I got a letter yesterday saying that new charges and fees would now be placed on my Bendigo Blue (ATM) card, and my Red credit card.

Blue card – $3 a month. Credit card – $45 a year annual fee.

I can change the Blue card to a fee-free cash card, but there are no such alternatives at Bendigo for a fee-free credit card. Looks like I’ll be getting a Virgin card as well.

I just feel sorry for all the people in rural and regional towns that the big banks have deserted, and who have supported the spread and establishment of Bendigo Community Banks all over Victoria.

For these people in isolated towns, there are no alternatives. They might not be able to get to the next biggest town to swap accounts. As it is, they show loyalty to Bendigo Bank and this is what they cop in return.

Its disgusting that Bendigo use the excuse of “increasing costs of service provisions” etc as the reason for the fee hikes. Last I looked Bendigo raked in $75 million in profit in the six months to December 2007, and were involved in taking over other banks. It doesn’t sound like they are struggling for resources for mine.

Bendigo, this isn’t how a true community bank would treat its customers.

I didn’t really mind carrying two cards, so I left the branch moderately happy.

+/– It turns out that it is possible to associate my two accounts on one card. (+ for being able to do it. — for being given wrong information.)
++++ I found this out when the junior teller came up to me in the street as I left another shop two doors down. She assured me that not only was the association possible, but had been completed.

Yes, the teller realising the mistake came around from behind the security screen, walked out of the bank and looked for me out on the street to apologise and make sure I understood my (mild) desire for a single card had actually been carried out.

I can’t imagine tellers from the ANZ taking such a step. I was most impressed!

+ Went into the branch, and, as usual, was immediately greeted with no queue.

+ Upon asking about credit cards, I was immediately handed a folder full of details and application forms. Some of the highlights were explained to me personally before I left the bank.

- There are a wide range of credit cards available, but despite having a “comparison chart” printed out from a web-site, the differences between them were small and hard to value. It took me a long time to work out what was right for me. Confusopolies are meant to apply between banks, not inside a single bank.

- At one stage, it appeared that the most appropriate credit card to meet my needs had pictures of puppies on it. That may not seem like a problem to some people, but it caused me to ask myself difficult questions: How much would I be willing to pay in bank fees per year to not have puppies on my credit card. (Answer: About $10 per annum.)

- There was an unnecessary plethora of application forms asking for the same information, depending on which card you wanted. Some forms handled multiple card types, others were only required for puppy lovers. They could have consolidated it to one form.

- When I went in to apply, the procedure was slow and unnecessarily detailed. I understand you need to take care when providing credit, but the questions I was being asked seemed unnecessary given my credit history and the small amount of credit I was requesting. I had to wait for a long time while they photocopied my records going back 12 months. (Perhaps this serves me right for taking in more than the barest details!)

- It’s been almost week. Still haven’t received the approval.

I imagine a few Bendigo Bank employees may have stumbled across it. Your comments on the bank may have more impact on readers if you include a disclaimer about your relationship with the bank.

I, for example, am merely a customer of Bendigo Bank.

I don’t occasionally make mistakes. I regularly and persistently make mistakes.

When I am designing systems that can seriously affect people’s lives – say, for example, like systems that calculate someone’s bank balance – I try to put in protections that prevent, detect and remedy errors. I do this because I know I make mistakes frequently, and I have never trusted anyone who claims that they are different.

Nonetheless, I have been suffered under financial institutions – even very big ones – that don’t seem to have those levels of protection. (If they do have protections, it seems to be always in their favour, and never in the customers’!) The number of their mistakes that impacted me was unacceptable, and I exercised the little power that I had: changing financial institutions.

So, my motivation of trialling Bendigo Bank was to see whether their systems were robust enough to give me a feeling of security – that my money wasn’t going to be misplaced, and I wasn’t going to be spending my spare time chasing up bank errors.

I would suggest that the quick handling of the DOB error, and the high quality support-call handling of the BSB issue would suggest that they have given this type of issue some careful thought.