Credit Card Service Frustrating At Times

I’m writing this as my significant other is yelling on the phone to an automated voice system because his credit card was declined for no reason at all at Home Depot. I really think that for all the interest you are paying your credit cards, that they could come up with a better customer service system that actually connects you to a real human, right away, without going through menu after menu and frustrations at being passed around when the person who does finally get you on the phone doesn’t know what you’re talking about or they have to transfer you to another area because they don’t “have the authorization” to do anything about your problem.

After talking to a woman for ten minutes about what the possible problem could be behind the declination of the credit card at Home Depot, he had to prod her to look into whether there was a block for some online charges he had made a couple days ago. I’m all for protecting the consumer form fraud and identity theft, but when a block is put on the card, they should be able to rectify the situation immediately.

The problem is that they advised him there was block on his credit card after ten minutes and at his suggestion at what might be wrong, and then gave him a fraud specialty department number because they couldn’t take the block off, only this special department could. Well, lo and behold, when he called the fraud prevention department at this particular credit card company, they were closed all day Saturday and all day Sunday. Now, what if this was being used for an emergency or he was away on travel and this was his only credit card, what then?

I thought it was awful service, so I told him to call the regular customer service number again and see if there was anyone that could lift the credit card block in the meantime, I mean, there should be SOMEONE there on a Saturday, when people tend to use credit cards like crazy, to lift an accidentally imposed block, right? Wrong, after a half hearted apology, he is left without his credit card until monday, when a credit card fraud specialist can lift the hold. I told him he should get a good balance transfer credit card. Ridiculous!