Great 'Work in a bank? What should we know' Hunt

convenience101

Does anybody remember that Viz t-shirt from years ago?

Left School?

No job?

No money?

Then f**k off.


Gnatwest



Have things changed that much.......

Snazbaz

I've always wondered, do banks and credit card companies:

- dislike customers who always pay their bills in full and on time,
- never pay them any interest or charges, and
- earn interest/cashback on their accounts?

(In short, I'm talking about customers who are making money out of the bank/company, not the other way around.)

Do they penalise us in any ways we are unaware of?

worry_2

Hi
I until recently worked for the alliance and leicester in the call centre firstly for credit card collections and then after in the branch on the counter and also giving the ( account reviews ) 45 mins of asking evry question to provide ypou with opportunity to sell a& l products and leads fort legal and general products and mortage leeds and life assurance .
I left due to the increasing behaviour towards the customers from the company i cannot belive that martin repeatly advises that it the best bank to have a current account with !! .

In the credit collections department ( before it was sold off to mbna to deal with customers ) i was appalled that tghey treated avery single person exaclty the same whether someone has died is terminally ill or just cant eb bothered paying their bill . Id have people crying down the phone pleading to help them due to their partners illness ( cancer) (redundancy) death etc but the same process was repeating firstly the £ 25 charge letters and then the default and then send it to debt collection . There just not interested in induviduals whether youve thought youve been a good customer for years ( you think you have butn they see you as someone who hasnt made them any money cause youve paid your credit card off every month .

I left to work in the branch ( thought it would be abit more cheerful ) I worked on the counter having to book appointment with evry custoemr i served and was servelly questioned why i had sold any appointment if i didnt get one .

I progrossed to senior sale advisor ( taking customers for their FREE ACCOUNT REVIEW ) which was just 45 mins of questioning every part of the finances so you can sell a& l products at every oppourtunity u had to get a least 2 products sold or i would be in trouble . At one point a was told to sell every person 2 credit cards a visa and a mastercard whether theyd need it or not and it just free with the current account , and the life assurnace was awful the things you had to say . And the loans were 70 points for the branch as opposed to 7 with out so it didnt get insurance again there was big questions ! and if customers didnt sign up to it there loan would get refered every time so the call centre would call them that night to try again to sell it .

We even had salesman with clip board selling credit cards in the branch , i had a daughter with a fther with altsimers whgo had signed for card with out knowing what for .

All the staff had to open as many current accounts as they could for them selves and family members and have both credit cards

I began to hate it after i returned after maternity leave i was treated as secound rate and had to return to sitting on the counter trying to persuade evry customer that they needed a a & l product again and again ... And then any who did open a premier account etc couldnt even disscuss problems in the branch , its all over the phone !!! it becaME just continually complaints re the charges and they account handling.

The bank charges you if you go over drawn even if you get money in the same day and if youn transfer money on the internet they put it in when they fancy and charge you in between .

I think they re an awful bank and terrible to work for .. Im currently trying to get my bank charges back from them and have had to go to court proceedures .. if i can be any help to anyone let me know .

angeltoad

convenience101 wrote: »

Does anybody remember that Viz t-shirt from years ago?

Left School?

No job?

No money?

Then f**k off.


Gnatwest



Have things changed that much.......

Ha! I remember that. There was also a commercial on tv ending with the line "X- the bank that likes to say YES!". A few weeks after it appeared I was amused to see that someone had spray painted on the security shutters of said bank, "The bank that likes to say F**K OFF!". It was only visible when it was closed, but as teh shutters didn't cover the shop header, it added a new subtitle to their name. It was there for a long time - no idea why it wans't removed - I guess that the branch workers were as unhappy as some of the posters?
Anyhow. I was called into my bank recently for a "quick chat" which took 45 minutes and was not private as it was in an open cubicle. during this I saw the screen and there was a number on it. I asked what this meant and he said it was my customer profile category number or something. I asked what that meant, and was told that it told them all about how I used my account and my spendin ghabits, cash flow etc. He siad there was nothing to worry about as the number I had was a pretty good category to be in. (I think they may have been from 1 to 100. )
Does anyone know what these numbes and corresponding categories are?
Are they used by all banks?
What are these codes and do people have a right to find out how they have been assessed? Anyone here know about our numberings?
(And I thought I was a free man.....)

BWZN93

webwiz wrote: »

Dear Jo at Nationwide

Firstly congratulations on losing 20 lbs in 5 months. You must have more self control than I have.

But what is your job at Nationwide - public relations? The society that you describe does not sound like the one that I sued. My complaint to the branch in person was shrugged off, my letter to the branch manager went unanswered as did my letter to HO threatening legal action, leaving me little choice but to go to court. The case was not defended so I applied for judgement and at last they woke up and closed my account.

