Banks: do they want customers?

[Midsmartin]

My daughter has reached an age where it makes sense if she has a bank account. I use First Direct.. but she doesn't qualify to open an account with them (a bit odd really, as she'd probably be a captive customer for the next 60+ years).

So off to the High Street. Barclays have a local branch and do a youth account. Excellent! So my wife pops in to pick up an application form.
"Oh no, you cant' just fill in a form. There isn't one. You have to make an appointment".
"Saturday morning?"
"No we are closed on Saturdays"
"So how can our daughter, doing A levels, open an account if you are only open when she can't get here?"
A blank stare and a shrug..So we had to wait until half term.

Anyway she now has an account. Hooray!
Next my wife popped in to pay in a birthday cheque for her. You can't just do that. HSBC have paying in slips in a rack and you just fill one in. Not Barclays. You can pay in by presenting your debit card. But you can't present your daughter's debit card (she's at school, remember) of course.. you're not supposed to have it.

All sorted now, but they really seem to make it as difficult and as unwelcoming as possible to use their services.

[Lootman]

Next my wife popped in to pay in a birthday cheque for her. You can't just do that. HSBC have paying in slips in a rack and you just fill one in. Not Barclays. You can pay in by presenting your debit card. But you can't present your daughter's debit card (she's at school, remember) of course.. you're not supposed to have it.

Barclays are the worst. My local branch is now tellerless. Or humanless. Or something. You can only talk to a person if you have a commercial banking account. Otherwise you have to use a machine. And of course they have to have people on hand to show you how to use the machine.

NatWest has a major virtue in this respect - they are utterly incompetent and so cannot develop the systems to do what Barclays do. So they still have human tellers. But they employ a small army of "assistants" who intercept you on the way to the human tellers and try and divert you to a machine. The key to thwarting them, I have discovered, is to say that you need 50 pound notes, which of course the cash machines do not dispense.

I own no shares in UK banks and probably never will.

[Midsmartin]

I had a Nat West account when we bought our first house. They forgot to transfer the funds on completion day. Fortunately, we'd been advised to ask them to do it 24 hours early as a precaution.. wise advice which saved us some bother.

As an encore, they accidentally withdrew £100,000 from my current account (contents probably £75 at the time) one day. They put it back again the next day, but still applied £3500+ excess overdraft fees for their error until I queried it.

I closed the account soon after that!

[Lootman]

I had a Nat West account when we bought our first house. They forgot to transfer the funds on completion day. Fortunately, we'd been advised to ask them to do it 24 hours early as a precaution.. wise advice which saved us some bother.

As an encore, they accidentally withdrew £100,000 from my current account (contents probably £75 at the time) one day. They put it back again the next day, but still applied £3500+ excess overdraft fees for their error until I queried it.

I closed the account soon after that!

You are 100% correct. NatWest are stunningly incompetent. But that is exactly why I like them - they are completely aware of their uselessness and so always accept my point of view in disputes precisely because they know how useless they are.

But yes, common sense precautions are needed. I started out with Midland, now HSBC. They pissed me off so I switched to Lloyds. They cocked it up so i moved to Barclays. They failed me so I went to NatWest. And they are so bad that I stuck with them. Useless, the lot of them.

[Itsallaguess]

I've been with Natwest for over 30 years and they've never given me a minute's trouble.

Funny thing, internet anecdotes....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Lootman]

I've been with Natwest for over 30 years and they've never given me a minute's trouble.

So you were fortunate enough not to need cash on those notorious days when the entire NatWest network failed and nobody could withdraw cash?

http://www.zdnet.com/article/key-questi ... t-failure/

[JMN2]

I've had a Lloyds account since 1995 and it's been great. Cheques are paid in with a debit card. The lloyds branch still stands in the village but it is closed, quite recently I think. 3-4 times a week a mobile branch arrives to the CoE car park, a driver/guard, a mini office, a manager hovering with a tablet and an older lady doing the hard work. I went to bank a cheque it was all very effective. It's the future I assume.

[swill453]

With First Direct I can pay cash and cheques in at the Post Office. Everything else is online or by phone. I literally can't remember any time in the last 20 years when I've needed anything else.

Scott.

[paulnumbers]

Barclays are the worst. My local branch is now tellerless. Or humanless. Or something.

I think the word you're looking for is inhumane.

Barclaycard recently closed my company Barclaycard for some reason. I say some reason, because they didn't seem to be able to tell me why. They queried if the company had gone into liquidation. Then suggested I write a letter on a company headed notepaper to some address up north telling them the company wasn't in liquidation. The response finally came back with the message that I needed to write again, but include my middle name after 'yours sincerely'. I gave up.

[Itsallaguess]

I've been with Natwest for over 30 years and they've never given me a minute's trouble.

