Barclays Wealth Current Account (UK Residents)

expatasia

rockitup wrote: »

No mention of charges with this little loss leader. Maybe they just wait till they get your wonga in the bank and then try to entice you with "the appliance of science" so you get barclayed for some high charges on the investments they steer you towards. Beeeeeeeeeeeeware!

Another way of getting Barclayed via Moneywise:

My son ran up an unauthorised overdraft a couple of years ago - or, rather, he exceeded his agreed overdraft limit by £200.
The bank slammed some usurious penalty charges on his account and the sum he owed soon multiplied to a figure that he couldn't possibly afford to repay. He tried to talk to the bank about repaying the original overdraft, plus appropriate interest, but it ignored him.
So instead he waited for the High Court ruling on whether banks should be allowed to charge whatever they like on unauthorised borrowing, hoping it would solve his problems. But it went against him - and many other thousands in the same boat. Meanwhile, the sum had escalated wildly into a four-figure debt.
His bank is our old friend Barclays, which is fast becoming the Ryanair of British banking when it comes to customer service.
Now, I accept that customers, like my son, who run up debts have only themselves to blame - it's all in the small print, blah, blah, blah. But my point is that he wanted to repay the original sum and tried to do so. The bank could have had its money back, if it had co-operated.
Instead, it has invented a ludicrous debt that it has no hope of seeing repaid.
More extraordinarily, Barclays sold the debt on to a credit agency some time ago. What is Kafka-esque in its absurdity here is that, in doing so, the bank has made an entirely notional sum of money into a real one. This debt never existed, other than in the fevered imagination of some clerks in the Bank of Lilliput.
By capitalising it and selling it on, this invented money has become commoditised. And there must be loads of it out there. I fully expect some wünderkind of the financial markets to securitise all this bogus debt and flog it to a US bank to fuel the next sub-prime housing boom.
Anyway, this means for us that a series of entertaining credit agents periodically phone up. The names of the agencies change weekly, as the debt is passed around the market, like the plate of cocktail sausages that no one wants at a party.
One spiv told my son that he'd knock 25% off the debt if he paid it off by credit card over the phone immediately. Unsurprisingly, he resisted this temptation, as there would have been no record of the agreement.

Does a bank like Barclays really think that these ethic-free operations do its brand and reputation any credit? But, then again, perhaps brand values and reputation have long since ceased to be a valid currency for our banks.

Reverend George Pitcher is a former industrial editor of the Observer. He is the Archbishop of Canterbury's secretary for public affairs and curate at St Bride's, Fleet Street.

rockitup

And some of this debt is sold to the collection agencies for 8% to 15% of the accrued debt & charges. Would have been more in Barclays interest if they had allowed him to pay off the debt alone. Oh well some you win, some you lose.....