Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Tell me about PC Financial

I'm considering switching to PC Financial. Does anyone have any first-hand experience with them? Pros and cons? Reasons not to switch? Anonymous comments welcome. Comments from people monitoring for social media mentions of PC Financial will be interpreted as reasons not to switch.

9 comments:

karin said...

I'm also considering this! I'm interested to read the feedback you get

M@ said...

We have a PC account we use as a savings account. No problems there.

We also had a PC Mastercard. They called us one day demanding to know why we hadn't made any payments lately; we checked and found out that we had. We had to launch an investigation, we had to get our bank involved, it was a long, multi-week process.

What happened was that the card expired and was renewed, as usual. But before we had even received the new cards in the mail -- i.e. before we even knew that the renewal time was up -- they changed the account number for the card. So we gave them $1000 for the old account number, which PC happily accepted; and we didn't get credit for it for the new card number. And then they started making angry phone calls demanding their money.

I went through two iterations of sending my bank's documentation -- it had to be done by fax, to give them the opportunity to lose it the first time -- and they almost never called back when they promised they would.

Then, when they finally credited us with the payment, we received no documentation whatsoever indicating that the funds had been applied to our account and the interest and penalties had been repaid. They just adjusted everything online and expected us to trust them that everything had worked out correctly.

Of course, they were shocked that we would want to cancel the card when all this was done with. But the moment it was all resolved, that's exactly what we did. I liked getting the PC Points on the card but it didn't come anywhere near making up for the hassle and time it took to resolve their mistake. And we never got so much as an apology from them in the whole process.

So, anecdote.

laura k said...

I have a PC Mastercard. I got it specifically to earn points that we redeem at Loblaws, where we buy 90% of our groceries and drugstore items. The interest rate is high (quite a bit higher than my TD Visas), so we only use it for groceries and gas, and pay the bill in full every month. The points mean every once in a while we get free stuff - stuff we'd be buying anyway.

I've had no problems with it. M@'s experience sounds like a nightmare. Had I known about it, I might not have taken out the card.

If you are investigating online banking options, you might also want to look into Ing Direct. There are no fees, ever (except $1.00 for Interac transfers; there are free transfers that take a bit longer).

I have checking, savings, and RRSPs with Ing and have been very satisfied. It's all online self-service, very easy to use, but if you have any issues, their customer service is tops - absolutely great.

Let us know what you decide!

CQ said...

I tried to apply directly for an openly advertised job with PC Financial last year. FYI, the major 3rd-party job site wouldn't (still hasn't) corrected a no-longer valid password tied to my e-mail address.
PC Fin's website had nothing corporate based - just basic consumer-oriented pages. I couldn't find a real-life street address or a phone number for them either. There was a bit of fluff about a division of the CIBC (if I recall rightly) being involved.
So I naturally called the parent George Weston (Loblaws etc.) corporation, here in Toronto as well. They don't supply phone numbers, e-mails etc., of their subsidiary companies, thank you very much.
So there was no direct contact available via PC Financial's website and not even a street address to beg in front of. I obviously never had the chance just to apply for the job.
But, then again, would I have wanted to deal with any company that refuses(!) to even hang a public shingle?

P.S. they're not the only Toronto Corp. to pull that "we're never at home right now" routine. Sears Canada is another major corporation that won't respond to an aspiring head-office job applicant.

laura k said...

I think that non-reaction to job seekers is the norm. In my experience, and from what HR people say, most companies do not hire that way and do not respond to unsolicited queries.

CQ said...

Even when THEY are advertising for a specific job? That is simply sad.

In other words, they just want to grab blanket dum-dum applications through a malfunctioning 3rd party job-board - but refuse a real person explaining his/her case inside of a mere two minutes.
This example doesn't even involve a typically disinterested job agency.

impudent strumpet said...

I already use ING for all those things. I'm considering PC because I recently learned that you can also earn points towards free groceries by using their debit card. I was reluctant to get the credit card because I already have more credit cards than I use, and I know it affects your credit score to apply for a credit card. But I do shop at Loblaw's rather frequently, so the points would be useful.

Between saving on (very small) bank fees I do pay, and getting a bit of interest on the balance of my primary chequing account, and saving a little bit of money on groceries, I'd probably be saving about $100 a year.

laura k said...

Ah, I didn't know you used Ing. Nice!

Applying for credit cards negatively affects your credit score?

CQ, they likely have many channels through which they find applicants for open positions. The jobs may be filled in-house and the external postings are just for show. But either way, head offices and parent companies don't get involved.

impudent strumpet said...

All the internet calculators I've played with say applying for credit cards negatively affects your credit score. I don't have any expert information beyond that.