Macquarie Bank Platinum

Platinum in arrogance, tin in customer service. No rating for intellect. I have no words for the lunacy below. I opened a Macquarie Platinum Transaction Account 20 days ago. I am still waiting for my card to arrive. I tried the online chat a number of times - it says this is the quickest way. I haven't had an answer to my queries either time I… Read more

tried. A reassuring message comes up when you start the chat that not to worry, do other things, you won't lose the chat. Well I wasn't doing that but the chat responders sure were. So then I called. Eventually I got through to someone. He asked me what date I opened the account. That was the day my card was sent, he said. Miraculous. I opened my account in the evening. Twenty four hour service is there? Regardless, it hasn't arrived. I live in the city. My fence/letterbox is on the footpath border. I request nothing to be sent to my residential address due to the theft rate. I have a post office box for mailing. I have had it for more than 30 years. But no, not Macquarie Bank. To quote "your card was issued to your residential address at the time of account opening on (date provided). As part of our security procedures, the initial debit card linked to a Macquarie Platinum Transaction Account is sent to the residential address. The standard delivery timeframe is 5 to 10 business days via regular post.

If you have not received your card within this period, you may order a replacement to your mailing address by following the instructions in our Help Centre article.

Yep, for security procedures Macquarie Banks sends their cards to a residential address, even when advised that it is not a secure option, and that there is a post office box available for secure delivery. And now that it has gone missing, in the hands of who knows, with my details handed over to them courtesy of the card, Macquarie Bank now feels secure, and I can go on line and find out how to request a replacement card to be sent to my post office box.

Wow.

One last comment - a question this time. We are overwhelmed with warnings about theft, ID theft, fraud, ETC. Why the hell isn't Macquarie Bank (and every other bank) sending cards via registered mail?

My Woolworths Platinum credit card was quite useful and efficiently managed, until recently acquired by Macquarie Bank. It was not used for some months while I was overseas, but annual costs maintained. Recently I received a letter saying that my card was to be replaced with a new card as it was lost or stolen and to complete a form to allow for… Read more

replacement even though my card was not lost or stolen. After submitting the form I received a letter saying that my credit card account was now cancelled to which I replied requesting it be re-instated. I received an apology stating my account would remain active and I would receive a new card. I then received a letter from the same client service manager saying that her previous letter was incorrect as my account had in fact been closed, offering $250 as a “goodwill gesture” to compensate for the situation that has occurred. I responded saying that I was more interested in advising others to be wary of the highly inefficient and misleading treatment that I had received, rather than receiving $250 to keep quiet!

Reward points rip off – I’m done with this card and the spending that just doesn’t convert to points as promised, I probably missed something in the fine print but I’ve just got another credit card elsewhere. Asta lah vista Macquarie, not that the chief execs care, the departure of this little minor won’t effect their multi million dollar salaries one little iota.

Their customer service was appalling – Macquarie dont bother, unhelpful rude. Clearly like the big people. Show details

Great Debit Card to use for Overseas and local – Recent trip for 6 weeks to EU used the Macquarie Bank Platinum debit card every were, no problems withdrawing cash but ended up using it direct payment most of the time. Very good exchange rates better than local and no hidden fees. Show details

Outstanding service from Macquarie Bank Platinum staff – Macquarie Bank have just successfully resolved our third credit card fraud case in 9 months! The first two cases were where our credit card details were obtained illegally and purchases were attempted with the card. Both times Macquarie Bank blocked the card and refused to pay the transactions and then cancelled the cards after contact with us.… Read more

