Personally I think this is a correct interpretation by the bank. The T&C's of the card remain that it has an annual fee, you just have a waiver for year 1.
No, you are absolutely right - I was speaking generally, that stuff like: "bonus Xk QFF points" and stuff like "annual fee free for X years" are rarely stated in writing in T&Cs or PDS-es because the T&Cs and PDS-es exist irrespective of promotions being run at the time.
You are probably right, but it is very poor form from the ANZ.
You don't want to be relying on screen captures when arguing with someone on the other end of the phone about 50,000 points and free annual fee.
Craig.
I am with burmans on this - operators on the phone, particularly those working out of call centres abroad have very little power. I try to document everything in writing before pursuing it through other avenues.
For example, I'm in the process of winding down all of my financial "business" (such as it is) with ANZ. I'm a student, so, I'm not really a high valued customer by any stretch of the imagination, just had super, a bank account and a CC with ANZ. Had a dispute with my credit card - called up the "termination team" (with CBA, the closures team had the most power for a favourable outcome, but at ANZ, it seems the closures team still has really limited powers). Encountered a rude operator - escalated it as far as I could within that team, got a complaint number, then went straight to FOS. Someone from the Complaints Resolution Centre at ANZ called me the next business day, gave me everything I wanted (plus more), and handled things extremely well.
So yeah, I guess my experience, particularly with ANZ, is to just escalate it as much as you can on the phone, get a complaint number, then go through FOS etc.
