja” is stuck in the card right? And that I have to actually SPEND another 300k to be able to enjoy that friggin “dana belanja”.

I told the officer to cancel the card, but she wanted me to call back tomorrow at office hours. I told her this:

“SAYA NGGA MAU TAHU, MBAK BIKIN LAPORANNYA DAN SAYA MAU MEREKA YANG TELEPON! KALO BESOK SAYA NGGA DITELEPON, AWAS AJA.”

And so she made that report. Nice try, ANZ, better luck next time, I’m canceling the card. And oh, a piece of advice. If you want to trick someone, try someone that’s actually dumber than you, it might just actually work out. Going through things like this with me, seriously, it’ll just make you even dumber than you already are.

Danamon Credit Cards

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Several months ago I tried to apply for a Danamon VISA. What for? For fuel cashbacks at Shell. That’s why I opted for the gold card, and that was what I promised. When the card arrived it turned out that it was a regular VISA that didn’t even qualify for fuel cashbacks. Disappointed, I called their hotline and told them I don’t want to accept this friggin’ card if it’s not a gold card, and I told them “You know what? Just cancel the whole goddamned deal!” And so they did, or at least I thought they did.

A few months after that, they called me and told me that I was still a customer of Danamon’s credit card services. Right. I have to go over everything again to tell them that I fucking cancelled the card. And so they did, or at least I thought they did.

TODAY, THEY SENT ME A NEW CARD. WELL, GUESS WHAT DANAMON? SCREW YOU AND YOU CAN SHOVE YOURSELF DOWN TO YOUR OWN ASS!