Barclays mortgages

fincherley

Hi all,

I'm a first time buyer and will hopefully be buying on my own in the first half of this year.

I've done some research and it looks like based on my salary and deposit, Barclays might be the best option for me. However, I've read reviews and it seems that once you've submitted your application, they are often horrendously slow and their customer services are horrific.

Was just wondering if anyone had had any dealings with Barclays mortgages and had any advice? I don't know if it's a case of the people who've had a bad experience piping up and those who've been fine keeping quiet, or if they're just terrible for everyone!

Thanks!

Ria

becominganobsessivesaver

I've had a mortgage with them for 7 years, and have recently reapplied. It took about 10 days from application to approval. I had no issues whatsoever.

mrchiggles

They had some issues with my 2nd property and required lots of chasing through their (awful) overseas contact centre. I guess if you're straightforward then all is well but I spent an awful lot of time on the phone chasing...

Excited13

I went in today and the girl in branch was great (I prefer face to face) and I got my AIP really quickly however I have been banking with them for years. I am impressed and think I will be using them especially as their rates went down today.

vacheron

I took my mortgage out with them in 2010 and the in branch staff and advisers are really good. The in branch mortgage adviser seemed to arrange the actual mortgage without too much fuss (just a little pushing from time to time).

However, be very warned that the second anything goes to the back room staff or god forbid you have to use their overseas call centre they are worse than useless.

Our real problems came after the mortgage was complete and subsequently dealing with the back room / call centre staff to tie up the loose ends of our offset account, during which they:

• Messed up 2 appointments we had to make to visit our local branch (they won't give you the branch number number, you HAVE to arrange the appointment through the call centre). The first time they arranged the appointment at the wrong branch meaning we had to rush across town and ended up 30 minutes late, the second time the branch had no record at all of our booking and so when we arrived the branch had no free advisers that day which meant a wasted day off work.

• Sent me a letter telling me they were unable to process my ISA transfer from Natwest despite Natwest providing me evidence that Barclays took the money 10 days prior to the letter date. They then changed their story and claimed that the had the funds but they were holding them because my date of birth didn't match. (They matched exactly).
  When I rang the call centre they stated that the only way to resolve this (now proven as non existent) problem was that I had to personally visit a branch with my passport to prove my identity. Just ten days earlier they considered my identity more than acceptable enough to provide me with £187,000 of their money for a mortgage during which they had already taken TWO separate copies of my passport!
  
  Fortunately by this time I had obtained the “real” branch number which the staff gave me after they had to deal with an earlier back room screw-up so I was able to call the branch directly. The branch manager called me back quickly, apologised again and resolved the issue within the hour, no visit necessary.
  
  A few days later another letter from the ISA processing team arrives, again with the heading “We cannot transfer your ISA"... because the address given by NatWest does not match our address history! As Barclays had in the past sent numerous correspondences to the very address they apparently “had no record of” I was baffled (though not surprised given the recent performances). I called the ISA transfer helpline and was told by the girl there that the only way to resolve the problem was to change my current address (where I now lived and where their mortgage is registered) and change it back to the old address (which I no longer lived at)!
  This advice was so unbelievably stupid that I asked her to repeat herself, which she duly did with confidence. I therefore had no option but to take yet another half day off work and visiting the branch again, but this time armed with handfuls of Barclays correspondence addressed to me at the exact address they apparently didn’t have!
  Again the branch manager volunteered to get involved, sorted out yet another “non-problem”, apologised (again), and promised that the funds would be in my ISA within 24 hours.

• The final, and most unbelievable, episode then came when my wife tried to transfer her ISA into our offset account. Again the funds were removed from her Lloyds account by Barclays but never arrived in our offset account. When she queried this the Barclays overseas call centre employee decided that because he could see a transfer from our joint account to my brother of a similar (though not the same) amount, that this “must have been her ISA money”
  
  My wife corrected the call centre person by pointing out that her ISA transfer would have went directly into her personal ISA account not our joint current account and that he was clearly looking at a completely different transaction in the wrong account. The call centre person was however resolute in his beliefs and went on to tell my wife that the transfer “Must have been her ISA” and that the most likely scenario was that "she must not have kept her login details secure which had allowed my brother or myself to steal her money and that she should talk to us about it”!!!!!!!!!
  This accusation of theft towards myself and my brother was the final straw in a the perpetual problems with Barclays call centers which caused me send them a formal complaint which they didn't bother to reply to!

Since this debacle my experience has been fine, though only because now everything is set up online I can arrange everything myself and don't need to get their staff involved to "help" at all.

Trying_to_be_good

I had to take my mismanagement complaint to the Ombudsman - I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole, and gave up my +0.18% Barclays tracker for a higher rate at a building society (Melton Mowbray) with fantastic customer service.

fincherley

Thanks all, this is definitely food for thought!

Wh05apk

Like any other lender, their service is either fantastic, or horrendous if it falls off the conveyor belt.

Given that they do not dual price (I.e. cheaper if you go direct) why not use a broker and let them have all the grief of chasing, and making sure the app is submitted correctly?

getmore4less

We set our offset up years ago.

Our local branch is not the one we bank at(old school town) and that caused problems because some accounts got set up at the local and it took a while to sort it out.

Once all is online it has gone smoothly I have been happy with barclays for over 30 years, the odd wobble but nothing serious.

It is a good idea to have a contact at your local branch you can talk to so get a direct/branch phone number, there are a few things you can't do online like close accounts, we use the monthly savers where you get new ones each year so need to clean them up every year or two.

posh*spice

They have dreadful Indian call centres - think hard!