Stupid banks.

It would be flooded with spam within a few days.

... and with messages from customers who like to repeat their question every hour.

In addition to other posters - how does the bank KNOW that the email they recieve is from YOU?

So put it in writing - drop the letter into the post box of your local branch, or post it to the address that you CAN find on the website!

What makes you think that banks even have email facilities? Sure, certain departments will have email, but not all. The existence of email facilities, far from increasing productivity, has been shown to reduce productivity as staff need to spend hours a day sifting the important from the frivolous!

The above two comments are somewhat a non-sequiteur!

The answer is not always generic, even though YOU think it might be. Hence by IDing you they can give you the correct information - quite simple really.

Yes, I think they do - however, matching (or preferably exceeding) customer expectations whilst still operating a sensible business model is no mean feat. What would you consider a reasonable email turnaround time for a response? Twenty minutes, two hours - a few days? FWIW intra-office communications in my business have an expectation of a THREE DAY response unless specifically requested sooner - and only then with bloody good reason.

Banks, like other organisations, have learnt that if you offer email comms to customers then because despatcher knows email receipt is immediate, then despatcher expects almost immediate response. The trouble with this is that what if email is not read for four hours because, for example, receiver is engaged in other duties, then despatcher sends email again............round and round we go.............

MC

I suspect the reason is that if they were to put an email address on their web site they'd be so swamped with dozens of junk emails that their messaging system would rapidly become unusable.

Many bank with internet banking systems do have online response forms for customers to use after they have logged into the system.

Chris

There's a very simple answer to this and the SPAM problem. Issue each customer with an unique address to send E-Mail to, one that is essentially a random collection of characters so it isn't guessable.

There are also many other ways of reducing junk mail, even to well publicised and visible addresses.

Web forms are a pain in the backside from the sender's point of view, I refuse to use them as far as possible and tell the people who expect me to fill them in why I don't want to use them. The main reason is that I want a record of messages I have sent and forms prevent me from keeping this record.

There are many ways that this can be avoided:-

Encode the E-Mail address in the HTML so that it can't be 'harvested', it will appear to a human user as a valid E-Mail address but if you look at the underlying HTML it's broken up so that address harvesters won't see it as an E-Mail address. It's E-Mail addresses "in clear" on web pages that get the main bulk of junk mail.

Don't put the E-Mail address on the web site, but send it to customers when they get the details of how to use on-line banking.

Only put the E-Mail address on the web pages you get to when you have logged on to your account. In this case the E-Mail address could be unique to the customer and would also help indicate the authenticity of the E-Mail.

Which I hate using becuase they mean that I don't have a record of what I've sent to the bank. Especially in the case of business banking it's important to have these records.

wrote

Why don't you simply print off the form just before sending it, like I do? :-)

At the very least, after filling in the "comments" section, you can copy/paste into a text document and save on disk for future reference.

Without a hint of irony, "Andrew" astounded uk.finance on 29 Jun 2004 by announcing:

Can you please post your real e-mail address? ijweqdiowehjoid.com is not a valid domain.

"Alex" wrote

Why should anyone post a real email address, on a newsgroup of all things?!

Because heaps of printed forms are not very easy to search using a computer and they occupy lots of filing space that I'd prefer not to have to provide.

Still not easily searchable (though possible). I can currently search through the whole of my 'sentmail' mailbox in a fraction of a second even though it's several megabytes long. Try doing that with hundreds (if not thousands) of separate files. Not to mention that I don't have to do anything to record the mail I've sent. It's done automatically by my mail program.

Because it's very useful when you want to send them E-Mail! :-)

My Reply-to: address is valid and if you send me a message there I will see it. It gets *very* little junk mail (maybe one a day, but probably less). The addresses that collect lots of junk are those that appear on web pages.

Internat banking is seen as a 'side' offering by pretty much all of the high street banks.

If you insit on such 'technology' use a bank specifically designed for that. For example, Egg or Smile or Cahoot. Egg and Smile both certainly have "secure messaging" features where you can email whatever department with queries.

There is no point complaining about a particular service that one company is offering, when another company will quite happily offer that service to you. If you're not happy, go elsewhere. That's the whole point of consumer choice.

Thanks, T.

It's not difficult at all to search through text files in the same way you might with a mailbox.

It may not be done automatically, but that's your problem for being too fussy.

T.

Then you should use a proper operating system, like Windows!! ;-)

wrote

Easy! Don't you use Windows, or don't you know how to use it?

Without a hint of irony, "Tim" astounded uk.finance on 30 Jun

Why not? And then apply the same reasoning to a website.

Without a hint of irony, snipped-for-privacy@isbd.co.uk astounded uk.finance on 30 Jun

Hang on a minute; how many letters are you sending to this bank?

A good reason for not putting it on a newsgroup as far as I can see.

Are you recommending Windows or not recommending Windows, I'm confused! As it happens I use a Linux system to send and read mail but I don't see that it makes much difference.

I didn't say one *couldn't* search through a lot of files for something (with Windows or any other OS) but it's certainly a heck of a lot easier if all one's sent mail is automatically in one place 'ready to be searched'.

Having to manually copy the text one has entered into a form in order to record it is quite enough hassle to prevent me doing it in general. With E-Mail I send it just happens, no action required at all on my part. That's all I was saying really.

It's not just banks. It's businesses I buy stuff from as well, insurance companies, etc. I would guess I send some hundreds of messages (which would be best sent using E-Mail) every year which I would like to record in the course of business etc.

As I said I know there are ways of recording what one has entered on a form but they all involve enough hassle (i.e. manual operations with the mouse) that I'm most likely not to bother.

If I send an E-Mail I don't need to do anything other than send the E-Mail, it's recorded. (No mouse movement required either in my case)