Lengthly and tiresome store card application

<p>So apparently in order to raise my credit score I needed to sign up for credit facilities. Figured since I shop at Woolworths often enough, that would be a great place to start. </p> <p> </p> <p>Signed up at Woolworths Sandton for a store card. Got a message to pick up, about a month later I go in, only to be told I'm too late and that the card has been destroyed. . . after only a month. </p> <p>I tried to sign up immediately, only to get a message a few weeks later that I've been declined. </p> <p>I figured something strange was going on, so I tried going to a different store (Lonehill) where I got declined again (yet I had no problem signing up for other store cards, Edgar, Tru worth ect.). When I explained I had been granted one before, they told me the application was probably not closed and that I should go back to Sandton to query it. </p> <p>Back at Sandton, as advised I signed up all over again because the first application was definitely closed, told them to send the new one to Lonehill and I'd pick it up from there. Got a message, assumed it was ready to be picked up, but Lonehill don't have it. After checking in week after week with no luck I decided to give them a call. Turns out the application closed the week before as I'd not called in. . . </p> <p> </p> <p>Signing up is already a painful process due to FICA legislation, but the incompetence I've encountered here along with the agonisingly slow pace a sign up takes has led me to simply shop somewhere else. Everywhere else it's a simple "bring your ID and payslip and fill out a form", sign up and they'll send you a store card, woolies sends you an SMS after that, telling you to call in (which has to be with in 30 days) , then you have you have to pick up the card within another 30 days. Any longer on any of these steps and your application gets tossed. </p> <p>Sounds like they hired an auditor to handle retail finance!</p>