How can I be assertive with pushy bank clerks/managers?

kevin52

It is generally not a good idea to see a financial adviser as these people are only salespeople and are very often trying to sell an equity bond and earn shed loads of commission. I once fell into this trap and was almost thrown out of the office and accused of wasting her time when I refused to do what she wanted with my money.

adindas

The problem with making appointment to see financial advisers with the bank is that, sometime the initial contact come from the front line of their staffs, the customer services and then try to push you to make an appointment with one of their financial advisers.

I have found it even it is apparently you are not interested or more extreme not fit for that product they keep pushing you to see one of their Financial advisers.

Not sure, but I suspect the CS team get point reward or have been given a target how many customers they must refer to their financial services. So as soon as they have managed to arrange an appointment job done for this customer service. The rest they will leave it to their colleagues, the financial advisers.

On the other hand the financial advisers in a small branch might need to travel to the location in another city where the appointment is taking place. And certainly they will push the product in which their own bank products, have a big commission or in association with.

kevin52 wrote: »

It is generally not a good idea to see a financial adviser as these people are only salespeople and are very often trying to sell an equity bond and earn shed loads of commission. I once fell into this trap and was almost thrown out of the office and accused of wasting her time when I refused to do what she wanted with my money.

jimjames

ses6jwg wrote: »

As a member of staff for a large UK bank there are a few reasons we ask these questions, in reverse order of reasoning:

1) Because most branches have a savings book that they are targeted to grow and defend. It's no use focusing on bringing new money in if you are losing it out the back door.

2) Because a lot of customers, believe it or not, are poorly educated financially and by asking the right questions we can identify problems that might have cropped up or help them make a bit more money. 3 examples from everyday life come to mind here:

- Customer comes in to withdraw £5340 from their instant access ISA paying 2.75%. This sets alarm bells ringing. The customer had just been into a Barclays branch and had been advised to withdraw £5340 from their existing ISA with us to pay into the Barclays Golden ISA at 2.81%. After sitting down the customer it had been identified that they had £5000 sat in a 0.1% online account and did not need access to their ISA for 2 years. So instead of getting 2.75% on the 40k and 2.8% on the 5k, they instead got 3.5% on the 40k and 3.3% easy access on the 5k that was earning 0.1%

- Mrs Customer comes in to close her ISA paying 0.5% as the bonus had ended. She wanted to close it and pay the money into her bank account because she didn't realise you could add new money to an ISA every year, she thought you had to close and reopen.

- Mr customer comes in to close his passbook savings with 8k earning 0.1% because he is worried about the economy and wants the cash in his house.; Quick run through the FSCS and his account is changed to one paying 2.3%

3) Anti money laundering. Branch staff are expected to be vigilant of large deposits and withdrawals.

There are some good points here. I know it might seem a hassle to those customers who know exactly what they are doing but it is very clear from some of the questions on these boards that there are other customers who really don't.

Examples such as closing an ISA to pay into another one rather than transferring it would certainly be ones where making the customer aware of their options would be in their best interests.

SliAbhaile

Another solution which has worked for me in the past is; "oh I leave all of that to my accountant, would you like his details?"

That stops them dead.