I met a persistent marketeer and finally decided to apply for two credit cards of Standard & Chartered Bank, that I do not really need.
I decided not to use the card until I had fixed by GIRO arrangement. I did not want to pay late and incur a penalty ($50?) as well as 2% interest charge. I know that banks make a lot of profit on these high charges.
Six months had passed. During this time, my first GIRO application disappeared mysteriously. I had to send another set. The bank told me it take 4 to 6 weeks for the GIRO to be approved.
Why so long? I thought that our banks had spent tens of million dollars on IT systems that allow electronic transactions to be made instantaneously?
I had a nasty feeling that they do not really welcome GIRO payments and to miss the chance of imposing their charges.
Nobody bothered to tell me that the GIRO payment had been approved. I had to call their hotline to find out.
After so much trouble, I lost interest to use their credit cards. I have put a reminder to cancel the credit cards when the 3 year free use period expires.
Standard Chartered Bank Singapore is greedy, the best thing is not to deal with them as they don't take care of their customers, but very persistent in finding ways to penalise you via unilateral charges, and each time is SGD80. They don't listen, it is perceived that customers' comment ranked the lowest in their priority, don't be fooled by their publicised mission statement, it is totally a different thing once you are in.
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