And the pointless phonecall of the day award goes to...

JimmyTheWig

... the Halifax.

Friendly sounding woman from the branch phoned to ask if I was aware there was a large payment due to hit my account.

Me: Yes, it's my wages.
Her: Oh, ok. Just you don't earn any interest on that account.
Me: It only stays there for a few days. It's the same that happens every month if you wanted to look back on the account.
Her: Oh, ok.

Jai_M

lol, wanna swap for ppi claim back calls?

whitewater_2

Perfectly normal and something they try to do most days, it's for 2 reasons

1) to make customers aware of any better accounts for it (you would be surprised how often we deal with complaints we dont do this)

2) It helps keep us safe incase of fraudulent use of accounts.

In your case it was pointless, in my others it results in customers getting a better deal.

jonesMUFCforever

whitewater wrote: »

Perfectly normal and something they try to do most days, it's for 2 reasons

1) to make customers aware of any better accounts for it (you would be surprised how often we deal with complaints we dont do this)

2) It helps keep us safe incase of fraudulent use of accounts.

In your case it was pointless, in my others it results in customers getting a better deal.

3 Sales fishing.

whitewater_2

that was included in number 1 ;-)

its the nature of the business, if you have say a 10k sum due into an account paying 0.1% it is in your interests for the bank to call you and let you know about other products paying more.

It's in there interest (the person calling) as they have a sales target.

Gromitt

I got something very similar with barclays when trying to replace a defaced card (new card came through the post, postman decided to fold envelope and thus card in half so new card is bent and doesn't work).

This is how it went:
Staff: Are you aware there is a better account for your savings?
Me: As in?
Staff: You have a large sum of money in an account with very low interest rate
Me: So what is the better account?
Staff: Would you like me to schedule a meeting with an advisor?
Me: No, I would like you to tell me the better account. I will then check your website for the details.
Staff: I can only tell you there is a better account available.
Me: Are you talking about my 'X' account?
Staff: I don't see that account.
Staff: < about 5 seconds later > Oh, I see it now, it was off the bottom of my screen. It seems you already have the best account available.
Me: Thank you for wasting my time.
Staff: Is there anything else I can help you with?
Me: No thank you
Staff: Have a good day sir!

(I have about 5 accounts now which are all empty, due to them being accounts where the interest drops to something like 0.1% after 12 months...)

ses6jwg

The demeaning and mocking attitude of certain members of this site towards bank staff never fails to amuse me.

If a member of staff is being deliberately misleading, rude or pushy then I can fully understand such attitudes, but a lot of the time people on here seem to take great satisfaction out of being borderline rude and obnoxious after receiving what are often fairly soft suggestions or reccomendations by members of staff in bank branches.

Yes, bank staff have sales targets. Does this make them evil? Certainly not. Do these targets automatically preclude them from trying to act in your best interests? No.

People on here mock and scoff at "the dastardly sales tactics" of bank staff, but what they often to fail to realise is that 95% of the population are financially illiterate.

They don't understand what an ISA is or what they do. They don't know what balance transfers are. They don't know what the Consumer Credit Act does or how they can utilise the protection it provides. They don't realise that they can switch from the home insurance provider who has upped their premium by 20% for the last 5 years in a row.

So perhaps it might be an idea to think twice before you make some offhand or smug remark to a bank cashier on £6.50 an hour, who is trying to make up a sales target to supplement her borderline minimum wage income to perhaps buy her son something nice for his birthday with her £200 quarterly bonus.


The other one that always gets me is the people who do everything online, not because it is easier or more convenient in some cases which could be seen as a perfectly good reason to bank online, but to purposefully avoid branch staff gaining any commission. Yet when they have a problem or a complaint the branch staff are the first to get it in the ear even if the error was not down to the actions of that branch. The other one that always amuses is when certain large banks announce that they are going to close down a branch due to lack of customers. The online fiends are usually the first to get up in arms as who else will be there to recieve their complaints or take their cheques?!

The fact of the matter is that when banks assess the viability of branches nowadays it is not based on how many people withdraw from the ATM or how many people pay their cheques in, it is based on the branches SALES.

If you do everything online and never walk into a branch then it probably makes no odds to you, but if you are a regular user of a local branch but do nothing to support that branch then you only have yourself to blame if it is ever closed, very much like a local Post Office.

tagq2

ses6jwg, so you've highlighted a problem: bank policy to pay staff low wages which they must make up for in commission. Isn't it better for a staff member to be on a higher base salary so he will not be motivated to sell a bank product except when the customer would actually benefit? A bonus, if appropriate at all, is for correctly matching a customer with a product which he maintains for some time, not for making the teller's income livable that month.

My grandfather was recently identified at his branch to be the person with the earliest opened account still living. My mother also banked at that branch, both for herself and on behalf of her employer. At around 16, I opened an account there too. At that time there were familiar tellers and permanent manager. It inevitably meant that they were more informed and had more time to help you with a random problem. The banks may suggest that branch closures and manpower reduction are due to people banking online but the change of purpose of the building removes the personal touch and the willingness to solve non-trivial problems - precisely why I liked to go into branch and why people remained loyal to a bank.

My ex's dad many years ago was a branch manager in the City. His partner was a teller - her mental arithmetic was amazing and she was a mean puzzle-solver. I fear that her considerable talents, as probably those of many tellers, are under-utilised at the modern sales-focussed building. It's not the staff's fault and customers in any retail operation can be complete dicks, but the bank needs to look at its approach.

(Did the financial unions - I guess they're all Unite now - kick up a fuss about the move to salesman pay schemes? I don't know how well collective bargaining works in a retail bank!)

JimmyTheWig

Don't know how much that was aimed at me, ses6jwg, but in my case I wasn't mocking the person who called so much as the bank itself.
If they want to make sales (and I've got no problem with them selling beneficial products to a customer) then they need to do their research beforehand. What is the likely reason for a large amount about to be transfered into a current account? Wouldn't it make more sense to check the account history to see if the same has happened on or around the 25th of each month for the last 7 years?

You see, the financial illiteracy of their customer base is exactly why they _shouldn't_ be phoning people up offering products that won't help.
The phone call wasted my time, but I was never going to agree to anything that wasn't going to benefit me. Other people hearing that "there might be a better account for their money" might be tempted.

JimmyTheWig

Incidentally, I'm loving the new-look Halifax internet banking.

birkee

Jai_M wrote: »

lol, wanna swap for ppi claim back calls?

Too true!
I've always been terse with them, or just hang up.
This week, I've decided to change tactics though.

The "press 9 to remove your name from our records, or, press 5 for customer service advisor".
This time I pressed 5.
When the girl said "can I take your name please", I said "No you bl**dy can't! I just wanted to annoy you, as much as you annoy me!"

Now I'm seriously considering carrying it through, and providing false details. Can you imagine all the post they will end up sending to people who don't exist?

We MUST fight back folks! :T