Statements are not fun to read – all that tiny print detail; who has the time?
Well if you don’t have the time, you’d better have the money, because sooner or later your aversion to examining your bank statement or store card statement is going to cost you.
Purchases, debit orders and insurance policies not made or authorised by legitimate account holders are padding millions of accounts across the country.
Some were agreed to, but are no longer relevant: last week a woman e-mailed me to say she’d taken out an R80 cellphone insurance policy on a handset she bought on her store account 12 years ago, and she’s just discovered she’s still paying it, a decade after she stopped using that phone.
She hadn’t spotted that line on her statement until recently.
But in recent years I’ve investigated a few cases where the consumer has been billed for a product or policy they insist they didn’t agree to.
When the mandate – the call recording which underpins the contract – is eventually produced, it features someone pretending to be the account holder, albeit not very well.
In the most recent case, Jannie Steyl of Pietermaritzburg, who has had an Edgars account for more than 20 years, recently discovered that Edcon had been charging him for an insurance premium for the past two years – most recently at R79 a month.
Edgars is part of the Edcon group, Southern Africa’s largest non-food retailer.
“I never really looked at my statements,” Steyl said, “I just made regular payments in store.”
When he finally noticed that R79 addition to his account, he asked for proof that he’d agreed to it.
When at last he got to listen – in the Midlands Mall branch of Edgars – to the recording of the March 2014 call in which he supposedly agreed to a Hollard policy called the Family Protector Plan, he heard a man who sounded nothing like him confirm that he was indeed Mr JG Steyl.
“Then the agent asked him to spell his first name, beginning with a J.
“He tried to spell Jan with about eight or nine letters, and he still couldn’t get it right. I started laughing and didn’t listen to the rest of the conversation.”
But it’s no laughing matter, of course.
How could that telesales agent possibly have thought he was talking to the real Mr JG Steyl? Accents aside, the man couldn’t even spell his name, not to mention the agent’s complete failure to ask the man to verify his ID, address and store account details.
Responding, an Edcon spokesman said the company had for the past six years mandated a third party telesales company called Rewards Co to market various products on behalf of Edcon and Hollard.
In the call in question, Steyl’s identity was not verified as it should have been, the spokesman conceded.
So who was the man trying to spell the name Jan? The spokesman claimed that the telesales agent had called Steyl’s old cellphone number, which was still on their system.
That explanation didn’t sit well with Steyl, who has used his current cellphone number for many years, and regularly gets Edgars marketing SMSs on it.
Edcon has established that the man who acquired Jannie’s “recycled” old number goes by the name of “Mr Judas” and can’t say if that’s a surname or first name.
But that number now goes straight to voicemail and I’ve been unable to ask the mysterious Mr Judas why he claimed to be Mr Steyl.
Edcon says: “The product was incorrectly enrolled onto Mr Steyl’s account due to a failure by an agent to follow defined processes and a formal letter of apology will be sent to Mr Steyl.
“Hollard and Edcon continuously review sales processes to ensure that call centres provide a service aligned to our policies and procedures and this particular matter will be addressed with Rewards Co to ensure quality assurance checks are performed…”
Jannie has been refunded R711 – all the premiums he’s been charged in the past two years. And that agent’s other calls are being reviewed to check that others haven’t ended up with this policy under similarly dubious circumstances.
If he could get it that wrong, I daresay Steyl’s case is not an isolated one. Telesales agents, let’s remember, earn commission on every successful sale.
“Both Edcon and Hollard would like to reiterate that we take the concerns raised with utmost seriousness and will endeavour to improve our service delivery to our customers,” the spokesman said.
If you are one of the 3.5 million South Africans with an Edcon account – check your statements very carefully, and if there’s a club fee or insurance premium that you don’t remember authorising, call head office and ask to be sent the call recording proving that you agreed. It’s your right.
CONTACT WENDY:
E-mail: consumer@knowler.co.za
Twitter: @wendyknowler
Whose voice is it anyway?
