John Lewis sent me a letter saying that "while upgrading our computer systems..some customers experienced issues" which prompted me to check my account and discover the last 2 monthly payments had been rejected causing late payment fees. Contacting customer services, I was told this is because the reference no on my payment instructions from my bank has not been updated since I was sent a new card nearly 2 years ago. The payments have been going through fine until September last year and suddenly stopped.
As a former business analyst, it is clear to me that their updated system has stopped accepting payments with reference numbers from previous cards and no-one has informed the customers. If you pay on their website, it's no problem but, if you have a payment instruction set up with your bank, it is rejected.
I took the time and trouble to explain to the customer services rep that this is unacceptable because everyone has to change their reference numbers every time they have a new card and to do this for every card would be a major pain, especially if John Lewis didn't notify them that they had to do it. The rep ARGUED with me and said it was perfectly OK because a new card had to be validated! In my view their IT system is rubbish and so is their customer service which refuses to even flag up a problem so the IT people can fix it!
My solution is relatively easy - get a card from a different provider.
Reviewed on: 23rd January 2017
