Stupidity Hole

So I have a personal loan that I took out a while ago for certain things and it has managed to pay off quite well. Still is.

Anyway, on Friday I moved to do an increase to reduce my repayments (as the increase would take the balance to less than what it was when I last made any major interactions with it) as well as to get half of what I want to spend on a new camera, with the intention to buy it in a few months as I wanted to be able to save myself some charges on interest and save the rest over a quicker period of time.

The first thing I asked about when I spoke to someone about doing an increase was if I would be able to keep the interest rate discount that I had (as I have one). It’s not much, but it still makes a difference.

I was told I probably would not be able to, but it didn’t make much of a difference anyway. I told them that it did for me.

I still went ahead though as, considering my repayments were going to drop either way, I wasn’t going to spend a conversation arguing about half a percent.

So I went ahead and told the person my reason for pursuing the increase. I was told that I would have to apply down the track if I’m using the money down the track and that my application would be withdrawn.

I asked if that meant I’d have to keep paying higher repayments until then (or something along those lines), to which I was told that I would have to keep paying my current repayments.

I told the person that I would then use the money for something else then.
He said that he could not approve my application due to what I had previously said, to which I told him that I had changed my mind and will use it for something else, so I won’t use it for what I had previously chosen to use it for.

This went back and forth for a short period, until eventually the person I was speaking to said that he could not approve my application as he had reason to believe I was not going to use the money for what I said and would be putting a note on my file advising of this.
That may not be exact, but it was pretty close to what he said.

I asked if I could speak to his supervisor, to which he told me I could and then put me on hold for a few minutes.

Once he came back, he told me that he spoke to his supervisor and said that he could proceed with my application, but if I held on to the money instead of using it for its intended purpose, my bank may refuse to do business with me in the future.

Anyway, the application processed, then towards the end, I found out that they were going to give me an interest rate that was two percent higher than their advertised rate.

I will admit that their advertised rate was preceded with the word “from”, but I was still a bit shocked. The justification was that I was not borrowing enough.

They were generous enough to knock half a percent off though, and ultimately my repayments were decreasing which was what I was predominantly aiming for anyway.

So I got approved and then I used the money for its intended purpose, so it all kind of worked out.

Now I know that CBA does not owe me anything. I know that I’m using their services. I know they don’t owe me a lower rate just because I’ve been a customer of theirs for the majority of my life.

I’m still giving them my business and don’t need to have some customer service rep overtly imply that I’m a liar he’s going to place a note on my file stating that.

I also don’t need to be treated as though it’s a privilege to be with them.

Whilst this is only a short version of what happened, the fact is that I’ve kind of had enough of CBA.

A number of months ago, my account had money pulled out of it and they didn’t notify me until after I found out that I was unable to access my bank account because they didn’t want to wake me up with a message.

After being on the phone with them for a lengthy period of time about this, they then sent me the message advising that I needed to speak to their securities team.

There’s been a number of other things that have happened as well, but I’m not going to go into them.

I know business change how they operate which includes loan approval processes in the financial industry as I worked in home loans long enough to see how it changes.

The thing is though is that I can’t tell if this was one customer service rep or a procedural change, but it was poor customer service that I received.

I remember that their process used to be a bit more stringent when it came to providing some documents (such as pay slips and identification which is now no longer required), but they weren’t concerned with how soon the money was going to be used.

I kind of had the feeling that if I had just requested to refinance to full term, I would have been rejected.

Anyway, I’ve started looking for another financial institution that would be happy to have my business. CBA is a massive institution and I’m sure they don’t care about one customer who doesn’t provide much to them, but I’m definitely done with them.

It’s hard to tell which are better than others, but I’m sure it’s less likely that I’ll speak to another institution that will imply I’m a liar.

I’d rather get better service.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 22:11:83

A slowly typed whinge post. Not entirely surprising.

I just find myself really disappointed by CBA right now.

I know I shouldn’t feel that way about the organisation, but the thing is that person is their representative.

And yes, I did use the money for something other than a camera.

Written from my (new) desk at home.