This company is a third-party credit card issuer for several other companies, ranging from retailers to banks and even credit unions, which is how I got to know them.
Had I known that Elan Financial Service was part of US Bank, I would have never applied for a credit card with the local Nevada credit union I had a good relationship with.
Even though setting up my login information was easy when I got the card a week ago, I found problems with logging in to my account this morning after getting email telling me that my monthly statement was ready.
I tried logging in with my credentials and was told that I could not.
Then the web interface wanted to send me out challenge questions.
When I set up the account, I was given the option of selecting at least 3 challenge questions, but the web interface was sending me challenge questions that I did not sign up for, thereby guaranteeing certain failure.
It got to the point that I had to call customer service, which was the number on the credit card, not my local credit union's customer service.
On the plus side, it was nice that I got a person that sounded like they were either in or from North America and had almost the same accent I have, but when I told the representative my issue, they forwarded me to their technical support desk, who hung up on me after 25 minutes of being on hold.
At this point, I was so fed up with the process that I scissored the credit card and mailed it to the credit union whose name is on the card and explained to them my reasons for returning the card and closing the account.
When supporting customers over the internet, make the web interface a lot more user-friendly.
Even though the web interface may ask for a username and password, the reality is that the web interface wants the company-generated username instead of the one the user created just to access this account.
On top of that, the web interface, when it requires answers to security questions, please make sure that these are the questions that the user actually selected, not the ones that the user did not...I never selected the question "who is my favorite hair stylist?" and because I did not select that question, any answer I put down will always be wrong.
Hopefully, severing relations with Elan Financial Solutions does not impact my relationship with my credit union.
As for US Bank, I've had bad relations with them ever since the FDIC gave Pasadena Financial and Downey Savings over to US Bank and both Bailiwick and TEKSystems had me work on a Bay Area IT conversion project in 2009 and since then, I vowed never to work with US Bank or any of its subsidiary companies, or even set foot in a US Bank institution or facility for the rest of my life. read more