Well for that one you need to work for Shat West. I was in town when the phone went, one of those number withheld calls. So I picked up and some women introduced herself as being from their customer care department. I use customer care in rather loose term of the word.
Anyway she asked a few questions to confirm my ID and we had a chat about the complaint that I had put in. Now to be honest, I really could not be bothered and quickly explained that it was a bit pointless as I had closed my account, moved on and pointed out that the opportunity to apologise and make amends in any real meaningful way had gone.
Now to give the lady her due she was very polite and could not apologise enough over the fact that they had not gotten back to me in time (I put the complaint in on a Tuesday and e-mailed them advising that had I heard nothing back I would be closing my account on Friday, which I did) and that all the staff I had spoken on that Tuesday to had been less than helpful.
I also pointed out that a lot of their staff needed training on being able to make decisions and proper use of tone and inflection when dealing with customers.
Well its all going fine, she is apologising to an upset former customer, I am accepting apology all well an good; then she throws the fucking spanner in the works. As I explain that my main reason for closing the account was their attempt to bum rape me with £60+ quid in charges for going a few shekels over drawn, she points out that in fact the charges were higher than the £60 odd quid.
Please explain says I.
So she does, pointing out that there were the two charges that I knew about, one I managed to get written off that day and the other was due to be imposed at the end of October; which I also knew about. Then she points out that there was a fee on the account and as I was overdrawn extra charges had been imposed on that bringing the total upto £108 fucking quid. None of which had been explained to myself at any point prior to this call.
Now, yes they had all be written off as I had closed the account but still it managed to piss me off.
I know as I closed the account that is a bit of a non point, but as was made clear through talking to the lady from customer care had I not closed the account I would have been fiscally buggered for all that, minus the one charge for £38 quid odd I had managed to get written off after complaining as a "good will gesture" on the Tuesday.
So I asked her, that if the account was open how would I proceed about get those charges removed?
You can't she points out, unless you go through claiming them back she points out. Even then it might take months, if ever.
Right says I, so explain to me why I should have kept my account open with yourselves to be charged that amount which I consider unfair asks I? And does it not make sense for a customer facing lots of charges like I was to close the account and cost them more money in the long term through lost business.
By now even she agreed that closing my account and not being fucked for £108 notes of my hard earned cash, was a better option than staying with a bank that has the slogan "helpful banking" and being ass raped for that amount.
After a pause she asked if I wanted to proceed with the complaint, so I pointed out that I would be doing what I had already and which I had also advised them and putting the complaint up on line for the world to read.
She did not know anything about that, nice to see customer care keep notes on conversations and e-mails.
At which point I said if she wanted any further info, she could read about it online and terminated the call.
Wankers, utter inept wankers.
Next stop the banking ombudsman, not that I want so much as a bent copper coin off the bastards but purely for the point that there service is just so sodding poor it needs to go forward. Oh there also the little fact that a case when it go's to the ombudsman costs the bank £500.
A pyrrhic victory but a victory none the less. They charge me £108 okay, in real terms it worked to be nothing due to my fucking the fuck off and I will end up costing them £500 notes.
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8 people have spoken:
Jesus, and I bet (if she even bothered to give her name) it wouldnot have been one of the three people who've already dealt with the complaint.
At least they got back to you. As for my complaint, they sent me a e-mail letter of acknowledgement and a nice PDF leaflet advising that I'll have a reply in 7-10 working days. Guess what? It's 13 working days tomorrow, and still no reply.
Damon, keep on yanking their corporate chain.
Seriously each call ties up a member of staff, notes have to be written, lost, filed, found, lost again, re found and then fed to the managers pet dog.
The way I work it, is as I left and broke even, every time they contact me costs them money, plus the ombudsman will also be tying up staff in dealing with the complaint.
Every time they contact me about anything, I post, if I can cost them just 1 customer. Thats all, just one, then I win again.
Keep on at 'em, mate. Everytime they contact you too, it takes them ages, because they evidently don't do case-ownership, so each time someone calls you, they have to go back through the file to get familiar with the case. More money down the drain.
BTW, I've been keeping a closer eye on my site stats, and over the course of 3 days last week, there were 3 separate visits from the Royal Bank of Scotland ISP to my site from three different locations across the UK. One of them specifically googled my name to get to my site. curious that, when the customer relations complaints dept said they don't have access to the web or external e-mail. Amy Burgess in their complaints call centre said that to me nearly two weeks ago, yet her name is on an e-mail she sent you. Curious.
Have not checked my stats to see if Nat West or anyone from them has been a nosing about on my site.
I doubt it, even though they have been informed and sent links; they are that inept they probably lost the details.
Racism begins with our families, parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandparents, people we admire, respect and love.
However, as we grow and mature we come to the realization that what we were told by our family when we were children were slanted lies base on their prejudices. We realize that most people are like ourselves and not so different and want the same things, like a home, steady work, a Medicare plan and schools for our children (if you travel you will see this). We realize that most people are of good hearts and goodwill.
This reminds me of a parable from the good book where a Levite and Priest come upon a man who fell among thieves and they both individually passed by and didn’t stop to help him.
Finally a man of another race came by, he got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy and got down with the injured man, administered first aid, and helped the man in need.
Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the “I” into the “thou,” and to be concerned about his fellow man.
You see, the Levite and the Priest were afraid, they asked themselves, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?”
But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
That’s the question before us. The question is not, “If I stop to help our fellow man (immigrant) in need, what will happen to me?” The question is, “If I do not stop to help our fellow man, what will happen to him or her?” That’s the question.
This current climate of blaming others for our woes is not new. We have had this before and we have conquered it.
Remember “Evil flourishes when good men (and women) do nothing”. Raise your voices with those of us who believe we are equal and we can win this battle again.
Far be it from me to comment on your own personal time-management, but however satisfying it may be to tie-up members of staff of an incompetent organisation on the telephone, I would have terminated the call within 10 seconds (politely) as having decided to cease dealing with the organisation I would have better uses for my time than to interact with it further.
LV, if they say you owe them noney you WILL have to keep fighting them until they agree you don't or they will issue a county court judgment somewhere miles away and next thing baillifs will turn up to steal your stuff and your credit rating will be knackered.
I thought
1) Years ago it was agreed that banks could not issue charges for unauthorised overdrafts if that overdraft was itself caused by their charges.
2) Banks have recently been told/going through the courts to reduce their charges from a punitive rate down to one covering admin costs only, ie about a tenner.
Take the wankers to the small claims court yourself, they won't like being on the defensive and they can't use baillifs while it's going through.
Check with a lawyer first !
On a minor point, BT Connect Internet customer complaints only ever got back to me a week after I had ripped out my BT landline and gone to Virgin instead.
Fantastic stuff... No one gives a shit, and even if they did they are so inefficient that they wouldn't be able to find it or get in touch with the right person...
Of course the trouble is that you change to someone else and, guess what? They are even worse.
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