A little over a year ago I closed my credit card account with Westpac as I'd found a better deal with Citibank.
Last week, in BPaying my Citibank credit card bill via internet banking, I mistakenly selected the Westpac BPay details instead of Citibank. I ended up paying just shy of $3k into my defunct Westpac credit card. I didn't realise this mistake until I logged into my Citibank account today to check my current credit card balance and its hyper-inflated value, as well as interest charges. As I always pay my credit card bills on time the interest charges are highly unusual.
Realising my mistake I called up my credit union who informed me that they could do an electronic trace for $25 but recommended that I try Westpac as they may be able to reverse the charge for free. I found the credit cards service number on westpac.com.au, called em up and was, once again, amazed at the helpfulness of the Westpac cards service guy. He confirmed my details and went about reversing the BPay transaction, and despite the stupidity of my mistake he kept apologising for how long it would take to reverse the transaction due to the holiday season.
In an ideal world two things would have stopped this from occurring:
- BPay receivers shouldn't accept monies for non-existent accounts / reference numbers, and
- as the Westpac guy suggested it would be good if my credit union's internet banking system automatically dropped BPay payers' details out of the system if there hadn't been any payments for 6 months. I called my credit union and the ability to delete past payers is coming in February.
Anyways, if anyone is considering a Westpac credit card, I'm quite happy to vouch for their excellent customer service. I might re-consider them in March as Qantas is shaking up the frequent flyer program.