Michael

No - im a regular old customer adviser in a branch. Im sorry you had problems with Nationwide. I am fully aware of problems that people have had with the society, and all I can say is that you shouldnt have had your complaint dealt with in that way. Myself, I do my best when im there to fix things that come up - unfortunately, charges is one of those areas that is within the realm of head office and I am just as frustrated as the customers in that respect (if of course that is what you were complaining about).

p.s - yeah, thanks on the weight loss too - its not the easiest thing in the world to do!

Mozette wrote: »

I've been with Nationwide for 20 years, and have no complaints whatever, and in fact nothing but praise for the service I've received from them.

Im glad!

squashy wrote: »

I am an ex-Nationwide employee.

A few points:

My salary was £8.5k per year, this was for full time plus one hour extra in the morning. I also had extra responsibilities as the chief cashier (bankage officer) and keyholder but did not get extra pay for this. Also if one of the tills or the whole branch did not balance I would have to resolve this and got no extra pay for staying after 5pm. In fact the earliest I ever got away was 5:15 as the last till was not shut down until 5 on the dot at least. This was 7 years ago so it may have changed, but I still think the pay was pretty poor considering the level of responsibility the cashiers have.

Cashiers had referral targets. You had to convince a set number of people, eg 6 per day, to sit down with a "complex" advisor and get some more info about either insurance, loans, financial advice etc. It did not matter if they eventually went on to purchase any of these services, but the complex advisors were targeted on conversions. So for any one "sale" there could be three staff getting a tick off their target, ie a cashier, a complex advisor (who makes a mortgage appointment), then the mortgage advisor. Personally, I felt the targets got more and more demanding and were also difficult when your customers were lots of the same little old ladies coming in week upon week. All staff had to have a 6m appraisal which was weighted heavily towards your referral stats. One time, despite performing really well in all the other categories, I came out with an overall mark of "improvement required" because I had failed miserably on my sales targets, meaning I didn't get a pay increase alongside my colleagues. This is one of the reasons I didn't go back after my maternity leave as my heart wasn't in it. It was a shame because I actually really enjoyed the work and was very dedicated to helping customers resolve queries etc.

I usually dont leave till 5.15 either, however, we arent required to work an extra hour in the morning. I arrive between 8.30 and 8.45 - depending on whether I want to have breakfast at work or if I have an ATM key or not! I get paid for being in early enough to service the ATM.

Our salary isnt exactly bad - however, a lack of staff and a contract that says we have to work as many saturdays as required can lead to a few disagreements with the management :rolleyes: , but the overtime is good! We still have referral targets too, but we dont have to get 6 people a day to chat with the 'complex' advisor (now customer consultant), besides which, the diaries are usually packed full and there is not a lot of opportunity to put referrals over immediately. Our referalls are meant to be service based anyway, like being able to actually save/make someone some money - we dont do it hit targets!

Gareth56 wrote: »

As a Nationwide customer I find the Nationwide just as worse as the other high street banks in terms of it being greedy and ripping off its customers with over inflated charges, threatening to close members accounts if they kick up a fuss and poor CS.

With regard to CS I have yet to receive a satisfactory explanation from the Nationwide as to why a very busy branch had its number of cashier positions reduced from 3 to 2 thus making customers queue for longer during busier times (not that the three positions were hardly used, staff were too busy in the back office chatting!) It's as if these money grabbers don't want you cluttering up their branches. And before any Nationwide employee attempts to defend the Nationwide please don't bother as I've heard most of the excuses from the "Nationwide Book of Excuses to give to Customers"

Aplogies for the rant but banks get my BP up, they think that they are there to do you a favour :mad:
G56

No problem, ill shut my trap after I just say that I doubt they are just standing around chatting in the back office (we dont just run a counter service....) and secondly, in my branch we do everything we can with limited staff to ensure the queue gets as many staff as possible - even our mortgage advisers walk the queue to sort out queries if they are free.

(Ive always wondered why RBS doesnt have a queue at lunchtimes though.... They just dont get the same walk-ins as us for some reason!)

Jo x

Better_offin_PETES_pocket

Tootsie_Roll wrote: »

I see you've got an 'O' level in Missing the Point.

AND IF UNDERGROUND DOESNT LIKE YOUR REPLY HE SHOULDNT READ IT. !!!

I BET HE/SHE WORKS FOR A BANK !!!

'O' LEVEL... BIT STRONG !!! 11+ AT BEST

Paul_Herring

thus making customers queue for longer during busier times

Are the "busier times" lunchtimes by any chance? If so, the same thing happens in my local TSB. Trainee staff are apparently left on the counter while (ALL) the others go to lunch themselves.

