The Soapbox (Moan, groan, and vent about stuff)

[AdrianH]

Bought BA tickets for folks to come over next year. They are the passengers, I payed with my Standard Bank Credit Card. The transactions have been debited, but the authorization is still held, so credit card now has "double" the amount missing from available balance.

So I call Standard Bank. After 45 minutes, they say I need to contact BA to cancel the authorization as they can't do it by my instruction. I call BA. 1 hour later, they can't help because "They need to perform data identity check" with the passenger. Even though I made the booking, did the payment, got an email, have all the details, they need to speak to passenger. This argument goes on and on, they refuse to budge, they refuse to escalate, they just keep saying " We can't share any info of the booking with you" and I keep saying "I don't need you to share info with me, I have it, I booked it". It becomes a stale mate and the lady asks if I can please get my mom to phone this number as then they can add me to the booking.

So I get my mom to phone BA with the number provided. They ask her name, good. They ask the flight details, good. They ask the billing details, she doesn't have them, because I payed for the booking. After some backwards and forwards, they basically say I need to lodge a dispute against BA at Standard Bank.

So I call Standard Bank. Tell my story again for the umptieth time, the SB lady says she wants to check something and will call me back. Didn't believe it but was too tired to argue. To her credit, 15 minutes I get a call back and she has some BA person on the phone. So now we are having a conference call. I confirm I made payment, the BA dude confirms they receive payment, the SB lady asks if BA can request cancellation on authorization, BA dude says no, it should be done by bank. SB lady says she needs an email, who is the department that deals with cancelling authorization. BA says they don't have such a department. Still not resolved, lady will see if she can cancel it via Standard Bank system.

Ag, over 3 hours being on calls with no resolution. I am a broken man right now.

 

[bokka1]

I coincidentally saw this on Reddit:

 

[AdrianH]

@bokka1

"experiencing large call volume" They have said this since covid lockdowns started, and never removed it.

Dunno, its like since they got rid of a lot of their staff in lockdown and pushed people to use online mediums to contact and complain to them, its like the decided to just leave it that way making it difficult to sort something out. Even calling them take 2 minutes to get through the opening monologue of the call centre.

The issue is that for my elderly parents, I really need direct flights between SA and UK. From what I know, that's either British Airways or Virgin Atlantic, with the latter being quite a bit more expensive.

 

[Evil_Villain]

I don't recall ever phoning any company for an issue that wasn't "experiencing high call volumes"

 

[AfricanTech]

Bought BA tickets for folks to come over next year. They are the passengers, I payed with my Standard Bank Credit Card. The transactions have been debited, but the authorization is still held, so credit card now has "double" the amount missing from available balance.

So I call Standard Bank. After 45 minutes, they say I need to contact BA to cancel the authorization as they can't do it by my instruction. I call BA. 1 hour later, they can't help because "They need to perform data identity check" with the passenger. Even though I made the booking, did the payment, got an email, have all the details, they need to speak to passenger. This argument goes on and on, they refuse to budge, they refuse to escalate, they just keep saying " We can't share any info of the booking with you" and I keep saying "I don't need you to share info with me, I have it, I booked it". It becomes a stale mate and the lady asks if I can please get my mom to phone this number as then they can add me to the booking.

So I get my mom to phone BA with the number provided. They ask her name, good. They ask the flight details, good. They ask the billing details, she doesn't have them, because I payed for the booking. After some backwards and forwards, they basically say I need to lodge a dispute against BA at Standard Bank.

So I call Standard Bank. Tell my story again for the umptieth time, the SB lady says she wants to check something and will call me back. Didn't believe it but was too tired to argue. To her credit, 15 minutes I get a call back and she has some BA person on the phone. So now we are having a conference call. I confirm I made payment, the BA dude confirms they receive payment, the SB lady asks if BA can request cancellation on authorization, BA dude says no, it should be done by bank. SB lady says she needs an email, who is the department that deals with cancelling authorization. BA says they don't have such a department. Still not resolved, lady will see if she can cancel it via Standard Bank system.

Ag, over 3 hours being on calls with no resolution. I am a broken man right now.

Beyond frustrating.

Appeal via social media maybe (Facebook) - they usually respond to that

 

[s@tanboy]

Why does WhatsAppWeb want to update constantly? It's quiet for months and then suddenly 4 days in a row.

The same thing happened a few months back.

Bloody annoying.

 

[AdrianH]

So its been resolved. Between BA and Standard Bank, they cancelled the hanging authorizations on my credit card.

 

[Old User]

So its been resolved. Between BA and Standard Bank, they cancelled the hanging authorizations on my credit card.

I don’t understand what the issue was? Did you want to cancel the tickets?

These things clear themselves in a few days if it was just a normal transaction and no big deal really.

 

[AdrianH]

I don’t understand what the issue was? Did you want to cancel the tickets?

These things clear themselves in a few days if it was just a normal transaction and no big deal really.

No didn't want to cancel.

I bought the tickets on the 1st August and authorizations were put onto CC.

On the 2nd August, the transactions were processed, and debited to the CC

On 8th August, the authorizations were still on CC even though transactions had been processed.

The tickets were R27k, and the authorizations were R27k, meaning the CC with limit of R50k was unusable.

 

[Old User]

No didn't want to cancel.

I bought the tickets on the 1st August and authorizations were put onto CC.

On the 2nd August, the transactions were processed, and debited to the CC

On 8th August, the authorizations were still on CC even though transactions had been processed.

The tickets were R27k, and the authorizations were R27k, meaning the CC with limit of R50k was unusable.

Very odd indeed.

I’ve often seen the reserves doubled up like that but never against the balance so when it takes a week it wasn’t much of an issue.

When I’ve travelled and had to place reserves against hotel stays they’ll often sit around for a week before clearing.

Suspect they just self-cleared without anyone actually lifting a finger.

Standard Bank sounds the usual sub-standard.

 

[AdrianH]

Very odd indeed.

I’ve often seen the reserves doubled up like that but never against the balance so when it takes a week it wasn’t much of an issue.

When I’ve travelled and had to place reserves against hotel stays they’ll often sit around for a week before clearing.

Suspect they just self-cleared without anyone actually lifting a finger.

Standard Bank sounds the usual sub-standard.

I should actually get around to closing the account now as I only had it due to having a rental property, but sold that earlier this year. Also, recently bought a house here, so the chances of me coming back to SA are pretty much nil now.

What's the bet I can't close the accounts without visiting the branch [emoji53]