Re Section 75 Claims debacle with Tesco

  • Purrfecttune's Avatar
    Eagle eye
    Having suffered previously from Tesco's complete lack of professionalism, integrity and total disregard of their customer requirements regarding a Section 75 Claim that took 15 weeks, several complaints and two payouts of compensation before it was resolved, I left this forum vowing never to return. However, I now find myself in the DREADFUL position of having to make a fresh claim booked via Tesco MC before I stopped using the card. I submitted my claim as directed to the disputes team on 22nd September via email. Tesco Bank are supposed to acknowledge it via text, but no surprises, they have not (despite me sending the claim two more times). Based on my previous experience, I will have absolutely no confidence that my claim has been properly received and/or logged until I receive ‘the text’ and therefore will resend my claim daily until I do. Here is what disgruntled customers should expect, based on my previous dealings with Tesco Bank and Section 75:Customer Services are unable to speak with the Disputes Team on your behalf.Customers are UNABLE to speak or communicate directly with the Disputes TeamDespite Tesco’s automated messages stating that claims take up to 6 weeks claims are more likely to take in excess of THREE MONTHS. To be clear: The reason for such appalling service from Tesco is because THEY ARE NOT A BANK (they are a third party provider).Real banks resolve Section 75’s within 3 to 14 days because they ONLY deal with banking.Tesco are legally, jointly responsible for failed purchases on your credit card and instead of refunding your card expediently, they wait until THEY have received the funds from the defaulter, which can obviously take months. DO NOT LET TESCO CONTINUE DOING THIS. If your claim goes beyond 6 weeks, you must make an official complaint to Tesco. DO NOT let them fob you off (standard procedure) and follow up with the Financial Ombudsman if necessary.

    Finally, Tesco Customer Service, both on this Forum and on the telephone, are genuinely full of good intentions. HOWEVER, they are not decision makers or influencers and have to do as they are told by the Management. Consequently, many of the assurances that you will receive will be meaningless. I will update this post regularly (as before) as my claim progresses (or not!) to give a fair and balanced ongoing review for those suffering similar problems with Tesco Bank.
  • 11 Replies

  • Verified Answer

    RossM's Avatar
    Former Community Manager
    Verified Answer
    I'm sorry If you misunderstood my message above but I haven't suggested that you sent this via text message, I was referring to your comment that you haven't received a text message to acknowledge receipt of your claim. At no point during the disputes process do we state we will send a text message to say we have received an email. We will only ever sent this on a completion of a dispute. We send an email to confirm the process on the first initial contact. We would not send any further emails for any other contact or claims unless we needed more information.



    I would again ask that you do not send multiple daily emails as this may delay yours and others claims by adding to our workload, and I'm unsure why you would choose not to send a private message so at least I can confirm if this has been received or not.
  • RossM's Avatar
    Former Community Manager
    Hi , I'm sorry you feel this way. I can assure you that we will do everything we can to resolve all claims as soon as we possibly can and many claims have been resolved within the 6 week time scale. However, that is not always possible and these may take longer.



    I'm afraid there are few things that you've mentioned above that aren't quite correct, so I will help to clarify these now for yourself and anyone reading this post.



    We don't acknowledge any disputes received by text message and would only send a text message to the registered mobile number when the dispute is completed. We are also not a third party provider, we underwrite our own Credit Card book. We will look to complete a chargeback where possible on accounts and have the initial transaction reversed on the first instance and if not we would look at a section 75 claim. This is standard practice within banking.



    I would ask that you don't send a daily email as this could potentially delay your own claim and that of others as each email would need to be be logged individually. Should you wish for me to check that this has been received then please send a private message to . I hope this clarifies things and apologise for any delay.
  • Purrfecttune's Avatar
    Eagle eye
    I never stated that I sent my claim by text and in fact, I DID NOT do so. I submitted it by email as directed.Tesco state that they will acknowledge by text, which is what I was referring to, and as expected, they have failed to do this. Consequently, I will continue to submit my claim daily until Tesco do acknowledge it. If in fact Tesco are not a third party provider and promote themselves as a proper bank, based on my experiences, this simply makes their ineptness far far worse, consequently, they should be banned from operating as a bank. Finally, I have learnt from experience that sending private messages are a complete waste of time (and my life) as they only result in receiving further false assurances. All due respect to you Ross, you may have all the best intentions but as I have previously stated, when it comes to Section 75 issues, they are meaningless.
  • Purrfecttune's Avatar
    Eagle eye
    Firstly; I accidentally pressed the resolve button on this by accident. This is in no way resolved and never will be for a veeerrrry long time. Misinformation from Ross: Tesco clearly say that they will acknowledge receipt of claims. My last claim WAS acknowledged, so serious lack of consistency from Ross and Tesco. I will continue to resend my claim daily. Ross knows why I no longer bother with private messages as I have already explained: the assurances are always false, whether intentionally or otherwise. Besides which, if Tesco customer services are not able to communicate with the Disputes Team how can he? I also had to make a Section 75 claim with the Halifax Bank today and what a refreshing change.Being a PROPER bank that wants to LOOK AFTER its customers, it was dead simple, filling in a straightforward, online form (unlike faffing around downloading from Tesco).
    Once submitted, I received a text within 3 minutes acknowledging it and another text within 4 minutes requesting specific additional information.THAT’S HOW PROPER BANKS OPERATE!
  • ChristinaG's Avatar
    Your Community Expert
    I'm sorry you feel this way, . I've double checked this and Ross has confirmed the correct information throughout this conversation. I can completely understand that you've not had the best experience with Tesco Bank during the dispute process and we're really sorry about that. I'm sure you'll appreciate the Disputes team have never had to deal with such a large volume of claims before and I can assure you the team are working as quickly and efficiently as they can to process these.



