not a happy abbey customer!

rb10

dealsearcher wrote: »

Abbey have a system which is convenient for them. Nationwide have a system which is convenient for the customer.

Agree with most of what you've said, but this bit is not entirely true - Nationwide have the more expensive 0845 numbers to call the branch, rather than a local dialling code. How is that convenient for the customer?

anselld

The only thing which has ever made me happy as an Abbey customer is taking free money off them (with Abbey Zero card).... and you cant even do that now that they have introduced balance transfer fee. Customer service is appalling both in branch and on phone. Don't know about online as I never managed to navigate through the broken activation process.

simon_templar_2

Abbey systems are not convenient to anybody. If you think customers have a nightmare with them it is nothing compared to working there and using them.

bagsacash

The best laugh I had this years was with Natwest. I opened a esaver with them some months back, and then thought I would just see what is involved in transfering money from the account to another none Natwest account. Well I find I need a card and card reader to transfer money out, I was never told this when opening the account. I'm told its for security reasons, the card reader prevents unauthorized transactions taking place. When I ask why didn't Natwest send these two items along with all the other junk Natwest sent me, they being a necessary part of running an esaver account, I was told "some people don't want to make withdrawals", that made me laugh.

But the big laugh came when I was told I could tranfer the money from my esaver to a Natwest current account and then tranfer the money from the current account without a card reader.

:rotfl:

dealsearcher

rb10 wrote: »

Agree with most of what you've said, but this bit is not entirely true - Nationwide have the more expensive 0845 numbers to call the branch, rather than a local dialling code. How is that convenient for the customer?

As I said they aren't perfect, but if that is all you can find wrong with the Nationwide then that's not bad! By the way 0845 numbers are charged at the local rate - so you can call your local branch at a local rate even when you are travelling in the UK. Since February BT don't charge for 0845 numbers, certainly not on their Option 3.

The Abbey on the other hand - well it is hard to find anything good about them!

bagsacash

Named and shamed: the worst companies for customer service

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/consumer_affairs/article6718127.ece

martinman3

I try to have as little contact with Abbey as I can. Before they were taken over by Santander they were very efficient but after that they moved their call centre from Wales to Scotland/India and no two employees give the same answer, most give the impression that it is their first (and last ?) day on the job.

The last two problems I had with a Abbey Business Account was changing from annual interest paid gross to interest paid net. The call centre does not action most things but instead sends an e-mail to the back-office but this procedure provides no confirmation from the back-office that the procedure was carried out or even that the e-mail was read/received by them. I had to be sure that it was actioned before the interest was paid. Three months after I asked them to change gross to net they still could not tell me if it had been done, one person even read the last years interest payment to me from the statements. I told them that it only showed the previous tax status not the current one.
Finally, one person rang the department while I waited and actually asked them. :rolleyes:

Another account which is hardly used was set up to have quarterly statements to save paper and postage. Then, when their software was last changed, I started receiving monthly statements. I asked for this to be set back to quarterly and was told that their software didn't allow it.

I should add that business customers cannot use the branches, apart from the ATMs, and the younger staff will remind you of this even if you are just telling them that the ATM is broken and you cannot make a deposit and there are no other customers in the branch for them to deal with. Experienced staff will take the envelopes and deal with them correctly.

(If you didn't know, the business deposit envelopes are removed from the ATM by the branch staff and sent using internal mail to a central processing centre which makes the above response absurd)

In any other sector they would have lost so many customers that they would be in trouble. It does make you wonder if the customer service of Santander in Spain is any good.

martinman3

Read this person's experience of Abbey, and think yourself lucky. :eek:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1825445

agsnu

dealsearcher wrote: »

As I said they aren't perfect, but if that is all you can find wrong with the Nationwide then that's not bad! By the way 0845 numbers are charged at the local rate - so you can call your local branch at a local rate even when you are travelling in the UK. Since February BT don't charge for 0845 numbers, certainly not on their Option 3.

0845 was supposed to be the same as local rate calls. However, as the cost of local rate calls fell, 0845 numbers did not. They are, for example, typically charged at >20p per minute on mobiles, and do not come out of any allowances.

BT's recent moves are a step in the right direction, but 0845 is a bigger rip-off than you state. Google "0845 rip-off" for more information ;p

No excuse now, 03xx has been around for a while.

hansi

You could, of course, also refer to saynoto0870.com for an alternative geographical number.