A tale of barclays... one honest man in a company full of lies

delain

sometimes i need preaching to!

yes i was told £8 per bounced bill on the phone yesterday, bloke in branch told me £20!

I have set up a deposit account now that OH and i are living together, so that we can pay in enough to cover all the bills (and a bit more, just in case!) for the month and do this every time he gets paid, so that i will know the money in my account is what i have and i am going to stop taking my debit card out with me to stop impulse shopping because its still bad even when its only bread

but i will be having the overdraft removed as soon as it's in credit! :T

pitkin2020

i would tell them you want to close the account, (set a new account with a different bank first) 9/10 as they dont want to loose you as a customer they will do something to sort it i do it with nationwide twice a year lol play them at their own game

AndyInYorks

BarclaysManager wrote: »

Branch staff, including managers, have no discretion to refund Reserve fees or cancel pending charges except in cases of bank error or fraud. Neither apply here.

That is shocking, how can someone be a bank manager and not have authority to refund a couple of pounds in fees?

td_007

withabix wrote: »

I've given up calling them. They never understand what you are actually calling about. What they tell you is nearly always wrong - and then they bl**dy try and SELL you something!!!! Makes me mad!

The frontline call staff be in the UK or somewhere else have the same cheat sheet to work from and same targets and incentives to sell. I cannot count the number of times I have called up UK call centres and been given the sales pitch. It is their job!

chambta

AndyInYorks wrote: »

That is shocking, how can someone be a bank manager and not have authority to refund a couple of pounds in fees?

Welcome to 21st century retail banking.

delain

AndyInYorks wrote: »

That is shocking, how can someone be a bank manager and not have authority to refund a couple of pounds in fees?

I did get £60 back from them as a 'goodwill gesture' because the charges were due to virgin media taking my direct debit out almost a week early but that was before the reserve.

In my opinion this militant stance of never refunding or cancelling the reserve charges is because they don't want to admit they are unfair, because they are trying to discourage people to claim them back.

I have my request of charges letter saved ready to print and take in there, re-worded to include 'and reserve usage fees' :T

Extant

AndyInYorks wrote: »

That is shocking, how can someone be a bank manager and not have authority to refund a couple of pounds in fees?

They don't have any authority to refund them in relation to gestures of goodwill, etc.

Barclays managers are relatively more empowered, but they're bank managers in general are now essentially HR managers, there to drive performance etc.

Extant

delain wrote: »

In my opinion this militant stance of never refunding or cancelling the reserve charges is because they don't want to admit they are unfair, because they are trying to discourage people to claim them back.

The militant stance is because we believe them to be correct, and we will never try to stop you reclaiming - hell, we even give you free statements if you send in DPA SARs.

We actively support "reclaiming" for those in financial hardship and trained our staff on it in 2008.

We have sufficient evidence to believe the RUFs can be successfully defended. It should be no surprise to you that the system was designed following lengthy legal discussions and meetings with the appropriate regulator.

delain

BarclaysManager wrote: »

The militant stance is because we believe them to be correct, and we will never try to stop you reclaiming - hell, we even give you free statements if you send in DPA SARs.

We actively support "reclaiming" for those in financial hardship and trained our staff on it in 2008.

We have sufficient evidence to believe the RUFs can be successfully defended. It should be no surprise to you that the system was designed following lengthy legal discussions and meetings with the appropriate regulator.

Note 'they can be successfully defended' rather than the more inaccurate 'because we don't want our customers to get screwed over'

As soon as i work out what i did with the printer ink i will be in my branch with that letter

Extant

delain wrote: »

Note 'they can be successfully defended' rather than the more inaccurate 'because we don't want our customers to get screwed over'

As soon as i work out what i did with the printer ink i will be in my branch with that letter

We take responsibility for your money, and invest considerable amounts in providing you with a branch network, safe and secure internet banking, etc. and re-imburse you for fraud, no questions asked.

In return, we ask that you take some responsibility for your money too, and don't spend money that you don't have. If you don't want to do that, okay, we'll remove your Reserve for you, and we won't let you unless you guarantee the payment as a cheque, etc.

If you do want to, we'll tell you how much you can spend and what it will cost you in a clear and consistent manner.

As a reminder, at least two mailings were sent to every customer - more to some depending on their statement usage, etc. - and advice was given through every point of contact, including branches, telephone banking, online, etc. that the Reserve was being introduced and you could opt-out. It was an opt-out as it was converting the previously informal nature of your overspending to a formal one.