    I'm afraid we will be unable to comment further on this. If you wish to raise a complaint, please contact our Customer Relations team. However, if you need any further help regarding your new dispute with us, then please send us private message. I appreciate you don't want to do this, but for us to access your account and check we have received your recent dispute, you would need to do this. I'm sorry again for the experience you've had with us.
    Last edited by RossM; 12-11-20 at 13:20. Reason: Updated link to Customer Relations Team
  • Purrfecttune's Avatar
    Eagle eye
    Hi ChristinaGThank you for your sentiments. In response to your comment about the fact that the Disputes Team have never had to deal with such a large number of claims before, well the same applies to EVERY financial institution. The difference is that Tesco have had 6 months to address this situation efficiently and have failed to do so, whereas PROPER BANKS are resolving these issues within days. I have insider knowledge of Tesco Buyers in other areas and the attitude has always been to screw the customers or suppliers to the maximum benefit of Tesco Corporate profits. I can only assume that this mentality also applies to providing an acceptable service to their Banking interests and is why Tesco are unwilling to apply the necessary resources to Provide an acceptable service. To reiterate, I still have had no acknowledgement of my claim with Tesco via text, email, carrier pigeon or otherwise. Halifax Bank (a proper bank) acknowledged my claim within 3 minutes and asked questions within 4 minutes, of which I am sure your disgruntled customers on this forum can provide many more comparative examples.
  • ChristinaG's Avatar
    Your Community Expert
    I'm afraid we can't comment on any other banks and their processes, as these will be different from Tesco Bank. As confirmed in my previous message, we can check to see if we have received your recent dispute by sending us a private message. We're sorry again that you feel like this, .
  • Purrfecttune's Avatar
    Eagle eye
    In these days of consumerism, there are many choices for various products and services from many providers, retailers, manufacturers etc, with varying levels of reliability and competency. Banking is no different and potential customers need to assess how Tesco compares to its many competitors. Of course, no individual organisation will comment on the practices of others, and in Tesco’s case, they would not want to anyway seeing as they compare so poorly to proper banks. Tesco processes are certainly different from others and fall weeeeelllll short of acceptable by comparison. By the way, it has still not been explained how receipt of my claim can be confirmed by this forum by sending a private message when customer services are completely unable to do so? Exactly what is the point of customer services if customers have to resort to this forum to get answers? Based on my previous experience and anticipation; I will continue to resubmit my claim on a weekly basis for six weeks unless I get an acknowledgement (like proper banks do).At the end of the six week period I will make an official complaint to Tesco (2nd November).At the end of eight weeks after making the official complaint I will be involving the Financial Ombudsman (28th December).Of course, should Tesco Bank miraculously manage to resolve my claim within this time frame (as likely as observing pigs and unicorns flying over my house) then none of the above will be necessary. I intend to rigidly adhere to the above and will keep this forum informed should there be any changes.
  • Sheena1975's Avatar
    Eagle eye
    Hi I really do appreciate your anger and frustration, I was right where you are when I first submitted my claim however following advice of others like and I submitted a private message and pursued down that route until my claim was resolved. I like many others am frequently experiencing poor and often inadequate customer service from many companies just now but I will say once I finally made contact with a person through private messaging my claim was slowly resolved. Even worse for these claims we are not purely reliant on Tesco Bank but also the supplier that Tesco has to look at to resolve the claim, that's where mine took the time getting the right info from the supplier. Im sure your situation is different from mine im just trying to give you a little hope that despite an annoying length of time your claim will be resolved just hang in there. I really do hope you get some answers soon. Regards