'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.
