Complaining

Now they have told me that once I have asked to make a complaint they will get back to me within 2 days. I pointed out that it is already 2 1/5 times that so they must have a lot of complaints!

You must be gibberish with rage by now! I do hope something has happened.

Gibbering!

Go to the financial ombudsman . You’d be surprised once you copy in your bank how quickly they work :-)

So frustrating Nonnie. I can sympathise. I had terrible trouble with the RBS last year when selling/buying a property. They were loathe to let me withdraw my own money and it took 5 weeks of phone calls, a visit to the main bank and numerous conversations with the CEO's p.a. until I got them to release the funds. They admitted failure on their part and sent me flowers and £100; I was sorely tempted to tell them what they could do with their bunch of flowers . I'm now in the process of changing to another bank after more than 38 years loyalty. Pity these banks aren't so loyal to their customers.

A lot of banks seem to employ people who have had a common sense by-pass. I think I have posted before that when my DH died I contacted the bank, sending a copy of the death certificate, asking to close our joint account and transfer the balance to another bank. I received a letter returning the death certificate, offering condolences, and then stating they couldn't close the account without my DH's signature!!! In the end I transferred the money to the new bank and the old bank kept sending me statements showing a nil balance for a least a year before asking if I wanted to close the account!!

I am sorry for anyone who has these problems with their bank but just to say we have banked with First Direct since it opened and haven't had a single problem. They answer the phone or an on line message immediately and are always helpful and pleasant. Cant recommend them highly enough.

I've been with the Co Op Bank since the 1970s and have nothing but excellent service in all that time. Their UK based call lines are open 24/7/364 and, no matter when I call them, their staff are unfailingly helpful and friendly. Their ethical credentials are attractive to me too.

Asking for the name of the CEO is never is good idea - it's freely available information so why ask ? And what would you do with the name - they are not going to take your call or read your letter .

Make all complaints by email so that you have an audit trail.

If you want to lodge a formal complaint send it to the company's registered office and send an email to customer complaints stating that you have done so. That does get a response and pretty quickly usually...

I like that sunseeker common sense bypass, yes, that's them.

It's not a question of changing banks, it was savings not normal banking and I wanted my money back because they are reducing their interest rate.

Why is it not a good idea to ask for the name of the CEO Turquise? Surely it showed that I meant business?

I find writing letters these days far more effective than emails.

Not much point in contacting ombudsmen until you have exhausted the company's own compla, ints procedure as they won't look at it until you have.

Marmight buying and selling property is bad enough without the bank making it harder. We had a similar thing a couple of years ago with the deposit for DS's house. I made a transfer and it didn't arrive in his bank. I phone my bank and they said they had held it because they were not sure it was not a scam. Fine, I appreciate their fraud prevention but why didn't they ask me? They send me text messages when I set up a new payee so they had my number. The transfer was to my son and was not a new payee, I have previously sent him money so it was surely not so suspicious. They said that it happens automatically and they don't do anything about it for 72 hours! That could have caused his sale to fall through. Indeed a 'common sense bypass'

My local bank is closing down - surprise surprise. I've been invited to use telephone banking. The person on the other end seemed surprised at my concern for the safety of this - in no way would I discuss my finances over the phone - but to his credit he backed down and said I could continue to talk to my personal adviser or whatever they call themselves these days face to face. It took a while to argue my case but it was worth it!!!

golden wonder if it will actually happen. You may have convinced the person on the phone but will it actually happen?

I bank online without any problems but twice a year we get cheques which we have to take to the Post Office to pay into our bank.

I made a written complaint (via the website complaints system) to HSBC before Christmas, still waiting for response.

Uhhh, infuriating !!

NatWest once bounced a very large cheque that my husband had issued. It was the "lump sum" part of his pension, transferring to a different financial institution. It was the end of the financial year and it would have been very difficult if it didn't go through. Our local branch said it was because he didn't have authority to sign on the account as they did not hold his signature - he was over 60 and had banked with them since he was a teenager. I had also had authority to sign since he travelled a lot, but they had no record of this either.
They said that signatures had now been digitised and something must have gone wrong - but that the good news was that there was one person who was authorised. Turned out that this was our daughter, who had never been able to sign on his account at all.
We provided passports, driving licenses, utility bills etc. etc. and in the end they relented and allowed him to transfer his own money - they did make an attempt to make him pay for the CHAPS payment which was necessary to get the payment there in time, but eventually dropped the charge.
Their excuse for all this was that it was for security reasons - but they could not explain why my daughter would have been able to access his account at any time when he could not. It could just as easily have been another person with the same surname as us. Laughable if it wasn't so dangerous....

I found that using twitter to raise a complaint or emailing a company CEO both yielded very quick resolutions to probld.

Should read problems!!

Customer Service at banks, internet providers, energy suppliers etc etc seems to be pretty grim all round. They all seem to have been trained to respond in a certain way, using your name constantly and apologising profusely without actually doing anything. Their ingratiating attitude always reminds me of Uriah Heep... ugh!

I find Twitter very good for getting complaints sorted out. You have to follow the company your complaining about, we've done this a few times when we've had problems with a company and every time we've had someone ring very quickly and sorted problem out.

I have heard the Co op bank for at least the last 12 years. No problems at all, very helpful. On the other hand it took Halifax 6 years to eventually close a credit card account after I had asked for it to be closed.

I think there's something slightly more sinister about all this. In these days of electronic banking, money doesn't just disappear... it goes somewhere. And if it's gone for a couple of days, it's earning interest for somebody, somewhere... and isn't that somebody the Bank ?

When my Sister moved house, the bank said they couldn't find her new account. Consequently her salary went missing for five days. It caused great upset.

She demanded to know where the money had been ... and was told all Banks have accounts into which they put money. And for which any interest paid goes to the Bank !

Agree about Twitter, Gillco and Rivendell. Companies are NOT happy to see complaints to them being noted by all in Twitterland!

Nonnie
Ombudsman Services website gives full details how to make a complaint It is infuriating that your bank is dragging its heels however the ombudsman requires that before they give you their assistance you send a formal letter of complaint, not an email, to those services you are complaining about ie your bank, then wait for their response. OBM services can be a very lengthy process and I believe you will find it much quicker to push your bank.

It's interesting that if you go 1p overdraft they communicate immediately and make charges for months, but if you want your money it takes weeks and there is no interest for you. The systems are designed to keep your money for as long as possible so they can make a profit investing it. I also object to being pushed towards online banking which I consider dangerous still. I may go back to 'under the mattress'