Halifax must be the worst bank ever...

[that_punk_guy]

If a direct debit costs more than your balance, they refuse payment, and charge you £30 two working days later. If that £30 makes you go into the red, for some miraculous reason they find that somehow more acceptable. Funny, huh? Oh yeah, and for each month that you go into the red, there's an unauthorised overdraft fee of £28.

One big, blatant scam. I mean, why not pay the direct debit and then just charge you the overdraft fee? That'd still be bad but it wouldn't be quite as much of a kick in the face.

Then there's customer relations. Don't know if anyone remembers when they accidentally left a training board on display, saying they didn't want "taxi drivers, market stall owners, etc", because they bring in large amounts of coinage. Interestingly enough, you are only allowed to deposit five bags of coins at a time. It's a bank, for f**k's sake!!

Now this... This morning I got a new card in the post. It's a Visa Electron debit card, to replace my old Solo card. No warning was given, no-one asked my opinion. Just as Solo was starting to become more widely used, they've gone and switched us all over.

A number of online high-street offshoots won't accept the new card, neither will EBuyer...

God damn it.

[odin]

So....what's holding you back to change bank? Or even open up a few accounts. I have two main bankaccounts. One has very good online banking thingies (including international stuff). And the other one....well...I only know that account number by heart, so that's why I'm keeping it :-D.

[Van_M]

Don't worry Chris
Regarding the "unauthorised overdraft" charge, NatWest did the exact same thing to me...it's just another way they use to steal money from the people... after that, I went there and demanded my account to be closed... I just paid their stupid fee, closed my account and got myself peace of mind. I don't think there are any good or bad banks. They're all lokoking to make interest off your hard earned money oftenly using schemes as such.  :pissed:

[mikeymike]

If a direct debit costs more than your balance, they refuse payment, and charge you £30 two working days later. If that £30 makes you go into the red, for some miraculous reason they find that somehow more acceptable. Funny, huh? Oh yeah, and for each month that you go into the red, there's an unauthorised overdraft fee of £28.

Some of that is fairly standard practice.

I'm with Halifax as well, it annoys me how they claim to be a bank but aren't.  For example, a bank manager is considered an appropriate person to countersign a passport application.  But Halifax's "bank managers" can't.  They also have business accounts but don't provide business loans.  They also have a credit card service that charges "repayments cover" proportional to the amount spent on the card, even though I pay off my bill every month without fail.

I nearly changed to Nationwide recently (who my parents are with), until they brought up a payment that they had neglected to bill my parents with 6 months previous (a Sky direct debit bill), and attempted to force my parents to pay it without providing proof that the bill hadn't been paid.  Bear in mind... "direct debit", you know, the bill that your bank is supposed to handle?  It's not like my parents have problems managing their finances, so the money has always been there to pay the bill.

Banks really p*ss me off.  I'm not even going to go into the story of me trying to get a business loan, as it tends to make my blood boil.

[the_leander]

I must admit that Banks have always irritated me beyond belief. It doesn't matter how much they say they're offering the customer a better deal, we do tend to get some seriously nasty crap over here.

I was talking to a sweed a few weeks ago and I asked him how long it took his bank to complete an electronic transfer, he told me half a day, I almost dropped my cuppa at that... Insane stuff.

And yes, I do feel that we in the UK are being royally raped by these buggers.

[iamaboringperson]

Westpac Bank: BEST BANK EVER!! :-)

Worst bank EVER(that still exists): Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Worst bank EVER(that no longer exists): State Bank of Victoria

[iamaboringperson]

Banks really p*ss me off. I'm not even going to go into the story of me trying to get a business loan, as it tends to make my blood boil.

Perhaps UK banks know they can do what ever they please, since UK residents are mostly suckers.

[odin]

I'm proud to say that I regularly get send statements from Commonwealth bank by airmail of my 0,3 AUD Ozzie bank account. I'm costing the bank more money in postage than they can get out of interest on the account  :evilgrin:.

[T_Bone]

Eastman Savings and Loan.

Only pain in the arse is that there's no local branch. :lol:

[Vincent]

odin wrote:
I'm proud to say that I regularly get send statements from Commonwealth bank by airmail of my 0,3 AUD Ozzie bank account. I'm costing the bank more money in postage than they can get out of interest on the account  :evilgrin:.

:lol:

That is something to be proud of :-D

[Doobrey]

I had a similar experience to TPG.
 
 I had my car insurance on a monthly direct debit, no problems for the first few months until I had to work away from home for a couple of weeks.
 Direct debit fails because I was £5 short  in my account, the bank then charge me a £12 fee.
 A couple of days later, the insurance company try again, and there`s even less in the account and it fails, and I get another £12 fee.
 This carries on every 2 to 3 days for just under 2 weeks , landing me with a lovely automatic overdraft to cover the banks fees and a big pile of letters from the bank and insurance company when I got home :pissed:

 I`m with TPG on this one, WTF couldn`t they give me a £5 overdraft in the first place ?

Then another time, I went in to ask for a new cheque book.
Normally they send one out automatically when you`re close to the end, but nothing ever arrived.
 Anyway, the jumped up little jobsworth behind the counter tapped away at her computer, looked up at me and said "It was sent out over a month ago".
 I told her I`d never recieved it, and she snapped back "Well, you must have, cos it`s been sent. Go home and have a good look around. If you can`t find it, come back in tomorrow and you`ll have to declare you lost it".
 
Needless to say, I asked her to forget about sending me a new cheque book and asked her to close my account as I was taking my custom to somewhere more polite. Well, words to that effect  :evilgrin:

[iamaboringperson]

The worst problem I've had with banks in the last couple of months are some of the truly AAA+++ chicks who work there!

Once I entered the bank and there were 2 or 3 women sitting at desks on either side of the front of the bank (with me standing in the middle), two old women on my left(one busy working), the one on my right was absolutely gorgeous!

I didn't know where to sit! I could have sat opposite the good looking one, but I would have been quite unable to concentrate on  what I was there for. I could just imagine it... "I think this is the breast bank ever.."

So, feeling too nervous, I went and sat down at the desk of the old woman, who made me feel quite calm

I have thought about what it would be like if I were to choose the other woman instead, however....


In order to make customers like ME feel more comfortable, banks should employ LESS attractive women! :-o

[that_punk_guy]

iamaboringperson wrote:
Perhaps UK banks know they can do what ever they please, since UK residents are mostly suckers.

No, this is quite clearly the result of capitalist exploitation.

[iamaboringperson]

that_punk_guy wrote:

iamaboringperson wrote:
Perhaps UK banks know they can do what ever they please, since UK residents are mostly suckers.

No, this is quite clearly the result of capitalist exploitation.

:-D Of course it is! It's never the fault of stupid consumers!

[the_leander]

iamaboringperson wrote:

that_punk_guy wrote:

iamaboringperson wrote:
Perhaps UK banks know they can do what ever they please, since UK residents are mostly suckers.

No, this is quite clearly the result of capitalist exploitation.

:-D Of course it is! It's never the fault of stupid consumers!

Its not a case of being suckers or anything else, its a case of there being no impitus on the part of the banks to improve, I mean, where else would you go to except another bank with equally {bleep}ty service. Its not just one or two banks, its all of em!

The government feels that "self regulation" is the best thing for the consumer, which in reality that all the big bosses go to one meeting each year and share their rape statistics. The problem is that until the government (because we are meer consumers) gives them a firm kicking, they will continue on as they are.