*OFFICIAL* UKFF RANT thread

[JLM]

4.

 

Abbey.

 

Fucking Abbey.

 

So yesterday I went to Starbucks after work to try one of these gingerbread latte dealies (could it be as good as the dark cherry mocha? I was willing to find out), where my debit card was declined. Odd, I thought, so I went to the cash machine next door. Said cash machine told me that my bank had refused my transaction. Brilliant.

 

So I phone the number on my card. The guy's English was appalling. It's not even an Indian call centre thing. I usually think people are over-dramatic about this because I can always understand them and they can usually understand me. Also I have Mauritian relatives with thick accents and I never have such a major problem there. I presume this guy was new though, because I was on the phone to him for 50 minutes. During this time he put me on hold at random when he got flustered, answered every question with an unhelpful and barely related response and left me with about 10 more questions than when I first called.

 

He said the fraud department had stopped my card because of suspicious activity with my account. So I was a bit concerned. I asked for my balance. He gave me it. I asked for my available balance, and he started running through transactions from early November. I asked again for my available balance, which he finally gave me. I then asked him to account for the difference between the two for me (i.e. what money is in holding and where that money is going).

 

He then started running through the early November transactions again. I asked for more recent transactions, so I then got my October transactions and was told exactly how much I had in holding. I tried to zero in on that figure and ask WHERE THAT MONEY IS GOING to confirm that it's all payments I made and that they were all going through OK (one of them is my rent for the month!). He confirmed the amount again, told me my current balance, then told me my available balance. I asked him yet again where the money in holding was going and he just told me how much money was in holding and what that meant. I had to hang up eventually because I didn't want to start hurling abuse at the guy.

 

Phoned again, got a different guy. He was able to tell me how much was in witholding and exactly where it was going. Straight away. Understood the question, spoke good English etc. He was another Indian guy but it's totally irrelevant because his English was nearly flawless. It's all about ability to communicate with the customer. If you can't do that then you really aren't suited for telephone work. Gah.

 

So he says I can call the fraud department in the morning because they stop taking calls at 5PM. Nice. The department with the authority to put a stop on your card at a moment's notice and not lift it until you contact them are the only department to stop taking calls at 5. Brilliant. So I call the card admin people and ask if they can put me through to fraud internally. Guy says he's given my details to them and that they'll call by 7PM.

 

They don't. Obviously.

 

Called up this morning at 9. "There is a problem with the connection, please dial again". ARGH. ARRRRGH. ARRRRGH.

 

Finally got through.

 

Was told that an online transaction I made was deemed suspicious and thus they put a stop on my card. It was a Paypal payment I made about a week ago to get 12 months of XBL gold. That was it. I used my Paypal account, as I've done countless times before. The payment went through, the code was sent, there was literally no issue whatsoever with this transaction.

 

I asked the fraud lady if it's their policy to put a stop on my card without, y'know, telling me about it. Turns out they use an automated service to send you a telephone message. I asked what number this was sent to because I have no missed calls or voicemails on my old or new phones. Turns out they had phoned my house in Blackburn. That was three house moves ago. Three. I have moved to Liverpool, Hemel Hempstead and Leeds since then. I have filled in change of address/circumstances forms each time (though each one has taken waaay longer to process than they're supposed to). So the department with the power to stop my card closes at 5PM and has ludicrously outdated contact details for me so I have no way of finding out about it aside from phoning the Abbey support line of HELL.

 

I didn't get my latte.

 

Fucking fucks.

 

I am done with Abbey, does anyone here use a good bank? I'm open to suggestions.

 

EDIT: This was typed up yesterday morning but our internet connection at work went down for the day, making "yesterday" in the story refer to Tuesday. I did get my latte yesterday at lunchtime as documented elsewhere. Otherwise I may well have put a 5 on this.

[Jaffa]

I am done with Abbey, does anyone here use a good bank? I'm open to suggestions.

Do not bank with HSBC. You will experience this exact situation every time you contact them. Except the 'finding someone who could help you' bit.

 

From a purely customer service point of view, i'd recommend RBS. We use them at work and their call centres are first class.

[Just Me]

I speak passable English, send your money to me.

[JamesTyler]

Seconded on avoiding HSBC. They're service is fucking scandalous.

 

My GF banks with RBS and she has no complaints whatsoever with them. Unlike my bank who are a shower of cunts.

[Barrington]

People who speak passable english

 

rating: bloodshed

[Au]

I bank with Lloyds and I've never had a problem.

 

That sounds like a whole heap of fun though... I may have a rant later, I'm waiting to find out how angry I'm actually going to be about it though.

[Chest Rockwell]

From a purely customer service point of view, i'd recommend RBS. We use them at work and their call centres are first class.

 

But is it the same centre for corporate and personal banking? Banks tend to have better service for their corporate clients.

