Abbey are complete &*$!!

[Stonehead]

Eleven days have passed since Abbey, part of the Santander banking group, stopped our accounts without telling us. Okay, they detected suspicious activity and acted, which was good. But since then, their service has gone well beyond appalling.

Have they opened new accounts, given us new cards, allowed us access to our own money? Of course not.


http://stonehead.wordpress.com/2009/08/ ... our-money/


http://stonehead.wordpress.com/2009/08/ ... ith-abbey/

We can't even transfer our money to another bank as it's locked away in Abbey's electronic vaults. (Abbey's corporate headquarters are in Spain, British management are in Milton Keynes, customer service is in Bangalore, account management is in the midst of moving to Poland, the nearest branch is an hour away and staffed by jobsworth teenagers, Fraud Investigation sounds like it's on the moon, and no one communicates with anyone else.)

On the bright side, I did manage to get an MBNA credit card with a £7500 limit and start using it within 48 hours. I don't like credit cards but at least I can pay a few bills now.

[Stonehead]

Oh, and do you know how hard it is to find a bank that combines decent customer service, online banking and branches, doesn't have a rip-off scheme of fees and charges, and has a decent presence in Scotland? I can match two or three out of the five, but that's it.

[Millymollymandy]

I would recommend First Direct, a telephone/internet only bank, open 24 hours a day 365 days of the year, English people on the phone, excellent customer service - I've been with them for about 20 years or more and rarely had a problem and when I have it has been sorted out quickly with apologies.

They don't have branches but I believe that you can pay in cheques (if you don't want to waste a stamp sending it to them) at Midland bank - mind you I've no idea whether Midland still even exist and there may be other banks you can use - I think they are part of HSBC these days and I noticed branches of that bank in England when I was last there, so maybe you can use them.

[Flo]

Try the bank of under the bed Sir.

[Stonehead]

Try the bank of under the bed Sir.

It's in need of a large government handout to maintain liquidity...

[red]

Try the bank of under the bed Sir.

It's in need of a large government handout to maintain liquidity...

hmm yeh its difficult to stash negative money under the bed :)

I have stuck to one of the 'big four' banks even though they are all money grabbing sh***s - because at the end of the day you do better if you have an actual branch with an actual manager to get by the throat.
a while back i had cards stolen, money withdrawn.. accounts frozen. took a lot of sorting out.. banks were useless (was actually them who gave my money away! - though tobe fair i did get it all back) -b tu my local branch were great..

sorry if abbey are giving you hassle. sounds terrible. hope you can get it sorted asap.

[ina]

I have stuck to one of the 'big four' banks even though they are all money grabbing sh***s - because at the end of the day you do better if you have an actual branch with an actual manager to get by the throat.

Doesn't always help, either: A while back I had a temporary liquidity problem (due to a mistake on my employer's side, who had suddenly lost my bank details ), so I took half a day off work to go to the nearest branch of BoS (as it still was back then, I think!), only to be told that I could only increase my overdraft limit by phoning a certain number. Grrrrr. I've seriously been considering going to somebody like Triodos with my current account; I have an ISA with them, and they've been very good with that one.

[Stonehead]

Abbey/Santander continue to deny us access to our money and say it will be four weeks before we can have new bank accounts. Time to take the war to them...

The overview:
http://stonehead.wordpress.com/dont-bank-with-abbey/

The latest post:
http://stonehead.wordpress.com/2009/09/ ... -problems/

And Twitter:
http://twitter.com/stonehead1

Sorry for posting links instead of details, but I've been working the phone all morning and am getting nowhere with these numpties. My advice, don't use Abbey/Santander.

How the **** are we supposed to get through a further four weeks without money on top of the 20 days so far?

[red]

I'm astounded.

[Stonehead]

I'm astounded.

You think that's astounding? You should hear the way most of Abbey's staff talk to "valued customers".

Oh and I forgot to mention that waiting four weeks was one of two alternatives offered to us.

