London: A customer of a British bank has alleged that a worker of the bank's call centre in India meddled with his account and changed his identity with that of an Ugandan divorcee 10 years his senior, for giving him a low performance rating.
George Bates of Bristol told the Daily Mail that he had called the call centre to clarify a doubt and that the man at the other end was "unhelpful".
In the end, Bates decided to answer an automated response survey. He said the worker wanted him to give the maximum marks for the question on customer satisfaction. Instead Bates gave the least possible marks for that question.
He said the operator had a strong Asian accent and had been "really unhelpful, rude, arrogant and very pushy and then he had the cheek to pester me to give him a good rating".
The next day, Bates could not access his account while an ATM machine swallowed his debit card. When he went to Abbey Bank's branch, he was shocked to know his identity had been changed to that of an Ugandan divorcee 10 years his senior.
Over the next few days Bates found his overdraft and six direct debits had been cancelled - landing him with £ 60 in charges.
He said: "When I heard my details had been changed I was terrified my account had been emptied and I'd never get my money back. This phone operator has obviously seen that I've given him bad feedback and decided to change all my details in revenge."
The Abbey Bank has offered him £ 200 as compensation. A bank spokesperson said: "We have since returned his account to the correct position and refunded any charges relating to this error. In relation to Mr Bates's other claims, we can confirm that we have fully investigated these complaints but we do not comment on individual employees."
The bank refused to identify the call centre employee.
But Bates is still unhappy: "Even though they did eventually sort everything out I'm still unhappy and I'll be switching back to a bank with call centres in Britain. I'm also scared that the man could still access my account."
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