My step daughter went into a bank yesterday at lunchtime. She checked she had £3,000 in her savings account and wanted to transfer it to her current account. The clerk did something and then said "there's not enough money there". My step daughter said that there had been a few minutes ago. They didn't want to do anything at first but she wouldn't step away from the counter and eventually the manager was called. The bank clerk had made the £3,000 "unavailable" in error and they had to call the head office to change that status. It took three hours to sort it out!
Abbey business are certainly incompetent. After my initial three year debit card expired I have found it impossible to get a replacement. This current account has never had a balance below 30k.
Once they did send me a card but they decided to cancel it a few months later. Most of the time it is like talking to a black hole if you are lucky enough to be told they will do something helpful it just doesn't happen.
There's a coincidence. I've recently cancelled accounts with both of those. No complaints with Abbey's service to be fair (not that I tested it much) but certainly the experience in a Lloyds branch of trying (unsuccessfully) to get my account closed confirmed that I was doing the right thing.
I had a problem with Barclays once on a business account but I let them off as it was a one off event.
They bounced a couple of cheques when there were ample funds, I only knew because the payee advised me of the bounce so I phoned the Branch to find out what had happened. They put me through to a Supervisor who told me that having checked the account they had stopped payment because the person whose account it was, was deceased.
I tried to explain that it was unlikely to be true. The cheques required two signatures from a possible four people so unless they had all suddenly died they should have been suspicious and apart from that as I was main person authorised to sign and she was talking to me I asked if she was clairvoyant. That one seemed to go right over her head so I asked to speak to the Manager. She said he wasn't in the office that day and I said I had his mobile number and would call him long distance because I had brought my mobile phone with me. There was still no recognition of what was being said or that she was supposedly according to her talking to the deceased account holder.
I did call the Manager and it turned out that Barclays had been informed of someone dying and had been asked to mark an account deceased but it was nothing to do with us and the clerk had incorrectly marked our account by mistake. The only problem was that once an account was marked deceased no Branch could apparently undo the process so although he was very apologetic they had to contact Head Office and it took five days to get everything back to normal. Still at least he saw the joke and do wonder whether in a quiet moment she realised the point I was so ineptly trying to make.
BeanSmart website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.