Yes - that includes the safe-key holder if what you're in there for is change and they run out on the front desk.

craigyoungw

formerbankcashier wrote: »

I recently resigned from the Natwest (part of the RBS group) as a cashier. I left because I was disgusted with their unscrupulous sales approach. As a humble cashier I had only a basic insight into how they worked.

Three tips:

1) Don't blame the staff - they are under ENORMOUS pressure from management to get sales leads! That said...
2) One of the banks favourite customers are people making minimum payment on their credit cards -any credit cards.

It was compulsory for me as the cashier processing the credit card minimum payment to approach the customer to ask if they would be interested in talking to a Customer Advisor (sales person!) about turning the credit card debt into a loan.

It didn't matter how many times the customer had been approached before, my manager told me if the customer complained about being harrassed, it should be logged as a customer complaint which was fine, as we are targeted on logging a minimum number of customer complaints per week!

Tip: for a quiet life - just say firmly 'no thanks' - the cashier approaching you almost certainly does NOT want to approach you - but they are required to do so as a condition of their employment. If they persist, then complain. This will cost them many, many minutes after you have gone, in logging your complaint! Make sure you insist that they DO log your complaint. They won't like that at all! It's a lot of work!

3) Bank charges. The bank are very sneaky... If you overdraw without an agreed facility - or you go over the facility - they will automatically charge you £28 for going overdrawn. They won't necessarily tell you about this charge until you get your statement.

Here's the sneaky bit: Suppose you are overdrawn by an end of month direct debit - which if they decline it they charge you £38!. If this causes you to be overdrawn at the end of the month - that raised a £28 charge. THEN if your don't notice - 3 to 5 days later, your account rolls into the next monthly business period, (which is NOT the end of the month, but a few days later) and if you are STILL overdrawn - they will raise another £28 charge!

Furthermore: these £28 charges are raised a month in arrears! So when you finally get a statement telling you they are going to charge you the £28 at the end of that month, just be aware, there may be ANOTHER £28 charge waiting for you the following month! For being overdrawn for about 5 days at the wrong time of month!

Example: A direct debit for £20 is declined on January 30th. They raise an immediate charge of £38 for declining the DD. This causes you to be overdrawn by say £10.

When you get your statement on February 5th it shows you were overdrawn, the £38 charge and your account overdrawn by £10. It will advise you that a £28 charge will be taken at the end of February for being overdrawn in January.

BUT between January 30th and February 5th, the bank changed business periods. AND if you didn't notice and you were still overdrawn by the time of the statement - (5th February) - then when you get your March 5th statement they will advise you of ANOTHER £28 charge for being overdrawn in February! See?

What's more, if you forget the £28 charge coming out at the end of February. and it causes you to overdraw again... the whole charging cycle begins all over again!

I told you it was sneaky!

One final point - its a few months since I left - so things might have changed - even the Bank Branch Managers have NO power to refund charges if you complain about them! UNLESS it's a clear 'Bank Error' - they took away discretionary refunds some time ago - because it was costing too much! Now, that may have changed since I left as I say, but when I was there, they were taking discretionary refunds away from the local branches and tightening up the rules at their lending/charging centres where the decision is taken.

Tip: So I suggest, don't waste your time and effort complaining at branch level about your charges. They can't help you. (unless as I said, it is definitely a bank error). Write to them using the templates Martin has published.

i simply asked at my branch about a £39 cheque bouncing charge the cashier went to talk to the manager and it was reversed their and then but i do have a student account if that makes a difference

purplecatlover

that sneaky 28quid from natwest was what led to me wracking up so many charges, id no sooner get one lot paid off than they would slap that on without me knowing so more dd's would bounce and we started all over again.

and reading some the review points....does that mean that when they tried desperately to sell me a credit card or two that they were fairly sure i would be approved?

and the other day they sent me a letter saying they were increasing my od, i have not asked for this and i asked them in january to reduce it and they did not. they have said the only way i can refuse this new od limit (for a lot more than i have atm) is in writing within 10 days. Is this also standard practice? (or is it punishment because i reclaimed charges and have refused all offers of loans and credit cards)

Dave_the_Ginger_Cat

Snazbaz wrote: »

I've always wondered, do banks and credit card companies:

- dislike customers who always pay their bills in full and on time,
- never pay them any interest or charges, and
- earn interest/cashback on their accounts?

(In short, I'm talking about customers who are making money out of the bank/company, not the other way around.)

Do they penalise us in any ways we are unaware of?

No penalties. Customers who have profiles such as the above, typically have savings accounts somewhere - there are few people who live precisely to their means. They will be trying to target savings accounts, kids savings, student accounts as their families mature, travel insurance etc...

Going forwards with the challenges on bank fees, I think we may start to see the end to free banking or at least full facilities accounts - like the branch who turned down customers below a certain income threshold.