The other was to have Abbey unfreeze the accounts—and we'd then be responsible for any fraud committed against them in the future. In other words, if someone tried to take £950 from the account twice, as they did 20 days ago, Abbey would let them do it and tell us to make up the loss ourselves. As if we were going to agree to that.

[Green Aura]

I've read your blog and I'm stunned - even by Santander standards this is pretty bad.

Try not to take it out on the counter staff though. Their rudeness, although not excusable, might be explained by the increasingly difficult working conditions they find themselves in. I mentioned my relative above. They're being squeezed from above and having to face (often justifiably) irate customers. I don't envy them.

What about the banking ombudsman? They must have some sort of reasonable standards of service. I can't see how anyone can condone a bank stopping you accessing your money for 7 weeks.

Have they even tracked down who was trying to access your account? I suppose there might be some small comfort if all this had enabled them to bring someone to prosecution. As I say small.

[red]

I'm astounded.

You think that's astounding? You should hear the way most of Abbey's staff talk to "valued customers".

Oh and I forgot to mention that waiting four weeks was one of two alternatives offered to us.

The other was to have Abbey unfreeze the accounts—and we'd then be responsible for any fraud committed against them in the future. In other words, if someone tried to take £950 from the account twice, as they did 20 days ago, Abbey would let them do it and tell us to make up the loss ourselves. As if we were going to agree to that.

well, i would have started the process of opening another bank account with a different bank by now.... unless I had a different account already. then divert salary etc (OH) into there....

[Stonehead]

I'm having an angry day. Abbey, of course, plus pig customers, new government regulations and various other issues mean the steam coming out my ears has been replaced by jets of flame.

As for the Financial Services Ombudsman, nothing can be done until eight weeks have passed from the date my first provable complaint was lodged with Abbey. The chap at the FSO suggested I try the regulator, the FSA. The FSA said it does not deal with individual complaints.

Yes, opening a new account is the "obvious solution". However, we can't do a direct switch as our account is blocked. A direct switch is when the new bank does all the changes for you. (And we do have other accounts but, because they're all linked via e-banking, if one gets blocked all are blocked. That means no bank account, no e-saver, no credit card, nothing.)

Instead, we have to start from scratch, providing a lot more ID and being subject to a lot more verification. We then have to do all the income sources, direct debits, standing orders and regular payments ourselves, which is not made any easier when we don't have access to e-banking and can't check the details. (And we have to be careful to get them right and set up for the right days—insurance companies in particular are prone to cancelling policies immediately if the money doesn't come through.)

It's going to take about a month to get all that set up, approved, verified and working.

And, of course, that still leaves the problem of how to pay other bills that can only be paid electronically, like the emergency credit card we took out because of all this. We can't even pay it with a postal order sent through the mail. (And isn't odd that you can get a credit card with a new bank in three days but not a bank account?)

And then there's the problem of coming up with enough cash to pay for things that can be bought directly, groceries, fuel, etc etc.

It's ****** ******* ******* ****** infuriating!

[Stonehead]

The Other Half has just realised we face another problem with starting a new bank account—the credit reference check. It's just taken us six months to get a re-mortgage in place because Experian's computer systems don't recognise our address and can't match it with the actual Post Office/Land Registry address. It means we have to go through a very long, manual process of proving who we are, proving where we live, and establishing our financial bonafides.

Argh!




(That's the closest smilie I can get to head-spinning.)


It was a lot, lot simpler in "the old days" when I used to get my pay fortnightly, in cash, in a brown envelope and sign the pay ledger to say I'd been paid. I'd take the money home, distribute it between envelopes with labels such as "Rent", "Groceries", "Car Insurance", "Petrol", and then pop into the local offices and shops to pay the bills as they came due. How has technology improved on this? (And no, don't answer. That's rhetorical.)

[John Headstrong]

when I found my phone this morning and turned it on I got a message to say that someone phoned but left no message. so I googled the number and came up with this http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/01214235645


maybe abbey are getting targeted and scamed but they or the media are just not reporting it?,and you are just caught in the crossfire.

21 days without access to money, jebus, I just don't really know what I would do, I just don't have much folding cash these days, it is all plastic and all with Abbey.