| Non-motoring > Bank rant. | Miscellaneous |
| Thread Author: Ted | Replies: 39 |
|
New Wed 23 Mar 11 23:33
Bank rant. - Ted
|
|
An observation, rather than a full rant. Just won an item on EBay...a motorbike wheel. £32 inc postage...fine. I don't do Paypal, they did a random suspension of my account some years ago, I don't know why, I'm on 100%. No problems. To re-instate it they wanteda copy of a utility bill and one of my bank statement ! Non of their sodding business how much I have in my current account ! Anyway, the seller said a cheque would be better for him, less costs involved. I said I'd get a counter cheque today and post it. Arrived at Santander, where I have a grand in a saver account just for this sort of thing. Youth on the counter.." Are you all right there ? " Thats a good start, he didn't say " Mate " at the end ! They must have stopped that after my last complaint. " Can I help you Sir " is my preferred greeting. " Can't do a counter cheque for under a thousand " " I've had loads, since when, why ?" "Last November, too many people asking for multiple cheques and holding the queue up " "Oh, so it's that's not down to the fact that you only have two tills open and one always seems to be arranging a mortgage on Chatsworth or counting half a million quid's worth of pennies ? " No answer. " That's another customer you've lost then " was my parting comment. Yet another useful service to their own customers removed on some dubious excuse. Any others doing this ? I wanted a draft because I specifically wanted to pay out of that account. Seller wouldn't have needed to wait for a week to send the wheel. I've done a cheque on my Halifax current and sent that instead. There's really no point in keeping the Santander one going now. Ted |
|
New Wed 23 Mar 11 23:35
Bank rant. - Stuartli
|
| You do exactly the right thing if you closed it. |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 07:04
Bank rant. - Iffy
|
|
I don't do Paypal either after it was implicated in fraudulent activity on my current account a couple of years ago. |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 07:23
Bank rant. - Fenlander
|
|
Using Ebay without Paypal is hardly worth it, for so many reasons but mainly because a large percentage of folks like myself block bidders with no Paypal account when I'm selling.... and for anything that's posted I'll only pay for something I'm buying with Paypal. Yes Paypal do go off on one now and again but in truth they are not that much more risky than any other online financial setup. Often when they ask for extra info/ID it's for your protection after they detect useage with the potential for ID fraud. BTW any on the ball seller wouldn't have sent out the item any quicker with your Santander counter/draft cheque anyway. They'll still bounce if dodgy. |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 07:27
Bank rant. - sherlock47
|
|
I recently closed a Santander account (£3k) on the spot after a rather unsatisfactory 45 minute experience of awakening a 'dormant' account. In that 45 minutes I witnessed about 3 other customers (out of about 10) who were variously treated to such poor service that I was surprised that they did not close their accounts. They all left muttering things under their breath. On that basis, of a 25% disatisfaction rate, I am surprised that they have enough customers left to be viable in the UK. |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 09:12
Bank rant. - Zero
|
| Based on my own experience, and those of others, the Bank deserves to be shut down. |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 09:58
Bank rant. - bathtub tom
|
|
I wanted to close an old Abbey postal account (guess who owns them now) so sent the relevant form. Santander replied, asking me to fill in a form requesting the account be closed. |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 10:16
Bank rant. - Stuartli
|
|
>> Santander replied, asking me to fill in a form requesting the account be closed.>> Clearly true to form... |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 10:18
Bank rant. - Bromptonaut
|
|
I've been with Abbey since they were a mutual but am getting increaingly hacked off. Couple of months ago they detected suspect activity on my account. False +ve as it happened but buying two laptops in quick sucession isn't normal for me!! Debit card suspended and go a blizzard of texts and phone messages asking me to contact them ASAP. All good so far but I'd expect to speak to a Human Being straight away. Not in Santanderland. Go through long automated process of keying in numbers and responding to mult-choice questions for security. Still no human, I'm then played a list of transactions, spanning several weeks, described by amount & Visa merchant category and asked to hit 1 if I recognise 2 if I don't. At that point I got cross and refused to respond; after a patronising ticking off 'that's not working is let's try another way' I got a real person. English not brill but as the accent was Polish not Indian I guess she was UK based. |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 10:24
Bank rant. - R.P.
