Barclays Rant!

Nicklt

So i've moved to a new apartment, the letting agent requested a standing order be set up through my bank (Barclays) i didn't get this letter until around a week before the rent was due so i paid the first rent by cash on the 3rd of this month.

I sent off the standing order request on the 6th of this where the first payment was requested for the 3rd of this month, so i presumed Barclays would use some sense and not take the next payment until the 3rd of April, but no Barclays have taken abother £595 from my account today, so the rent has been paid twice in less than a week!

I phoned Barclays about 30 mins ago and get an overseas call centre, it took 15 minutes for the guy on the other end to understand what i was telling him, and then all he had to say was that i had to sort it myself and get the money back off my letting agent. Then (after telling him i've just had £1200 taken from my account in less than a week) he tries to sell me credit card + overdraft!!! I felt like saying "you must be taking the !!!!". I know this is of course not his fault he's just doing what he's told, but it just goes to show how much Barclays don't really care about their customers, and credit cards is a big reason we got into a recession in the first place and Barclays are at it again.

I'm angry that Barclays won't do anything about this, (when they probably can reverse the payment) and that someone tried to sell me a credit card!

I feel like going into my branch tommorow and complaining!

Nicklt

i think it's paid by BACS, that what i remember from the SO request sheet. So really they should of been able to reverse it grrrrr! no happy then. Yeah getting the landlord to give a refund should be fine, still frustrating though. I think i'll go into my branch tommorow to make a complaint.

Requiem

Did you specifically ask them to recall the standing order?

If the SO was sent via Faster Payments, the banks are unable to recall it.
If the SO was sent via BACS, you can recall on day 2 of the process (the day after your account is debited).

The situation sucks and you're probably owed an apology (providing the information on your standing order mandate was correct), but hopefully getting a refund from your letting agent shouldn't be too difficult.

Nicklt wrote: »

...it just goes to show how much Barclays don't really care about their customers, and credit cards is a big reason we got into a recession in the first place

The availability of credit cards, or credit in general, isn't what caused the recession. The choices that people made with that available credit did however contribute. Loose monetary policy, lack of regulation where it was required, banks using the lack of policy and regulation to take on risky loans and people acting irresponsibly with credit are all factors. After all, credit is credit, not money.

trudij

Sorry to butt in, but to save me having a seperate rant about Barclays - can I join in yours please?? Totally off topic (other than being the same company!) but I had a letter from them the other day, addressed to my father - wouldnt be a problem, except he died almost 3 years ago, and we went through all sorts of !!!!! with them to get them to close the account.... I can appreciate for a certain amount of time,letters will still come out - but nearly 3 years?? I rang to get them to delete him from the records,got put through to an indian girl who had no idea what I was talking about and told me that she couldnt do anything - I needed to ring during the week,and speak to someone "in the dead people department".... ( luckily it was me,and not my mother she was talking to!!)

anyway - your problems are awful - its odd how they can be so great at some things, but so RUBBISH at others !!!!

fluffnutter

Nicklt wrote: »

I sent off the standing order request on the 6th of this where the first payment was requested for the 3rd of this month, so i presumed Barclays would use some sense...

I can understand your frustration about the selling tactics on the phone - I hate that too. But I'm a little bit confused about how this happened.

How was the 'request' sent? What exactly is it? An email, a phone call or a specific form?

When I've set up standing orders I've always had to specify the date on which the payment should be taken each month and the start date. So I would have thought that you would have had to specify that the order was due to start on the 3rd of April. Did you do this? If so, then you have the start of your complaint - Barclays have not acted in accordance with your instructions. However, I'm not sure that Barclays knew your instructions; as you post, 'I presumed Barclays would use some sense'. I don't think it's wise to presume anything!

When something very similar happened to me - two rent payments taken in one month, I originally met with the same unhelpful response. My bank (Lloyds) told me that my only recourse was to get the second payment back from the landlord. However, I happened to work with a girl who used to work for Lloyds. She told me that they were talking nonsense; as it was their mistake, they would be able to reimburse my account from their own suspense account. A trip back to the bank armed with this knowledge and a (polite) refusal to budge until I had the money back did the trick. I didn't have to wait for a BACS recall or discuss with the landlord.

All this was reliant on Lloyds admitting that they'd made the mistake. You need to get to the bottom of what happened with your standing order instruction. TBH, no bank would have such lax paperwork that they had to 'use some sense' to guess what their customers meant.