One was for over $3,500 in purchases in Vietnamese Dong and the other was a "fishing transaction" for US$0.49 at a Doctor's surgery in a small town in North Carolina. Obviously these raised warning flags given we live in the Hunter Valley NSW. The last one was our fault. A Peter Alexander website offering 80% off pyjamas, I know, if it is too good to be true etc. but we used to get huge discounts on remainders at the Peter Alexander factory outlet in Canberra when we lived there, so we thought this could be the same. Wrong, it was a cloned website. You pay and get email confirmation of the sale and then another email with parcel tracking number which is genuine but the package is coming from China, Peter Alexander is an Australian company. We cancelled our card and raised a dispute with Macquarie Bank. They issued us a new card, again, arriving in only days and eventually managed to get our money back. Ultimately, we received our package with our "six pairs of pyjamas", a fake Cartier ring. This is better than others who got fake Ray Ban sunglasses or baby's bonnet or baby's milk bottle. There apparently are several fake websites out there at the moment, Skechers, Country Road, Sportsgirl etc. Most aimed at Australians. Thank you Macquarie Bank for your great efforts, we ended up not being out of pocket at all and only had the inconvenience of five days without a credit card!

Pathetic – I tried to pay off my credit card at the post office using cash and have been told that Macquarie don’t accept cash payments. I can understand a small boutique cafe saying “card or EFT only”, but when a BANK is declining their customers from paying off their card using Australian cash, that is wrong on so many levels! Go elsewhere! Show details

Unmitigated Disaster – Unsure why I can't give zero stars???? Firstly, asked me to cancel my original credit card before providing a new card (I wanted a small period of crossover) fair enough I said, they said "will be there in a few days". Part of a new home loan package . Mid Oct - told card is on its way, my broker called them a few times "yes its in the mail"… Read more

they said , ok I can wait a little.

3 weeks later - no card - I call again - they said "yes we will send you again the CC express mail" Noting that I am struggling to pay bills without a CC, very hard for online purchases with a newborn and 2 little kids - most shops only want tap and pay (After COVID), my wife is getting very angry at me.

mid Nov - still no card, get told "oops we forget to send it, don't worry we will send again express post"

Few days later "oops we forget to express post it, it may be 7 - 10 days away"

meanwhile I am now 6 weeks without a CC, struggling to keep the internet and other bill providers happy (hours on the phone reassuring them my CC is in the mail)

All up, I have spent maybe 60-70 hours on this mistake by Macquarie.

Great credit card – The Macquarie card is a good looking card that come decent benefits. May not be the best value for the annual fee, but it's decent free one that comes with their home loan. It comes with international and domestic travel insurance, many other policies only cover overseas travel. The card paired with their app is incredible. Instant notification of… Read more

any spend on your card. The app is also great for budgeting as it can seperated your spending between categories like food, transport, finance, bills etc. Down side of this card is the capped 1:$1 qantas points.

No currency conversion fees – Signed up for this card with a good Qantas frequent flyer points sign up bonus and will be keeping it for its no foreign transaction / currency conversion fees with all my international purchases. Show details

Great card for everyday use – This is a great visa card that earns Qantas frequent flyer points. The Macquarie banking app is first class so it's easy to monitor spend and pay bills. I definitely recommend if you are looking for a card for everyday use. Show details

Applied for Macquarie Hilton Platinum card purely for automatic Gold Status – However found out 2 months later still not upgraded to Gold and had to call multiple times for them to understand what i am talking about and they even fwd me to Hilton who had no idea either. Finally had to get it escalated for accounts team to follow up and still waiting on resolution and my holidays are coming soon so hope its resolved before that. Call centre staff have no idea about this Hilton.

Terrible dealing with customers in hardship – Macquarie credit cards are really intrusive and unhelpful. The service is very poor. Member benefits are terrible and the card is way too expensive.

Terrible processes and service – Overly long and complex procedures, and call centre service unhelpful. The only good thing is their call centre usually picks up. Would not go there again.

Worst experience ever – A month or so ago, I applied for this card (based on the 40,000 points after spending within 2 months with reduced $99 annual fee) and was immediately sent a message stating that I was provisionally approved. A few days later, I was then sent both a letter and email asking me to send in my 2 x most recent payslips, which I promptly uploaded to… Read more

the ir portal.

For the following 2 weeks, I received a daily text message asking me to send in my payslips even though I'd done so.