|
|
Ted, I am s surprised you're not with the Co-oP Bank. British based, ethical and efficient. I'm with Smile and they are superb. |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 17:07
Bank rant. - Ted
|
|
Co-op seem to have closed all their branches round here. I want somewhere I can go and shout at someone. It wasn't particularly for speed of delivery that I wanted a counter cheque, it was that I only use that account for things to do with the classic car and bikes. I'll get a counter cheque next week, over a grand now, and put it in my Leeds or Halifax account. SWM has a current and a savings account with SATANder......that's her choice though. Now, I need to find a back wheel complete with drum brake ! Ted |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 19:05
Bank rant. - Cockle
|
|
>> Ted, >> >> I am s surprised you're not with the Co-oP Bank. British based, ethical and efficient. >> I'm with Smile and they are superb. >> That's good to know, PU, as they're probably where I'm off to later this year. Abbey National had the benefit of my business for years but after becoming Santander they have deteriorated at an enormous rate. After being dealt with appallingly after a fraud on our joint account which occurred when they cashed over £14000 worth of cheques from a lost cheque book which we had reported as lost over three months earlier I vowed they would have my business no more. They treated us as if we were the fraudsters, froze all of our accounts because they were linked thus leaving us with no banking facilities other than my personal account with RBS. The freezing of the accounts meant that all my direct debits defaulted and I then, understandably, started receiving phone calls from all the defaultees who, of course, I had no means of paying as my wages were being paid into the account Santander had frozen. They refused to refund the withdrawn monies or release my wages to another account until their 'investigations' were completed, that took 5 months. In the meantime they set up a mirror account after 2 months so I could resume some sort of normality however after the investigation was complete and the accounts were 'reconciled together' they promptly tried to charge me for the overdraft caused by the fraudulent cheques! Just to rub salt in the wound, several months later, as the accounts had been 'reconciled' they then cashed two more of the lost cheques against our new account..... Conversely, RBS I have always found to give excellent service however they have told me that under a EU ruling about them receiving Government aid during the crash they have to divest themselves of all RBS branches, and the accounts held at those branches in England, and of Nat West branches and accounts in Scotland. RBS then explained that the sale of branches and accounts was to, yes, Santander and that I would hear more in due course. Hence the interest in the Co-Op as there is no way that Santander are going to see anymore of my business pass through their doors. As an aside, I also note that Lloyds Banking Group have just taken on, as their new head man, the former head of Santander and that he has pretty quickly replaced all the various heads of the departments with his former colleagues at Santander. Looks like a recipe for improved customer service at Lloyds then........ |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 19:29
Bank rant. - mikeyb
|
|
Been with HSBC for years and in my experience they have always been fair and pretty good. Only a couple of gripes in 20 years - cheque went throroduced a new policyugh my account for more than I wrote it for - one phonecall to them and they said they would investigate - called me back a couple of hours later to concur that it was their mistake and money back in my account. Have called me beofore to question debit card payments, but its always someone human who calls. Local branch have just also introduced a new policy where they charge non customers £5 to use the counter service at peak times in an atempt to give priority to their own customers. I gather first direct (also HSBC) are suposed to be pretty good |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 20:19
Bank rant. - Roger.
|
|
Santander are typical of (most) Spanish banks - arrogant, expensive and inefficient. I have the luxury of a staff (pensioner's) account at HSBC - so no bank charges for normal business. I have to say our local HSBC is very good; friendly and helpful.(No, they initially did not know I had a staff account!) |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 22:43
Bank rant. - Dave_
|
|
>> they initially did not know I had a staff account Don't they have a particular series of account numbers for staff? I worked at the Midland for a while after leaving school and it was certainly the case then. |
|
New Thu 24 Mar 11 22:48
Bank rant. - rtj70
|
|
I bet they knew as Dave says. Like we can spot contractors at work easily - badge is different colour and personnel number is different and obvious too. |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 08:20
Bank rant. - Roger.
