Total bankers
Proof that any cock-up the public sector can perform the private sector can do as well.
Barclays bought out the Woolwich who, until this week, we banked with. No choice in the matter, our accounts were transferred this week to professional bastards, Barclays, and the Woolwich accounts deleted.
To add injury to insult, our Woolwich cards were cancelled before the new Barclays ones were sent out. Genius. The new cards haven’t arrived and now there’s a postal strike. Excellent. Looks like it’s going to be a quiet weekend.
Plus, the Barclay’s website is so piss-poor we can’t even see when our direct debits are going out and so have no idea if we have enough money in the bank to cover them. The drone in the call centre said they might refund any charges incurred ‘as a courtesy’. Cheers.
My partner has just spent two hours in the local branch and has got no further forward. Thanks for nothing you rapacious bastards. I hope the chairman chokes on his foie gras.
Anybody recommend a decent bank? I use the term ‘decent’ to mean ‘efficient’ or at least ‘usable’. I’m not so naive as to expect decency from the banking establishment.
Posted on June 29th, 2007 at 12:52pm under Miscellaneous misanthropy
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• 17 Comments |
HBOS – not perfect but have yet to make an error in 18 years. Other friends swear by RBS.
I’ve always been with Abbey National and they don’t seem tooooo bad, compared to the rest anyway. I was quite pleased when they refunded one of my bank charges as a “gesture of goodwill”…
http://theperfectexcuse.blogspot.com/2007/06/bank-charges.html
I switched to First Direct from Barclays and have never looked back. So good to be able to call up and speak to someone whenever you want to. I hate internet banking, I hate “press 1 to x, press 2 to x”, so it’s a thumbs up to FD.
I have since recovered all charges levied on my Barclays account for the last 6 years by taking the scumbags to the Financial Ombudsman. I got the cheque last week – so very, very satisfying I had to go and smoke a cigarette afterwards. And I don’t even smoke.
The Co-op has always been very reliable and helpful for me, if you can stand the deluge of leaflets about the number of trees they are planting. And their Internet banking is very good.
Nationwide
Good all round, mutual, internet banking that works well and very low overdraft rates. Been there for the last 6 years – no complaints.
j
“Proof that any cock-up the public sector can perform the private sector can do as well.”
Of course: but then look how easy it’s going to be to solve as compared to waiting for another election to come around
HSBC have always been pretty good for me.
I’ve been with the Co-Op since ‘94 and I’ve had no problems with them at all. Plus, they don’t invest in arms manufacturers.
I also have a Smile account. They’re the internet banking branch of the co-op and offer slightly better interest rates.
Both bank’s internet banking sites are excellent and very easy to use and the phone banking with the co-op is great – an array of automated options, or you can just press the # key as soon as you’ve entered your account number and get straight through to (or sometimes to the queue for) a real live and suffciently intelligent person who can deal with any problems.
For savings, ING direct are excellent too
Nationwide Flexaccount works, offers useful interest on your balance, AND is very cheap to use abroad.
The other plus point of Nationwide is a huge branch network.
Though on the other hand the way in which they appoint directors is a huge black art – and the only point in their favour is that they seem to be enriching themselves to a slightly lesser extent than elsewhere.
Vote Solomon rather than Rehoboam!
Nationwide. Reasonable service, sensible, functional website, and no bonus charges or exchange rate loading for using the debit card abroad.
Royal Bank of Scotland gave me £50 once, which was nice. The letter they sent me said they hadn’t done anything wrong, so paying me £50 was really very generous.
I’ve been talking about switching to Lloyds TSB for yonks. I don’t think they’re particularly ethical or anything, but the terms are pretty good and their IT is very solid.
No, I don’t get out much.
Another vote for Nationwide here.
The Royal Bank’s phone and online banking is pretty good, and you can call your branch (not much of an option if you don’t live in Scotland, admittedly).
I haven’t used Cahoot for a current account, but their credit card stuff is pretty decent.
First Direct – they’re helpful and you get real people to talk to, and they’re in this country to boot!
I used to bank with LloydsTSB. They were crap, awful, incompetent, annoying, useless bastards. Switched to Nationwide and never looked back. Good service, excellent internet banking, decent interest rates and (usually) no hidden charges for things.
Smile. Actually the co-op, but in an internet-specialist disguise. Helpful, friendly, geared to communication by email and by phone AND competent.
I closed all my Woolwich accounts before the move in a burst of good sense.
Go with Smile – 6 years of faultless customer service and ethical investment for me.