Metro bank - new customer review

jameswade

richardmk wrote: »

I think Metrobank must have shedloads of secondary current accounts, it is good for free cash withdrawals overseas, but everything else is second rate to the other banks. Metrobank wins hands down on gimmicks instant cards, prizes for making cash deposits, dog portraits but when it comes to processing transactions and more than a basic account unfortunately it is very much a let down.

Agreed! I am thinking about setting up a basic current account to take advantage of the free overseas withdrawals but I wouldn't consider opening savings accounts etc with them when you look at their rates.

Hazzanet

innovate wrote: »

(have you seen the Metrobank cards? I am not after a posh/fashionable card, but the Metrobank cards basically look cheap. Almost like a bad fake of debit and credit cards.).

Well, I walked out of their 'store' (a term I wholeheartedly disagree with) yesterday with one and while it isn't perfect in that the silver 'ink' over the numbers is slightly misaligned, I wouldn't say it looks fake.

After all, how many retailers handle your card with the advent of Chip and PIN/contactless to make it a concern?

labp04

Hi Innovate, to answer your question, our debit cards are due to expire at the end of this month and we received new, replacement cards without asking via the post last week. Hope this helps.

Still cant figure what it is that seems to make at least some folk nervous about this outfit. All we've experienced are decent products which help us a lot particularly when we are abroad and, nope, maybe we've been "lucky" but we've never experienced any problems logging in.:beer:

System

OK. I have been a strong advocate of Metro Bank, having had my main day-to-day account with them since October 2010. I have posted here often in support of the bank,

However, my opinion has recently changed drastically. My debit card was rejected several times online so I had to use a more expensive alternative. After it was rejected by one US site I rang Metro Bank to be told that debit cards couldn't be used abroad and since I was using a US site I needed to make the payment using a US$ account. I just laughed. Absolute nonsence. I insisted on speaking to a supervisor who confirmed that I could indeed use my card for overseas transactions but that it had been rejected by MasterCard and I needed to contact the retailer to authorise the transaction.

My card has been subsequently rejected by other overseas and UK websites and Metro Bank is apparently unable to help suggesting in each case I contact the retailer after attempting the transaction. I have a good credit reference which is monitored on a regular basis and the bank confirms that there is no reason as far as they are concerned for the rejections.

The MB contact centre is so poor now, the people who answer the phones are usually unable to deal with the problem and write an email to the real bank staff while you're on the phone. They are often completely misinformed about basic banking practice and give ludicrous advice.

Needless to say I have moved my salary to another bank and since I can't use my debit card for most transactions the account is pretty useless. I have yet to experience a bank which cannot resolve a situation like this and just blame MasterCard.

Avoid!

pmduk

scgf wrote: »

The MB contact centre is so poor now, the people who answer the phones are usually unable to deal with the problem and write an email to the real bank staff while you're on the phone. They are often completely misinformed about basic banking practice and give ludicrous advice.

I thought that one of their selling points was that they didn't have real bank staff, but customer service specialists? I wonder if they've outsourced their contact centre perhaps?

Doc_N

scgf wrote: »

Avoid!

My goodness - if they've managed to upset one of their biggest supporters things must be bad!

Seriously, scgf, I'm sorry you've had these problems - I can imagine the difficulties it caused.

I'm guessing they've picked up too many customers like me who use the account pretty much only for overseas cash withdrawals (because of bad experiences with them).

Not exactly a sustainable business model if that's the case, but they've really only got themselves to blame. The customer-facing branches, shops (whatever they call them) are fine - but the back-office functions are just awful.

I had every intention of using the account as a normal bank account, but it just isn't possible to do that. Comparison with First Direct is perhaps unfair, but the two are at opposite poles.

Perhaps they've had to cut back even further on customer service to try to make a profit.

John_Pierpoint

Is this the beginning of the end?
Should we all rush round and queue to get our money out?

I had this problem initially, because some organisations had not updated their cache validation tables to recognise the codes for the new kid on the block [As I once before discovered when my employer refused to pay my salary into a new branch of the Trustee Savings Bank, which had conveniently opened a branch 5 minutes walk from my place of work - the payroll system "knew" that my branch code must be an error !]

There is always a risk that any organisation trying to expand too fast will mess up on customer service and/or run out of working capital. It is called Over Trading.

https://www.metrobankonline.co.uk/ourstores/

pmduk

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Is this the beginning of the end?
Should we all rush round and queue to get our money out?

Statements like this are unhelpful, nobody would lose money, (unless they're foolish enough to have ignores the £85,000 max covered by the FSCS.)

John_Pierpoint

It was meant to be ironic.
The link I posted says that the first 85K is protected, this side of WW3.
Have you ever tried to reclaim your money from one of these bureaucratic schemes - perhaps when Iceland went down?

The only time I have had a similar problem was when my son's school organised a school-trip/holiday. The travel company went phut on the Friday with the departure scheduled for 07:00 the following morning. Fortunately the foreign hotel had its ear to the ground and telephoned the coach company, who contacted the school, who activated their contact tree, so the parents could to tell the kids, when they woke up they were going nowhere.

It took months to get the cash refunded involving expensive premium rate telephone calls and the protection organisation deducted £10 for their administration.

innovate

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Have you ever tried to reclaim your money from one of these bureaucratic schemes - perhaps when Iceland went down?

I have, when Icesave went down, and I found it highly un-bureaucratic. It took some time for the money to come back (as the FSCS, and Alistair Darling, had advised right from the start) but the FSCS did a stirling job, and I got all my money back. Complete with an ISA certificate that allowed me to re-deposit my funds into another cash ISA, no questions asked. I lost a few weeks interest but hey, that was a lot better than losing the entire balance.

Many people panicked at the time, for mostly no good reason, but all retail customers got all their money back, incl interest accrued to the date of default.

There have since been some smaller defaults that have been handled by the FSCS. You hardly heard anything about them because the FSCS just quietly went about sorting them. You can see details on the FSCS website.

To me, the FSCS guarantee is ace. I would, however, never [again] consider a passport-scheme. It's FSCS or nothing for me.