|
|
No - it was opened, via the internet, as a immigrant account in preparation for our move back to the UK. HSBC is one of the few UK banks to offer this service. Others I have found are the Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale bank, both owned by National Bank of Australia. Only after it was up and running did I inform them that I had worked for a subsidiary of the Midland bank many years ago and was in receipt of a very small bank pension. This stopped the monthly account fee, but the original account number remained the same, as it has since conversion, (after 12 months) to a regular joint account. Back to the rant, though, here is a Telegraph article about the euro, which concludes by recommending depositors be wary of leaving more than £50K with Santander! tinyurl.com/4qahewl |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 09:37
Bank rant. - John H
|
|
>> a very small bank pension. This stopped the monthly account fee, but the original account >> Monthly account fee? What for? >> Back to the rant, though, here is a Telegraph article about the euro, which concludes >> by recommending depositors be wary of leaving more than £50K with Santander! >> >> tinyurl.com/4qahewl >> Clearly another journo who is talking about a subject he knows nothing about. "Peter Oborne is the Daily Telegraph's chief political commentator." If you want good clear advice on money matters: www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/safe-savings "Every UK REGULATED account gets £85,000 protection." "Most banks including foreign-owned ones like Spain's Santander are UK regulated." Last edited by: John H on Fri 25 Mar 11 at 09:38
|
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 10:11
Bank rant. - Mapmaker
|
|
OP, why go to the effort of trogging to the bank when it takes thirty seconds to write a cheque on your current account? And I don't understand how you expect free banking if you want to have a man behind a till write you a cheque every time you need one. Go bank at Coutts or somewhere that charges you for the time you take up. PU, Coop won't have me as I'm not ethical enough, as I approve of hunting. Won't shop in a Coop. |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 10:20
Bank rant. - Zero
|
|
>> PU, Coop won't have me as I'm not ethical enough, as I approve of hunting. >> Won't shop in a Coop. My local co-op never asks me if I hunt when I walk through the door. |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 10:33
Bank rant. - Clk Sec
|
|
>> PU, Coop won't have me If my very brief experience with them about a decade ago was anything to go by, you have not missed much. |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 10:20
Bank rant. - Fenlander
|
|
Been with Lloyds for 30yrs+ but loyalty counted for nothing when I wanted some help a few years back plus local town has the most dreadful and unprofessional middle age female manager. Also they keep pestering me by phone several times a year to call in and do an account review... right... they want my time to sell me something. So this summer when I become an early pensioner I'm going to migrate all my business over to our joint account at the Nationwide which neither uses at present apart from as an enabler in moving savings with them. They're not quite like a proper bank but anything will be better than Lloyds. Mrs F is with Barclays in town and they are excellent. |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 10:24
Bank rant. - Zero
|
|
Been with Nat West (now RBS of course) for 38 years. I have my account at "St Johns Wood High Street" because that was the first bank I walked into with my first pay cheque. Left it there because it looks so classy on cheques. Nat West have (with two minor blips along the way) been super, and my local branch is a 10 minute walk away, and unerringly cheerful helpful and friendly. |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 10:30
Bank rant. - Iffy
|
|
...local town has the most dreadful and unprofessional middle age female manager... Part of the problem is few branches now have what the older among would describe as a bank 'manager' - someone with skill, experience, knowledge and the authority to make a decision. Last edited by: Iffy on Fri 25 Mar 11 at 10:31
|
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 10:42
Bank rant. - neiltoo
|
|
I've banked with Natwest since 1969, with only two problems, which were corrected almost instantly. Generally, I can telephone and speak to someone in my own branch. If the branch are busy, I can speak to a normal sapient human being at their British call centre. Their internet banking service is easy to use. My only gripe has been that they didn't tell me in time to revise a savings account, when the interest rate went down, and they had a limited period to change, which I missed. I've now moved this account. |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 12:02
Bank rant. - RichardW
|
|
Other side of the coin here....accidentally ended with most eggs in Santander's basket! Current account with Cahoot (originally Abbey on-line division) - no issues in 13 years. Originally moved as interest rate was 50 times that at NatWest - that's somewhat eroded now. Mortgage with A&L - no issues, and rate has been 1.49% for last 2 years - seems we are on some base rate tracker, but I have no paperwork to back that up - just keeping quiet about it Wife's business account with Santander (Abbey originally), again no troubles. No doubt all 3 are about to go belly up as I speak! |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 18:22
Bank rant. - Roger.
|
|
>> Monthly account fee? What for? www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/personal/current-accounts/passport |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 13:35
Bank rant. - lancara
|
|
God news on Santander yesterday: "Moody’s has downgrading the ratings for Banco Pastor, CatalunyaCaixa and Banco de Valencia to junk bond status, justifying its decision on the increased financial pressure on Spain’s sovereign debt. The only Spanish banks to escape the downgrade are BBVA, Santander and La Caixa." Bad news on Santander yesterday: "Spain has an exposure of about 71 billion € to private and public debt in Portugal...Santander is the Spanish bank with most exposure, given that 4% of its profits come from the Portuguese economy and it has assets there of 47 billion." I assume the Moody's rating was arrived at before the latest Portugal crisis. Also Moody's didn't do so brilliantly with rating the Irish banks. |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 15:24