I then received a call from the offshore call centre, advising that they needed to verbally verify my income with my HR department - I provided permission for this to occur. However, 3 days later, I received another call asking me for permission to contact HR - I explained that I'd already provided the permission, and they made a note of that and promised to sort it out. (nb: why they can't just ask for bank statements or an ATO assessment rather than needing to verbally hassle the applicant's workplace which is really intrusive, is beyond me, but anyway...)

2 weeks down the track and I'd heard nothing, so called this morning to check the status of my application - despite the conditional approval, they informed me that it's been rejected (first time ever I've been rejected for a card) and wouldn't tell me why.

I'm extremely annoyed at all the time I've spent following up this ridiculous income verification issue / call centre incompetence and the fact that I've taken a hit on my otherwise very healthy credit file... and no idea why I've been rejected.

At the end of the day, though, there are plenty of better credit card products out there that are much less painful to apply for!

Archaic – This credit card came with our mortgage. As we were moving from a different bank and had other credit cards, they gave us a relatively low credit limit. It was part of a package which included an offset account, a discounted interest rate and the credit card: the idea being to use the credit card for all day to day purchases while keeping a… Read more

high balance in the offset account. This sounds a good idea in theory, but the credit limit they gave us was so small that this proved impossible. We fully intended to cancel the other credit card, upgrade the credit limit and keep solely to the Macquarie card, but.....

It seems that to upgrade your credit card with Macquarie, you need to fill in a (paper) form and provide evidence (Payslips - who gets those any more?) of your income and proof of identity. You then need to go to the post office and physically mail this to Macquarie. Come on, Macquarie: we have a Mortgage with you that we are WAY ahead on, my husband works for you, and our salaries are directly deposited into our bank account with you. Do you really need this? Couldn't it be done online?

Our other bank upgrades our credit limit automatically. If we want to upgrade it out of sync with their offers, we apply through online banking. It is done quickly and efficiently. There is no need to mess around with forms and evidence. Consequently, we have given up on this idea and use our old credit card instead.

TERRIBLE – There are better credit card providers out there. As the credit card came with my loan, I was not aware that it was not cancelled when I refinanced. They did not provide me with new login details to check my outstanding amounts (which I assume it was taken care off when the refinance occurred). It accrued interest (obviously) and did not bother to… Read more

contact me for outstanding payment. Called customer care, they only transferred me to 5 other people. Not worth it.

Understand what "eligible" purchases means before you apply for the Qantas Freq Flyer bonus points – More than three months after I made the required amount of purchases to receive a total of 40,000 Qantas Frequent Flyer bonus points, I have yet to receive any. I have made at least five phone calls to ensure that I qualified for the bonus points. I was told to wait till January to have the points in the account and when I called again by end of… Read more

Jan I was confirmed of my entitlement and it would be credited within 10 business days. 10 days is over and now I am told that I did my spending on a government institution and that I do not qualify for the bonus points. This is news to me! They don't even declare this qualifying requirement on the credit card application website, so beware! They will go to any length not to award you your bonus points! I will take this up to the ombudsman if it doesn't get cleared up by the end of the week. The bonus points Macquarie Bank will keep adding new conditions to ensure you do not qualify for bonus points

Good – macquarie bank is a stable financial institution which provides excellent customer service however lacks compared to other banks when it comes to branch offices & competing interest rates, while i realise the global financial crisis does not help, it would be nice to see macquarie return to where it was in the middle of 2008 founding member… Read more

benefits

4 free additional card holders still a high yearly fee $200

no founding member benefits yet in WA

Terrible – I got this card as they told me it would cover vehicle rental excess up to $5000 in Australia. Just purchase car rental on card to activate. The insurance company says it is only for interstate travel if you purchase the return airflights on the card. Rang Macquarie Bank to check they told me we dont cover vehicle excess, I corrected them, so they… Read more

checked and then gave me the same story as the insurance company, then sent me an email stating they dont its only international travel. Useless! Dont trust what they say as no one seems to know what they are talking about, I still dont know what I am covered for, neither do they. It has a reward system and insurances included No one seems to know exactly what their product covers