Battling to close your Edgars account? You are not alone, Wendy says
Carol Fourie’s experience in trying to close her Edgars account is shared by many others.
"I have had numerous calls from Edgars/RCS agents since last year regarding non-payment on my account. During these calls, I indicated that I wished to close my account after paying the outstanding balance. The procedure, I was told, is for the customer to request a settlement letter which would be emailed. I made several requests telephonically but to date, no email has been sent to me. Every enquiry is met with the same rehearsed script: You need to request a settlement letter after which an email will be sent…
"So, many months later, no settlement letter has been sent by Edgars/RCS in spite of continuous efforts on my side and in the meantime, interest and fees on the account are added monthly! I have attached some screen grabs from Twitter, in which other customers have voiced similar complaints. Something is very wrong, hence I believe this matter is worth investigating," reads Carol Fourie's letter to Wendy.
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Wendy Knowler took up the issue with Regan Adams, CEO of the company RCS, which handles
Edgars’ accounts.
Carol’s account is now closed. As for the issue at hand, Adams said: “We will not put customers in an adverse
position who want to settle their accounts but we equally need to understand
that just because someone asked for a settlement doesn’t mean that charges
will immediately stop.”
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In many cases, people don’t pay the settlement amount by the specified date, or
don’t pay at all, so the interest and fees continue to accrue, he said. “The challenge with settlement letters and closures is varied across the
different customers. For some customers, we have no record of a settlement letter request and we
suspect some of this could still be of historic Edcon incidences.
“Then we have
incidences where customers spoke to other parties such as debt collection
agencies, or those responsible for Club and Insurance, but this for some reason
didn’t reach us. And in the past where we received an influx of requests which led to some
delays on our side to process these requests. We have allocated more staff to
our mailboxes and the situation is much better now than a month or two
ago.”
If closure requests are then delayed, causing fees to continue to accrue, and
the account holder can prove it, RCS will “reverse all fees that accrued in the
meantime and ensure closures occur where these are requested,” Adams said.
So if you want to cancel your Edgars account, and you request a settlement
letter via RCS’s imbedded email function under Contact on its
website, before you hit Submit, take a screenshot, and be sure to include
the date in the email.
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