Never Ending Wait: Cancellation of Standard Chartered’s Credit Card

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Photo by rupixen on Unsplash

This is definitely a not sponsored article and when there are any compliments, they are purely from my experience of using it.

As much as the card is very decent, unfortunately the process of cancelling the credit card through the ibanking app is not.

Let me gives you a little bit of background.

I have been using this credit card from Standard Chartered for a few years now. Just like anything in life, you would have do a review from time to time, this includes your cards. They can be debit, credit, whatever. As I went through the review, I decided to consolidate and update the cards that I would be using moving forward. I had a long thought about it and unfortunately, this card from Standard Chartered has to be retired.

What card is this? This is the Standard Chartered Simply Cash credit card from Singapore. It used to be known as Standard Chartered Unlimited. Here is the picture:

Source: Standard Chartered website

This card is a cashback card, very decent as it offers 1.5% as of writing this article and there is no cap to whatsoever. It may not be the best card out there, but I have to say it is decently good as a backup. I will stop here as this is not a review article.

So, as it no longer belongs to my team, I had to cancel it. Now, Standard Chartered has been making improvement to their user experience for both their site and mobile app ibanking. This includes the supposedly credit card cancellation feature.

My first thought was: Well, this is gonna be fuss-free, I mean now they have that feature in their mobile app.

I was wrong. We all know that whenever we have to cancel any cards, we had to make a call to banks and this can be a horrendous experience sometimes. No, I am not talking about the people behind the phone, but the hotline’s automatic reply-er thingy that makes you press on numbers to reach the people behind the phone. And boy, that can be a maze.

So, for those people out there, just take note of my experience here with Standard Chartered’s system, not the people.

I proceeded to cancel my credit card from my mobile app. It was very straight forward. It is exactly just like the guide here from their site.

To summarize the 6 steps further, basically, you just need to select the reason why you are cancelling, and then which card you want to cancel, and that’s it. Here is the snapshot of it:

Once you have submitted, the system will basically update from “RECEIVED” to “PROCESSING” in like 2 minutes. But don’t be fooled, these are all automated, so it simply says that they have received your request and that’s it.

You will then receive an email, indicating that they have received your request and your status will be updated within 3 working days. 3 WORKING DAYS.

I waited, and waited. It has been more than a week, and there was no news. I can be patient about it as initially I was just thinking that maybe they are taking their time to check all are proper, no debts, nothing. Then, I started to realise that it shouldn’t take them this long when it says 3 working days only. You will be surprised at the ending, keep on reading.

Then, it was very timely I was contacted by their loan department to, you know, do promotion and stuff. So then I decided to ask the nice lady about my request and I was given their hotline number instead as she is not from the account nor card department.

I went through multiple times of calling because of the “maze” and finally I got through one fine morning. A very polite, nice guy picked up and when I was asked what my concern was, I told him without hesitation: how my request’s status is still pending and I was promised 3 working days and there is still no news.

The first thing the person did was apologising for it, and then will do an identity verification. After that, they would double check on your request. And then, they will manually raise the request again, so that they can cancel your card on the spot. Yes, like at that moment when you are still on the phone, they will help you to cancel. Here is a snapshot of another request that had to be raised just so that it could be completed.

By calling, it helps to save your time. It was done within seconds, maybe a couple of minutes max including all the stuff before that. So I decided to ask about the request I raised. Well, it was an automated request, by the system. So as a person that works as a software engineer, I pretty much just made an assumption that nobody tends to it, hence for such ticket, they kind of just never progress.

I am still in disbelief about how fast it takes to cancel just by calling. I mean, this was my first time having something with Standard Chartered, and having their automated system not attended is just like a trap. People who don’t know, will just keep on waiting and this is like a waste of time. Especially in this era where technology is just a norm, people will tend to just use mobile apps for convenience like me.

So just take note about this, the faster way is still to just call in and tell the person directly. They may do it for you on the spot. And if they don’t, at least you know you can just call in to check the next time.

Wrap Up

Always remember to be responsible when you are using credit cards. If you can’t control yourself, don’t use a credit card, let alone credit cards. Talk to your financial advisor when you have any doubts.

With that, thank you for reading my rant. If you think these might be helpful to other people, feel free to share. Also, I am not a professional and this article is by no means an advice to buy nor sell. Always do your own research. Believe in yourself and not other people.

Thank you for reading.

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