Credit Card Confusion

Finally, my BDO credit card arrived yesterday. Although I am undeniably happy at the arrival, I was less than satisfied on the whole process. Before I walk through it, let me clarify though that it was not entirely BDO's fault and I am by no means condemning their services to hell. This is more or less a petty grievance rant vent thing. So those avoiding a teensy bit of bad vibes, go browse someone else's blog. Ok, here we go.

December 2012, (yes, it was that long ago) if I am not mistaken, I decided to apply for a BDO credit card. I have recently terminated my Metrobank credit card due to their unsatisfactory service and their audacity to bill me for the annual fee, which they promised to waive for a lifetime --an altogether different story and I'm not in the mood to get into. Anyway, the lady at the counter said that since I had standing savings accounts with their bank, I could be recommended for the card instead of applying for it from scratch. She assured me that this would entail a shorter processing time. True enough, by January 2013, taking into account the holidays, etc. the recommendation was approved and my card was supposed to be enroute to my billing address.

I usually use my home address since I do not want bills coming for me at the office. I was not aware, however, that BDO has a strict credit card delivery policy, wherein upon unavailability of the card holder to personally receive it, they do not deliver/release the cards without proper authorization and/or endosement. Moreover, even if the receiving party does have a letter of authorization, it is still upon the courier's judgement whether to release the card or not. Since during their delivery hours, nobody's at home to receive it and they won't trust the condo's guards with it, the delivery kept being deferred... for months.

Now this rule speaks volumes of the importance BDO puts into their customers' security and I was really impressed, albeit the hassles I was about to go through to change the delivery address. I had an HSBC credit card before, and as previously mentioned, a Metrobank card as well. Both cards were delivered without needing any authorization note. I can just imagine the horrors of going through endless hours of trying to sort out a fraud.

To change my delivery and/or billing address, I needed to email them a formal letter of request as well as a billing reference to prove I am indeed working at my office. Since all my my bills are being sent home, I did not have anything with my name and office address except for my mobile account statement. The hurdle? Since it's being sent to me online, the billing team did not have the correct floor on the address. I had to have it changed. They told me it would reflect on the next bill... a month from then. After a month, I was finally able to sent the email request to BDO.

In less than a week, I was able to receive a response confirmation that my request has been processed and to expect the adjustments 10 working days after. This would have been more impressive had the card been delivered to the new address. Guess what? I received it at home (original address provided) yesterday.

To add to the confusion, I distinctly remember wanting and ticking the BDO classic mastercard black on the application, simply because the black card looks sleek and elegant. Yeah, I'm shallow that way. So, which one did I get? The white shop more card. I'm guessing this might be because I went through the recommendation path instead of the usual apply from scratch path. Luckily I've been on a fancy-white-feeling-classicly-clean phase for a while now so I did not throw a fit.

I wonder what my first unjustified purchase will be.

Edit: By the way, they also sent me a complementary SM advantage card. I already have one. So I guess I would have to go to SM to sort the cards out. I don't know whether to be happy or sad about it.