Any experience with Abbey?

Mozette

I had an account with Abbey National, but once they were taken over by Santando I had so many mistakes made in my dealings with them that I went elsewhere.

jonesMUFCforever

The branch in the town I work in accept no bills over the counter whatsoever.
Even their own ones issued by MBNA

Maisie

Toomuchdebt wrote: »

Yep I agree-it's because all the staff have targets that MUST be met every week, and they're taught to ask EVERY customer if they have credit cards, if they need a loan,if they want to change their mortgage etc.You have to make an appointment to open an account because the staff can count that as a referral.

Yes I have left Abbey now but while there the whole day was geared to getting people to invest, take a pension/ current account/ credit card or other and do cashiering duties. If you spent too much time talking to a customer about other accounts you were in trouble and if you didn't ask about new accounts you were in trouble too. You couldn't win. In the staff room there were boards with your 'leads' and new accounts and targets . The more leads you got the more they pushed your target up! Impossible.

Had to 'sell' the ATM card so that people used the machine and queues did not build up in the branch. They don't like doing bills over the counter as they take too long on their system. When I was there they started charging £2 a bill. Don't know if that's still the case.

We never got out of work until at least half an hour after (your own)time as admin jobs had to be done in branch before leaving.

When I left 5 other staff did too. We'd all had enough.

Have a bit of patience with the staff in the branches it's not an easy job
and that goes for most banks. My friend worked in Lloyds TSB and that was the same.

maisie

alan99_2

rainbow12 wrote: »

Abbey are ok if you dont have any queries past 'what is my current balance' and you dont need to make queries over the phone.
If you do need to make queries over the phone, expect to speak to some really polite and friendly people in India who cant fully nderstand English, cant be fully understood by you and who mess up every single query you have - but are very polite and apologetic about it!

My experience is bad on telephone to the dreaded Indian call centre. Dont know about polite , more like stubborn as mules. They just wont listen to you. They can be frustrating gits. For the last two days I have been trying to pay my own money out to pay my own council tax , via the bill payment option, that has been set up by me. But they dont allow you to pay it . The call center woman asked me FIVE pieces of info including where did I open my Abbey account. I explained to her I opened the account 19 years ago. I dont remember which Abbey branch I was in 19 years ago, despite answering the other 4 questions okay. I asked her if she knew where she was 19 years ago.
Frustrating, useless individuals.
In the end I guessed the answer to the branch question correctly but she still refused to pay it . That is the trouble ,they dont know the local geography .
Put in a complaint (01908 680123)and sorted it. Load of hassle and time wasted.

PS my local branch now closes at 4.30 pm instead of 5pm.Maybe this is normal for all branches.

Alan

mikeyboy

Hello,

Does anyone know if Abbey will still be able to open a credit card to a current account client, even if they already have an MBNA card...?

jonesMUFCforever

I don't know the answer for sure but if MBNA still run their credit card operation then the answer probably will be no.
However some banks offer more than one card - some will give you a Visa and a Mastercard or even an AMEX card. So the answer might be yes.

Only Abbey staff can give you a definitive answer.

lininjim

they go very badly wrong.

Our account was hacked (not through our computers or left-about personal information) and getting it sorted was a nightmare.

Not only did we have to deal with the Indian call centres giving us totally incorrect information on how to proceed (and wasting precious time) but we also had to deal with the Fraud department in Seville or somewhere like that.

We ended up having to do everything ourselves and the process was two painful months. Then they refused to reissue the debit cards, taking another two months to resolve.

before_hollywood

abbey have gone from ok to terrible in the last few years. it goes something like this
you want something sorting out on your account, you go to the branch to sort it out, queue up for ages and then get told
''you need to do it over the phone'' and get directed to the branch phone, so you do and they are in india and have no idea what you are saying but do something random, which you then have to take back to the branch to sort out and then take them the original thing back to deal with as well, which generally speaking will take a good few go's as well

saxmund

I've been with them for years, and to be honest I've found them reasonably competent. The online banking is pretty good as well (apart from the last couple of days when it appears to be down).

frostiecuk

I've been with Abbey for 15 years and in my experience, when things are OK, Abbey are OK. HOWEVER when things go wrong, Abbey have got to be one of the worst Banks you may ever have to deal with.

Just to get a response from them regarding fraudulent activity, I had to email the CEO directly and even had to setup a website and PPC it. (pay to advertise it on Google and MSN).... have a read;
http://www.switchtoabbey.co.uk

Only today, 3 months later, am I starting to get somewhere. I would certainly recommend you stay away at ALL costs.