 

Anyway, Barclays were really good with me when my card got cloned and I got rinsed. They gave me all the money back ever before all the paperwork and formal 'investigation' had been done and their call centre peeps were very helpful. That's the only serious banking issue I've ever had, and they dealt with it well.

[JLM]

That's the only serious banking issue I've ever had, and they dealt with it well.

 

That's the kind of endorsement I'm looking for. I'm not thinking about an overdraft/charges/rates etc. at this point, I just need a bank that won't fill me with rage every time I ask them to do the simplest thing, and I also want a bank that won't cancel my card when I use fuggin Paypal. I hope all the Santanders get turned into TRENDY WINE BARS.

[Halitosis Romantic]

4

 

Some twat on ebay whinging cos the DAB radio I sold him is a day late - what can I say? I don't give a fuck if some welsh twat in Liverpool is waiting with baited breath for an obsolete piece of shit radio, and I didn't send it till Tuesday when he bought it on Saturday. What can I say? I wasn't at work much Monday or Tuesday, and my radio was. So I told him to give me negative feedback and then throw it in the Mersey, if he's so inclined.

[HarmonicGenerator]

I've also never had a problem with Barclays, they might be worth a bit of investigation.

[Jaffa]

From a purely customer service point of view, i'd recommend RBS. We use them at work and their call centres are first class.

 

But is it the same centre for corporate and personal banking? Banks tend to have better service for their corporate clients.

 

Good point, i'm not entirely sure of the answer to that.

[bigfoote]

The 1 - 5 scale isn't big enough...this is a raging 6

 

Abbey/Tesco

 

OK, short version...last Friday was payday...didn't get paid, thought maybe a 24hour delay (first payday in a new job etc.). Flagged it Saturday morning, was told by Tesco it had gone in (had a payslip, employee number)...still no cash. Rang Abbey, no transaction into the account...Monday morning, get Tesco to ring their corporate payroll (Bangalore!!!), no issues their end...go into Abbey, no record of any transaction from Tesco

 

It is now Thursday, I'm owing cash to 5 different people, and still no closer to getting my money...

 

This coupled with the hassle of the new store opening (Havant Extra - big fucker opened Monday morning) has left me with no fuse, and generally very fucked off generally....

[Halitosis Romantic]

Our customer satisfaction survey has Smile or First Direct at the top, with the best high street banks being Co-op and Alliance & Leicester.

[Au]

I'd say this is probably about a 3 or 4 but I think I'm containing it well.

 

Back in April, we booked tickets for ATP: Nightmare Before Christmas. I put it on my credit card, everyone gave me the money, job done. In June, they announced they were doing another festival a week later and I got a text from one of the girls we were going with saying that she much preferred the line-up and was gutted we already had tickets for the first one. I suggested selling our tickets for the first one and buying some for the second one. She said we'd end up paying more if we waited because we'd gotten early bird tickets before. So, once more, I offered to buy the tickets on my credit card and we'd just sell the other ones when we could.

 

We listed the tickets on a few reseller sites but then ATP put out a notice saying any tickets bought through resellers wouldn't be valid and that we could only resell the tickets through them. Fair enough, we emailed them and said we were looking to sell them and they said they'd be in touch. Just before we went to Thailand, we still hadn't heard from ATP so I emailed them to say that if they did find a seller whilst we were away to just sell the tickets without confirmation. Got back to find an email from them apologising for not being able to sell the tickets and saying we could advertise them on various discussion boards.

 

So, it's been just over three weeks since we got back, I've put countless ads up on all of these sites and still haven't sold the tickets.

 

I was talking to the girl whose idea it was to go in the first place and who wanted to to the second festival and prompted me to buy the second lot of tickets and was saying how it looked like I was going to make a loss regardless of whether they sold or not. By this point, I'd reduced the price on the ad's to less than halfprice. Her response: "Try not to think about it."

 

I've gone all out over the last two days trying to get rid of them, saying I'd accept any offers just to make sure the tickets didn't go to waste and to recoup some of my loss. Still no joy. So I was talking to her again yesterday, trying to say that a bit more compassion than "Try not to think about it" would be appreciated as I'd only bought the second lot of tickets because she wanted to go to that one more and whilst I didn't blame her for it it felt like she didn't care that I was going to lose so much money because I'd wanted to do something nice for her. She said I was trying to guilt trip her into giving me the money which pissed me off as I wasn't at all, I just wanted her to display some sort sympathy.

 

I text my ex when an ebay auction for them didn't yield any buyers and said I might as well try and give the tickets away to which she asked if she could offer them to her friends. I said that was cool but then realised that logistically that would mean she'd have to go with them and that they'd be going with her new bloke. So I asked if this basically meant she was asking if she could have the tickets so she could go with her new boyfriend with me paying for them and whether she thought that was fair, to which she said that it might not happen anyway. As it turns out, the girl who would have been driving said she couldn't go anyway but I'm still not impressed that she thought that was reasonable.

 

So, basically, I'm out

[JLM]

Wait, how are you ot