Well if you don’t have the time, you’d better have the money, because sooner or later your aversion to examining your bank statement or store card statement is going to cost you.
Purchases, debit orders and insurance policies not made or authorised by legitimate account holders are padding millions of accounts across the country.
Some were agreed to, but are no longer relevant: last week a woman e-mailed me to say she’d taken out an R80 cellphone insurance policy on a handset she bought on her store account 12 years ago, and she’s just discovered she’s still paying it, a decade after she stopped using that phone.
She hadn’t spotted that line on her statement until recently.
But in recent years I’ve investigated a few cases where the consumer has been billed for a product or policy they insist they didn’t agree to.
When the mandate – the call recording which underpins the contract – is eventually produced, it features someone pretending to be the account holder, albeit not very well.
In the most recent case, Jannie Steyl of Pietermaritzburg, who has had an Edgars account for more than 20 years, recently discovered that Edcon had been charging him for an insurance premium for the past two years – most recently at R79 a month.
Edgars is part of the Edcon group, Southern Africa’s largest non-food retailer.
“I never really looked at my statements,” Steyl said, “I just made regular payments in store.”
When he finally noticed that R79 addition to his account, he asked for proof that he’d agreed to it.
When at last he got to listen – in the Midlands Mall branch of Edgars – to the recording of the March 2014 call in which he supposedly agreed to a Hollard policy called the Family Protector Plan, he heard a man who sounded nothing like him confirm that he was indeed Mr JG Steyl.
“Then the agent asked him to spell his first name, beginning with a J.
“He tried to spell Jan with about eight or nine letters, and he still couldn’t get it right. I started laughing and didn’t listen to the rest of the conversation.”
But it’s no laughing matter, of course.
How could that telesales agent possibly have thought he was talking to the real Mr JG Steyl? Accents aside, the man couldn’t even spell his name, not to mention the agent’s complete failure to ask the man to verify his ID, address and store account details.
Responding, an Edcon spokesman said the company had for the past six years mandated a third party telesales company called Rewards Co to market various products on behalf of Edcon and Hollard.
In the call in question, Steyl’s identity was not verified as it should have been, the spokesman conceded.
So who was the man trying to spell the name Jan? The spokesman claimed that the telesales agent had called Steyl’s old cellphone number, which was still on their system.
That explanation didn’t sit well with Steyl, who has used his current cellphone number for many years, and regularly gets Edgars marketing SMSs on it.
Edcon has established that the man who acquired Jannie’s “recycled” old number goes by the name of “Mr Judas” and can’t say if that’s a surname or first name.
But that number now goes straight to voicemail and I’ve been unable to ask the mysterious Mr Judas why he claimed to be Mr Steyl.
Edcon says: “The product was incorrectly enrolled onto Mr Steyl’s account due to a failure by an agent to follow defined processes and a formal letter of apology will be sent to Mr Steyl.
“Hollard and Edcon continuously review sales processes to ensure that call centres provide a service aligned to our policies and procedures and this particular matter will be addressed with Rewards Co to ensure quality assurance checks are performed…”
Jannie has been refunded R711 – all the premiums he’s been charged in the past two years. And that agent’s other calls are being reviewed to check that others haven’t ended up with this policy under similarly dubious circumstances.
If he could get it that wrong, I daresay Steyl’s case is not an isolated one. Telesales agents, let’s remember, earn commission on every successful sale.
“Both Edcon and Hollard would like to reiterate that we take the concerns raised with utmost seriousness and will endeavour to improve our service delivery to our customers,” the spokesman said.
If you are one of the 3.5 million South Africans with an Edcon account – check your statements very carefully, and if there’s a club fee or insurance premium that you don’t remember authorising, call head office and ask to be sent the call recording proving that you agreed. It’s your right.
CONTACT WENDY:
E-mail: consumer@knowler.co.za
Twitter: @wendyknowler
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