Bank rant. - Telb
|
| I too terminated all dealings with them after a very unsatisfactory credit card experience. |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 13:01
Bank rant. - boolean
|
|
Had the misfortune to deal with one of this bank's forerunners. The first word of the name rhymed with Grabbey. On every occasion I made a transaction they cocked it up. Never again. Been with Midland, etc. for current account stuff for over 20 years. Generally very efficient. Last edited by: boolean on Fri 25 Mar 11 at 13:03
|
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 13:09
Bank rant. - movilogo
|
|
Why do you guys need to visit banks? The only times I went to any bank when I opened my first account and when applied for mortgage. If you already have a/c in one bank, usually you can open a new a/c in another bank online. Nearly everything else can be done online/phone. Of course there are exceptions. If I receive large amount ( > £1000) of cash I'd go to branch to deposit it. Even cash/cheque deposit can be done out of hours. Last edited by: movilogo on Fri 25 Mar 11 at 13:09
|
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 13:32
Bank rant. - hjd
|
|
I have been with Barclays for over 35 years, but they have been so totally incompetent in handling our accounts that we have moved to Lloyds, where we have a very friendly middle aged male manager. The music in the main branch really irritates me, as does the advertising, but I wtach very little TV so it's only newspaper ads at which I fume! |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 21:01
Bank rant. - mikeyb
|
| Forgot to add - Mortgage with Bank of Scotland (Halifax) hopeless - made two changes over the last few years and both have resulted in them compensating me for cocking it up |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 21:51
Bank rant. - DP
|
|
I banked with Abbey National from the age of 13, and stayed with them through the Abbey rebranding, and the Santander takeover. At one time we had three current accounts, a savings account and a mortgage with them, and were very happy customers. They were fair, helpful and generally a joy to deal with, until Santander took them over. The customer service disappeared within a few months, and then I had numerous problems with Indian call centre staff who completely misunderstood simple instructions, and were unable to deal with any enquiry which didn't follow their rigid script. Then one mistake resulted in a charge, which I had a heck of a job getting back. Moved to Lloyds TSB who aren't perfect, but are much better. The mortgage is still with Santander because we are still within our penalty charge period, but once this is up, it will conclude my dealings with them. It's a shame when a once decent organisation goes so rapidly downhill. |
|
New Fri 25 Mar 11 22:39
Bank rant. - Ted
|
|
I called in today and withdrew the maximum in cash, I'm off into the city tomorrow and will be passing another branch so I'll do it again. Youngest daughter want a loan for a week so I'll use some of that. I'll probably keep the rest about the place for now. I've been with the Halifax for about 20yrs and that's where my current account is. I do most of my banking with them on-line. That's where my meagre pension is paid in. I have a cheque only account with the Leeds, they have a branch in Sale and the staff there are really good. Apart from that I've got a wedge in B'Ham Midshires through Saga but I don't have muxh to do with them apart from a yearly statement and a monthly transfer of interest to the Hafilax. I was re-organising a car loan with the HX some years ago and the young lady dealing with it realised I had been paying for insurance on the previous loans. She brought the matter up and arranged for repayment, which was several grand.......nice honest action. Ted |
|
New Sat 26 Mar 11 00:13
Bank rant. - Londoner
|
|
Ted, let's get this straight. You start the thread about your account with Santander, and you are talking in thousands, not pennies. Then you say that your *MAIN* account is actually with Halifax, but you also have money in the Leeds and "...a wedge in B'Ham Midshires..." Err...shouldn't you be thinking of opening your OWN bank! :-) What's your daily runabout, a Ferrari? |
|
New Sat 26 Mar 11 02:34
Bank rant. - RattleandSmoke
|
|
I am surprised I have not been bared from that bank the amount of times I have told them to get stuffed. I never have got round to moving my current account though. To be fair I have found they have improved over the last few months especially as they no longer say "how can I help you mate" To be fair though I usually owe them money so can't complain too much! My savings are in an ISA at a small building society. |
|
New Sat 26 Mar 11 16:23
Bank rant. - Ted
|
|
I wish it were so, Londonboy...I did say A grand in Stantando. The HX doesn't have that in it most of the time. I wouldn't entertauin a Ferarri. Might have to sell the Konigsegg though, and buy another Veyron for Erin Dors. Called in the Manchester flagship branch of Satan's bank today...corner of Piccadilly and Market Street. Queue out of the door, 2 tills open and both busy with long transactions . Drew the rest of me wedge out in cash...left a few quid in just in case I need to launder some hooky cash..........if someone would only give me some ! Rats owing the bank reminded me of a letter a friend got, years ago, from his bank. Started 'Dear Mr D****, you seem to have helped yourself to £25 of our money.' No sense of humour nowadays ! Ted Last edited by: Ted on Sat 26 Mar 11 at 16:28
|
|
New Sat 26 Mar 11 16:31
Bank rant. - RattleandSmoke
|
|
The great think about 'Satan's' is they because of all the take overs they have lotS of branches now. There is one just three doors down from the one you mentioned used to be the old Bradford building society. That one is a lot quieter. |
|
New Sat 26 Mar 11 16:55
Bank rant. - -
|
|
''I banked with Abbey National from the age of 13,'' Wish i had such fond memories, unfortunately i had my first mortgage with the Abbey. Every single thing they could think of they'd charge fees for, and not pence either. Glad to see the back of them. Found the Halifax to be good so far, and they have paid me at least a fiver every month since i've been with them for the pleasure of operating my current account. |
Forum Version 3.0 - By Khoosys
Car4play Forum
