Canada-Complaints.com » Business & Finance » Complaint / review: MBNA - Ripoff Harrasses Employers when employees fail to make credit card payments | #15636

MBNA
Ripoff Harrasses Employers when employees fail to make credit card payments

As an individual, I receive an offer to take out another credit card about once a week. You know, maybe it's a VISA card that offers to make contributions to a charity when I use the card, maybe a MasterCard that pays a few cents to my professional association, etc. Read further down the fine print in the offer and the cards, while they might be reputable credit card names, are all managed and provided through MBNA.

So what happens to the poor saps who actually fill out and accept these cards? Lots of them wind up with more credit card debt than they can handle on their incomes. That's where my story starts.

I'm the Human Resources person for my company and I am responsible for payroll. We had an unfortunate employee fall into the plastic trap, had his marriage disolve, lost his house, etc. The guy's working hard, but still teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Naturally, he can't make his credit card payments. MBNA had our name and phone number as his employer. They began calling us on a daily basis, demanding that we call the employee to the phone, pass instructions to him to return their calls. Every day, a different collections agent from MBNA would call.

The receptionist explained repeatedly to the MBNA callers that as a matter of policy, we do not relay personal calls or messages to productions workers on duty. All to no avail. The agents are insistant and rude, going so far as to say, "well, he must take a break sometime. Have him call then". Totally ignoring that we don't take & deliver personal messages to staff, totally not interested that they have interupted our business, are tying up our phone line and receptionist, etc.

Our operations manager answered one of these calls and said, "look, we're not relaying your message or anyone elses, don't call again" and the MBNA caller told him "be ready to have your phone keep ringin' three times a day then, because I can't take Mr. X's name off the call list until I hear from him". The manager replied that he would seek a restraining order against them and the MBNA caller shot back, "yeah, well that'll just cost you a lot of legal fees" and hung up. More calls the next day.

At this point the matter was referred to me and I asked that any future calls from MBNA be directed to me. Wasn't long before I had one. I asked for the caller's name. I informed the "MELANIE" that, as an employer, we are not responsible for the debts or financial affairs of our employees short of receiving legal garnishment of wages. If this employee owes MBNA, they can take out a garnishment. Well, no Melanie says, they can't do that because they're a banking institution (which is fuddleduddle).

I advised MELANIE that calls aren't going to get you your money because it is not our policy to relay personal messages and that the employee in question isn't even in the same geographic location as the office number you're calling. "Well, " says MELANIE, "that's your problem to work out. You can get him to call me back if you want these calls to stop."

I asked to speak to the manager and MELANIE says, "I am the Manager". "Well, then who do you report to? " MELANIE says, "to no one, I am the top person." "REALLY, like I should believe this collections call is being placed by the top person of all MBNA Canadian operations". "Believe what you like, " says Melanie. I got MBNA's mailing address from Melanie and let her go.

I don't take kindly to rudeness and I knew that what MBNA was doing to us was unethical and probably illegal. So, I did some research. MBNA is not a charter bank and is therefore governed provincially under the Financial Services Commission of Ontario. They have an Ombudsman for Loans & Trust Complaints, so I filed a formal complaint, gave them all the details above and asked not only that they be investigated and but that they be directed to stop harrassing my company. I sent a copy of the complaint letter to MBNA's office. I have not heard back from Financial Services Commission but, guess what? Two days later, the calls stopped.

If you are a third party to collections calls, do not accept intimidation and harrassment from these kinds of outfits. They are the ones who solicit people into debt. They should expect that there will be people that cannot handle credit and will default. They have no right to make your life miserable because they chose to lend to someone they shouldn't have. Report them.

Jeannie
Belleville, Ontario
Canada

Date:

Company: MBNA

Country: Canada   Province: Ontario   City: Ottawa
Address: 1600 James Naismith Drive

Category: Business & Finance

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