So you were fortunate enough not to need cash on those notorious days when the entire NatWest network failed and nobody could withdraw cash?

http://www.zdnet.com/article/key-questi ... t-failure/

I was - it didn't affect me at all in fact.

I really couldn't be happier with Natwest, but I do appreciate that other's mileage may very well vary.

I dare say we'd be able to find happy customers of most banks if we tried, however, so I'm certainly not trying to hold up Natwest as some sort of shining light - I'm simply trying to remind people that internet anecdotes almost universally tend to bring out the most negative aspects during these types of discussions....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[TUK020]

previous unhappy experiences with RBOS and Barclays.
Now been with Nationwide for nearly 10 years and very satisfied.
Branches open Sat mornings, but pretty much manage to do everything online.

[wheypat]

I've worked in the IT departments of 3 major UK high street banks. Each one scared the living daylights out of me (you think it's bad on the outside - try working with the IT). I'm terrified that one day I'll end up at RBS (where my money is).

[vrdiver]

Ignorance is bliss eh?

I get the same with any kind of eating establishment or indeed any kind of food that I put in my mouth. Unless you're Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall you don't really have much of an idea of the history of your grub.

I try to avoid eating establishments that include grubs on the plate...

[UncleEbenezer]

previous unhappy experiences with RBOS and Barclays.
Now been with Nationwide for nearly 10 years and very satisfied.
Branches open Sat mornings, but pretty much manage to do everything online.

Heh. Been with Nationwide about 30 years. It was ten (maybe nine) years ago they went from consistently better than the rest to Just Another Annoying Bank. They closed the local branch (just a corner in an estate agents office, but it did the job), along with many others around the country. And lots of the things that had distinguished them - like access to one's money around the world free of any transaction charges - disappeared

[didds]

Barclays are the worst. My local branch is now tellerless. Or humanless. Or something. You can only talk to a person if you have a commercial banking account. Otherwise you have to use a machine. And of course they have to have people on hand to show you how to use the machine..

Moderator Message:
RS: If you wish you post one of your own anecdotes here then can we ask you to do so rather than a link which directs the reader to another site please.

Thanks

[bungeejumper]

I ran out of expletives back in the days when my company's account was with RBS (now including Natwest). There didn't seem to be a single thing they could get right. Transfers were a nightmare, but we finally moved the account after an assistant in an RBS branch loudly bawled me out in front of a whole bankful of customers for not having enough in my account to be able to make a cash withdrawal. (In fact we had thousands, but my withdrawal exceeded the daily limit by a few pounds. I could have found that out for myself if the cash machines had been working, but they weren't. )

Lloyds have made quite a few cock-ups over the years, and at one time they also developed a habit of calling me into the branch for emergency conversations about my business account, at which they did nothing but sit me down and try to sell me an insurance policy. And Lloyds have just tried to bounce me into a paperless telephone banking arrangement which I don't want and haven't requested. (They can stick that where the monkey puts his usual deposits.) OTOH. I had a few grand back from them last for a PPI mis-selling claim, and they were gracious to a fault (and paid hefty interest). Possibly the best of a bad bunch.

BJ

[gnawsome]

[quote="... but pretty much manage to do everything online.[/quote]

But ONLY if you have a mobile phone.

[swill453]

... but pretty much manage to do everything online.

But ONLY if you have a mobile phone.

That seems to be a comment about Nationwide. Why do you think you need a mobile phone? I seem to be able to do everything on the web site.

Scott.

[bungeejumper]

But ONLY if you have a mobile phone.

That seems to be a comment about Nationwide. Why do you think you need a mobile phone? I seem to be able to do everything on the web site.

It doesn't seem to occur to some companies that there are plenty of places where mobile phones don't work at all. Forget about 4G (hollow laugh), not even 3G functions out here in the sticks, so the chances of my being able to do anything vaguely webby are nil unless I can blag a bit of wifi - which might not be secure, of course.

And even 2G doesn't work here all the time, so the phone is functionally useless if somebody is trying to make it an indispensable link in my business dealings. Only the other day, the Vatman insisted on sending an authorisation code in a text to my mobile, which duly failed to receive it. (Although it did pop up on the screen later when I drove into town.)

A hospital appointment came with an insistence that I give them my mobile number so that they can (fail to) reach me if they need to change anything. And now my bank seems to be trying to press-gang me into agreeing to the same sort of set-up. Listen, people, it won't work, comprende? No? I thought not.

Townies. (Mutter)...

BJ

[Itsallaguess]

(Admin - my own occassional blog FTR)

Hi didds,

I think you should probably try to resist posting links to these types of personal things, to be honest....

Mod-discussions do take place around such posts, and very rare occurrences can be taken as helpful actions from well-meaning posters, such as your recent rugby-related post.

Non-rare occurrences, however, are likely to be seen in a completely different light, and will probably attract the sort of mod-attention that you'd prefer to avoid, I'd think....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess