'We're very busy at the moment.....We're experiencing excess levels of busyness just now.....We're inundated with unexpected levels of business.....No time to talk, busy busy busy.'
I DON'T CARE. I'd just like my life-savings back, please.
Went to my favourite Building Society in April to ask about moving my savings from another bank to them.
Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy, smoke me a kipper It'll be done by breakfast they said. Well, to be fair they said it would take a couple of weeks. I filled in the forms there and then and came home feeling very pleased with myself - modern women in control of her own finances, chasing the interest rate dragon and catching the financial tiger by the tail.
Two weeks later a letter from the old bank arrives to say my account is closed and a cheque has been sent to the new Building Society.
Great, no problemo methinks. (Did think, do they actually really still send physical paper cheques through the post? They do, apparently. How quaint.)
Waited another couple of weeks for paperwork from new place to arrive, but it didn't. Called in to local branch who chased it up and said they had not trace of it. At all. I walked at a somewhat brisk pace over to the branch of the old Bank and asked them for confirmation that it had been 'put in the post'. It had, nothing more they could do. Although, they did do nothing very helpfully and politely.
Fleet o' foot back to the new building society - they'd need to try to trace the cheque, could I go back to the old bank and find out when they'd posted it, what the exact amount was and get the cheque number? Please?
"Why don't I just sit here in your nice comfortable offices and you phone them and get all the info you need while I wait?"
So we did. They found the cheque. Hurrah! But, it was in a backlog pile as high as a kite and they were very very busy and they'd get round to processing it in due course and I'd have to be patient and not make a fuss otherwise it might go back to the bottom of the pile again. Really. No, not really, but maybe. "Come back in 5-7 working days." 9 workings days later it's still in the 'to be processed pile'.
Am turning lime and moss and sage and jade and my clothes are bursting at the seams, "I want my money, I want my money" "Be patient we are very busy" "That's not my problem, (only as it turns out, it is, but still), I just want my money. I've been waiting 5 weeks"
OO it makes me so mad that they make millions, billions, caerphillions in profit but won't spend a few thousand on a temp or two to help catch up with the backlog. When I started complaining directly to Head Office one of the operators agreed that the processing staff were equally pissed off for exactly that reason. And racking up a series of complaints from the "plenty of customers in your position".
After being a patient, reasonable, polite and good girl and getting nowhere I got quite short, and grumpy, cross and rude and got somewhere. We have a Deadline for Action agreed.
I need a chunk of the cash for a professional course that I have pay for NOW, and if I miss the deadline, the next session is 2008. Obviously I can sue for loss of earnings which will be way more than these savings, but how will I value the lost year of professional experience that I can't experience until I've completed this course? Maybe I should hope they don't make the 4.45pm Monday deadline we've agreed for sorting this out. I could take a couple of years off to explore the desert regions of the world and ride to Petra on horseback, camp out beneath the stars on the Steppes, go Walkabout or open a small beer shack / tea room / strip joint / bookstore / tattoo parlour on the edge of the Mohave.
Damn their possible efficiency in the nick of time.
I DON'T CARE. I'd just like my life-savings back, please.
Went to my favourite Building Society in April to ask about moving my savings from another bank to them.
Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy, smoke me a kipper It'll be done by breakfast they said. Well, to be fair they said it would take a couple of weeks. I filled in the forms there and then and came home feeling very pleased with myself - modern women in control of her own finances, chasing the interest rate dragon and catching the financial tiger by the tail.
Two weeks later a letter from the old bank arrives to say my account is closed and a cheque has been sent to the new Building Society.
Great, no problemo methinks. (Did think, do they actually really still send physical paper cheques through the post? They do, apparently. How quaint.)
Waited another couple of weeks for paperwork from new place to arrive, but it didn't. Called in to local branch who chased it up and said they had not trace of it. At all. I walked at a somewhat brisk pace over to the branch of the old Bank and asked them for confirmation that it had been 'put in the post'. It had, nothing more they could do. Although, they did do nothing very helpfully and politely.
Fleet o' foot back to the new building society - they'd need to try to trace the cheque, could I go back to the old bank and find out when they'd posted it, what the exact amount was and get the cheque number? Please?
"Why don't I just sit here in your nice comfortable offices and you phone them and get all the info you need while I wait?"
So we did. They found the cheque. Hurrah! But, it was in a backlog pile as high as a kite and they were very very busy and they'd get round to processing it in due course and I'd have to be patient and not make a fuss otherwise it might go back to the bottom of the pile again. Really. No, not really, but maybe. "Come back in 5-7 working days." 9 workings days later it's still in the 'to be processed pile'.
Am turning lime and moss and sage and jade and my clothes are bursting at the seams, "I want my money, I want my money" "Be patient we are very busy" "That's not my problem, (only as it turns out, it is, but still), I just want my money. I've been waiting 5 weeks"
OO it makes me so mad that they make millions, billions, caerphillions in profit but won't spend a few thousand on a temp or two to help catch up with the backlog. When I started complaining directly to Head Office one of the operators agreed that the processing staff were equally pissed off for exactly that reason. And racking up a series of complaints from the "plenty of customers in your position".
After being a patient, reasonable, polite and good girl and getting nowhere I got quite short, and grumpy, cross and rude and got somewhere. We have a Deadline for Action agreed.
I need a chunk of the cash for a professional course that I have pay for NOW, and if I miss the deadline, the next session is 2008. Obviously I can sue for loss of earnings which will be way more than these savings, but how will I value the lost year of professional experience that I can't experience until I've completed this course? Maybe I should hope they don't make the 4.45pm Monday deadline we've agreed for sorting this out. I could take a couple of years off to explore the desert regions of the world and ride to Petra on horseback, camp out beneath the stars on the Steppes, go Walkabout or open a small beer shack / tea room / strip joint / bookstore / tattoo parlour on the edge of the Mohave.
Damn their possible efficiency in the nick of time.
6 comments:
Next time you speak to them, ask how long the compensation - the one they will be paying you for loss of interest - will take to arrive. And, if it takes the same length of time, how much they calculate the compensation for the loss of interest in the delayed payment for loss of interest thanks to the original delay might be. And if they can't calculate that, ask them whether they might be better suited to a less challenging career path, like glass collecting, or sitting in the corner and drooling occasionally.
I occasionally post cheques to my bank in England. There is always an interminable (OK, it does terminate eventually) delay before the cheque is credited, which always makes me think it's got lost in the post. I rang to clear up the mystery. Forbidden to speak to someone in my branch, of course, but the call-centre lady did explain that when they get mail at the branch, THEY DON'T OPEN IT, but wait until they have a worth-bothering-with pile and then send that off to their mailing centre, which leaves it festering, presumably, until they can be bothered to deal with it and then, in the case of cheques, presumably send it back to the branch anyway. This doesn't seem like progress. Beware anyone posting cheques to British banks.
As you say, Bellulah, in this high-tech 21st century, why in God's name do they still send paper cheques in the post instead of just clicking a few icons? Do they still use quill pens as well?
As Tim says, ask for the missing interest on your gridlocked cheque.
Personally, having seen too much of this bureaucratic, paper-shuffling bollocks, I would have to be dragged screaming to a different bank. When it's finally in its new nest, keep it there and resist all rival blandishments!
WOW! That really looks as if taken from Kafka's The Process! What the hell?! I've done that twice (changing my money from one bank to another in search of better interest) and I they were pretty fast, after all the trivia question! If it was here in Portugal, you could always ask for the complaints book! IT always works here like magic!
I hope you managed! :) Good luck!
Tim, for the fun of it I'm going to do exactly that - once the account is up and running and I've withdrawn the cash and put it under my mattress.
bib, I don't understand why they don't use the money they spend on manning complaints departments on extra processing staff to make things run more smoothly.
Nick, I wonder if management and staff had to sign 5 or 10 year contracts like professional footballers or going into the Army, and got paid minimum wage that was boosted according to customer satisfaction ratings would things run more smoothly?
Goncalo, thanks. For one horrible moment it did cross my mind, 'what would I do if it was genuinely lost rather than delayed in transit'. The branch made a complaint on my behalf, I made one, the supervisor I finally spoke to made one, the Regional Manager for the North of Scotland made one. It was promised that it would all be resolved by 4.45pm yesterday. Was it? Of course not.
A complaints book at the bank - what a great idea. Except that British banks would probably charge you for making an entry - at least £250.
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