Barclays Reserve

Extant

blenks wrote: »

Hmmmmm. Another point, they should really train their staff better, the woman i spoke to today didn't have a clue about anything to do with the reserve, all i got was a phone number since she couldn't answer ANY of my questions :rolleyes:

http://www.personal.barclays.co.uk/BRC1/jsp/brccontrol?task=articlegroup&value=3657&site=pfs

Edit: oh and what is the £22 charge actually for? My mum asked me today and I couldn't think of anything...

The £22 fee is for your using your Reserve limit. The Reserve is a product of ours, and that is how we price it accordingly. If you do not wish to pay this price, you do not have to use the product.

new2civvystreet

I really don't get the objection! I'm not with barclays anymore (as I'm now employed by another bank) but I was well informed of the personal reserve and had ample time to opt out if I wished. The reason I decieded to keep it is that it wasn't doing me any harm and may come useful if I ever got into dire straits.

The way I see it is that the bank will honour the payment for (say) a mobile phone contract direct debit and charge me a set amount for doing so. Because I was aware of having the reserve facility and had not opted out I would be prepared to pay the fee for this service safe in the knowledge that the mobile phone company would not put a mark on my credit file and neither would the bank.

The alternative choice is that I opt out of the reserve facility the direct debit would be returned and the phone company put a black mark on my credit file. Plus I'd have to deal with the charges and interest from the bank. But it would have been my choice to do that as I would have opted out of the personal reserve.

Lastly, if I hadn't understood how the service worked I would have asked the bank how it worked before I chose whether or not I wanted to take it.

If it wasn't for overdrafts and the reserve customers wouldn't be able to spend money that they don't have unless they took out a loan or credit card.

TotallyBroke

I agree with new2civvystreet. I think it's a good thing. I never wanted to have to use it (because I'm trying to get my finances in order) but I did. Paying the £22 was a better solution for me than to have 2 direct debits go unpaid. Be charged to have them unpaid. And to be charged by the company for not paying them on time. Plus have my credit rating look even worse than it is.

Richard-N_2

BarclaysManager wrote: »

Ah, but you did know about it - because you'd used it before when you'd been overdrawn. We've simply formalized the agreement to make it clearer to the customer than before.

Previously, you could go over your overdraft limit, but we'd never tell you how much by, and you could be charged per item. Now, it's one fee for five days, and every customer can find out exactly how much they can overspend by.

Yes, we operate fractional reserve banking instead of full reserve. That, however, doesn't make much difference unless you know the actual ratio in place.

A ratio of 0.01%, for example, would mean the bank only lent out 1p of every £100 on deposit. The ratio we currently have is 6%. So for every £100 held, we will lend out £6 of that again.

That ratio, coupled with the fact that we have a strict risk policy for all Barclays lending actually makes us incredibly safe.

You may see it as a technicality, but it is your responsibility to run your accounts in good order. This is the same with any bank. It's not our job to baby sit you and go transfer money when you can't be bothered to do it yourself.

Not only that, the right to offset is not one that should be used lightly.

Grass/greener, etc.

On your first point, I was away in Paris at the time you implemented the reserve service and changed from charges for an unauthorized overdraft to a fee for using the reserve. I didn't know that the change had taken place between the time it happened previously and the time you guys pulled this stunt.

Secondly, at the time, I had around £130,000 in my accounts with you and £0 debts to anybody. I'll let you do the math to work out how much of my money you were lending out - it had been there for quite some time. Using your website I could go in and instantly move cash around my 4 accounts (1 current and 3 poorly paying interest accounts). As the interest rates you were paying were ridiculously low, I saw the difference in accounts as being nothing more than just a number. Clearly, I don't see the reserve as you doing me a favor - your bank could clearly see I am not irresponsible with my money (unlike the banks who lent to any old tom, !!!!!!, and broke harry) and I did not need you to baby sit me or treat me like a naughty school boy who had done something wrong. It's exactly this kind of attitude that winds me up - being talked down to be someone with no authority and who is probably up to their ears in personal debt themselves. What made it worse was you were shooting yourselves in the foot over £44 - I say this because I explained clearly to the people I spoke to both on the phone and in my branch that in December I would be taking a divided for a further £100,000 from one of my companies (luckily I don't do my business banking with Barclays) and I would also be requiring a personal mortgage in the spring of 2009 for less than I would have in cash in my accounts. I made it quite clear at the time that I was shocked that Barclays would be so short-sighted and that I am glad I found out the level of contempt you have for a customer of good credit who had always done their personal banking with them before taking a mortgage with them. The ultimatum I put to them was if they were going to be stubborn on the £44 I would see this as a sign they cannot be trusted when it comes to taking out my mortgage. I wasn't joking. It doesn't take a dimwit to realise Barclays would earn far more from the interest on my mortgage payments than the £44 which I consider to be unfairly charged to me. But stupidly, they wouldn't budge - which isn't surprising considering the banks don't seem to have much financial sense about them anymore - hence they are going cap in hand to the BoE for handouts.

Anyways, the good news is this whole debacle spurred me in to action and I spread my money around several banks to make sure I didn't have (much) more than £50,000 in any one bank. I worked my nuts off to earn this money and don't want to see it go down the pan because of some (w)bankers playing fast and loose with other people's cash. The upshot is HSBC (and the others) treated me very well and offered me all kinds of benefits I wasn't getting at Barclays - as someone who travels a lot this has worked out very handy. I would never have known there is so much choice out there if Barclays hadn't treated me so badly, so I'm not bitter about it at all - I'm actually quite glad. Out of all the accounts I have opened, Barclays offer the least benefits to me and so I've removed all but a small amount of cash I'll be using to pay my taxes with in January.

My advice to anybody who is being treated like a mug is to look around - there's lot's of alternatives out there!

YorkshireBoy

Richard-N wrote: »

The upshot is HSBC (and the others) treated me very well

But HSBC's (comparable?) overdraft arrangement fee is £25 isn't it? That's more than the Barclays reserve fee.

Richard-N_2

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

But HSBC's (comparable?) overdraft arrangement fee is £25 isn't it? That's more than the Barclays reserve fee.

I'll need to check, but for the HSBC premier account I opened I don't believe I'm being charged - it is free up to £1000 if you have at least £50k in your accounts with them. But it's a mute point anyway - I don't need an overdraft facility. I only went overdrawn because I deliberately kept my current account low to remove the temptation to spend my money. The fact is, on both occasions that I went overdrawn - I went over because Barclays automatically transfered some money from my Barclays current account to my Barclays savings accounts - which only adds insult to injury! Not only did they not do me a favour - they weren't lending me money (they had much of my money than the overdraft) or making sure some critical DD was being paid - they stiffed me for using their own services. Like I explained to them, I understand the need to be financially responsible, but this charge was nothing more than a technicality in my book and they stonewalled me and treated me like an idiot.