Well, holy moly. I just tried to increase the credit limit on one of my Barclay Cards. They have an online process for this, but it came back with "An error occurred while processing your request. We apologize for any inconvenience." Then it said I could call a phone number for customer service and gave the same number on the back of my credit card.
This is where things get super sketch.
The customer service rep who answered asked me the normal questions (last four digits of card, last for digits of social, birthdate.) Then, though, he said he would not be able to assist with a credit line increase request himself, and that I needed to call another number for that. Ok, fine, I was half expecting that, and it was an 800 number. I wrote the number down and repeated it back to him to make sure I had recorded it correctly so I could call after hanging up.
This is where things get super sketch:
I called that new number, and the computer voice asked me if I was interested in a special offer to press one if I was over 50. Well, that's not normal. Huge red flag. So I pressed 1. And the new rep that answered went into this bizarre hard sell for a "medic alert bracelet."
Okay, well that's clearly fraud. I hanged up and dialed again to make sure I hadn't made a typo in dialing.
I hanged up again and called the number on my card to report it to their fraud department. Seems obvious that they have at least one corrupt customer service agent, if not an entire subcontract call center that is just a front for a scam call center.
Sheesh.
I had a similar thing happen recently. I called Alaska Airlines recently to try and change a flight reservation. The options were press 1 to book a new reservation or press 2 to change a reservation. When I selected 2 the automated message said "this line is for new reservations only" and then hung up. I called back again (just hit redial on my cell phone) planning to press 1 and see if I could talk to a real person. This time I got the over 50 question and when I pressed the number for no I was immediately transferred to a call center for a medic alart bracelet (I'm not totally sure, I hunt up after about 3 seconds).
When I checked the number again (I had written it down after getting it from a legitimate Alaska representative on another line), I saw that when I wrote down the final digit my 2 looked like a 7, so I had been dialing the wrong number. I guess this is probably pretty common that these scammers find legitimate 800 numbers and then buy up a bunch of similar numbers hoping to get misdials.
On an unrelated note, what's a good Barclay's card to start aging? My current card is doing great with the old company selling 3 slots every cycle but at this rate it will hit the max in another year or two. I'm looking at the UPromise card as I think I can link it to one of the 529 plans for my kids - and $0 annual fee ($100 cash back bonus). On the other hand, will that type of card be less likely to get a nice high credit limit compared to one with a ~$100 annual fee? The annual fee is a business expense, so I'm not too concerned about it. I don't have any need for a travel card as I almost never fly or stay at a hotel and that seems to be the majority of their other cards.
Topic: Selling Tradelines / Piggybacking Part II: $1000+/hr, 20-40k/yr. Side Gig (Read 1680351 times)
