Activation Stations

Is anyone else sick of this “card activation” crap from the banks? I can see the reasoning behind phoning up and saying that you’ve received your card in principle, but really it just seems a thinly veiled excuse to try and peddle unwanted crap. I phoned up today to activate my new Clydesdale Bank MasterCard Debit Card that they so excitedly heralded in the letter I received a few weeks ago. Low and behold the number doesn’t go through to the Clydesdale call centre, but to third party: a company by the name of CPP. The operator on the end of the line was pleasant enough, but I couldn’t help but wonder at the irony of a third party being involved as a go between for confirming receipt of my card. I presume, and sincerely hope, that CPP have only very limited access to account information because it seems to me there’s little difference between phoning them up, and getting Manky Jimmy the town layabout to phone the Clydesdale on my behalf.

The first time I had to call one of these things I didn’t even realise that I wasn’t talking to the Clydesdale Bank itself. Well not until the real reason for having to go through a third party manifested itself. CPP are in the business of providing card insurance and identify fraud insurance policies. As soon as the operator has dispensed with the two second job of asking for your name, address and date of birth to activate your card they launch straight into the sales script. The worst element of this badly disguised thing is that the bank gives you no alternative manner to activate your card. If you don’t call, and set yourself up for the sales pitch, then you’ve automatically shot yourself in the foot because your original card will stop working within six weeks of the new one being issued. In the meantime you’re stuck because the new one won’t work until you phone to activate it.

Now all credit to the CPP operators as they stop the pitch, wish you a merry Christmas as and ring off as soon as you tell them you’re not interested, but I wonder how many people have sat and listened, or even taken out the policies simply because they thought they were dealing with one of those “nice folk at the bank.”

My dearest banks, I appreciate that card activation is an important safeguard, but could you do it without the involvement of a third party and the associated hard sell.

Please?