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

peed_off_3

smithja wrote: »

Can I please ask something in addition to a question I asked earlier in this threat. I opened a LTSB classic acc on 1 March. I would like a Gold acc, I have been told the decision is made by the amount of money going in and out of the account. Is there a particular point when the computer re-assess your risk, i.e say after the 6th months statement or can it happen at anytime? Also I saw a screen a member of staff was looking at and all I could make out were the words "High" one underneath the other. Do they use geodemographic data to decide can I have a Gold Acc? I ask this as I live in an area with one of the "worst" postcodes in the country, and know someone with one of the "most sought after" postcodes who was offered an account with what I perceive to be a lower credit score, and certainly less money going into the account per month.

Cheers

James

LTSB customers acc are assessed every month and this determines your risk band and therefore products available to you. A gold acc definitley does not go on your postcode, more your risk band, we basically see one screen that tells us your rb and products available and also if a product isnt available it tells us why. risk band 7 and below should normally be eligible for gold acc but it can vary. if you recently opened your acc it can take upto 12 month varying on how you run the acc but at the same time it could take 3 month, its basically how longs a piece of string. my advice would be ring the main customer services number and they will check the eligibility.

just to let you know all the new offer for ava accs with ltsb are as follows select acc £2 for 3 month, gold acc £7 for 3 month and platinum £10 for 3 month. these are only available on the main phonebank number.

another tip for ltsb customers is never never never take out your home insurance at a ltsb branch. basically branches only quote using ltsb ins as underwriters, whereas if you ring the phonebank for a quote they use ltsb ins and a panel of 10 other underwriters (groupama, royal & sun all, norwich union etc) which basically means at worst you will be quoted same as branch but the chances are the panel will be cheaper.
if you already have home ins with ltsb and have had it for longer than 12 months whether you took it out in branch or over the phone basically ring the phonebank and ask for a re quote across the panel else your cancelling your policy, 99% of requotes are cheaper. the reason for this is say for example your policy is with groupama (one of the panel) after you get your yearly renewal they only quote you for groupama and not the panel again so your policy goes up, by quoting across the panel chances are your renewal will be beaten. ltsb never advertise this its only if you enquire for a requote as your unhappy.
a cust recently was paying £17 for her contents a month, she had this policy from the branch for 6 years, a quick quote across the panel put her premium down to £3.60 a month

regularsaver1

with the same level of cover peed of?f

churchmouse_3

You are well within your rights to tell your bank that you do not want any phone services or any mail telling you about loans , credit cards etc, ie you can put your money in the bank / take it out etc and that is all you require from their services.

regularsaver1

true churchmouse, but then do you get people moan that they did not hear about the new account offering / rates ect - because they selected no marketing

chutzpah_2

I am new. Thank you all for an informative, interesting and enjoyable post to date. Just a couple of things-
I switched to a Alliance & Leicester direct account from a clearing bank I had no gripe with because the terms were much better for me. I was very impressed with A&L to start with but now think they are ok+. Saying that you can forget about your DDs because they do the work is untrue. Is it my imagination or are the branches understaffed and poor for CS?

I am not a fan of Nationwide for detailed reasons I won't bore you with. Thank you for upsetting them on my behalf by overwhelmingly referring to them as a bank on this post.

Wood25worm

Hi there this is my first post but I have been visiting the site for a while now.

As an ex-C&G and LTSB bod, it cheers me that others have left for the same reasons I did: basically too much emphasis on sell sell sell.

Before Lloyds took over C&G I took pride in my work and although I sold mortgages and savings accounts and insurance, I used to finish the day and feel I had provided a service somebody wanted and needed. Yes the branch had targets, but there was far more emphasis on the customer as a person.

I think the thing to remember is that banks are in the business to make money and they will use whatever tools at their disposal to make that money. Having a review is not necessarily a bad thing - lets face it we all need to review what we have and what we need regularly.

What you need to remember at all times is that if you are offered something which seems too good to be true, ask yourself what is in it for the bank...

More than likely preaching to the already converted - no offence intended!

BWZN93

squashy wrote: »

The extra hour in the mornings was to service the ATMs (there were 4), and this was an agreed overtime so INCLUDED in the £8.5k salary! We weren't "allowed" to claim any overtime overand above this eg if we worked through lunch or stayed late.

I remember the arguments about the Saturdays too. I usually ended up working them all as my CSM made me make up the time from my ante-natal or orthodontics appointments midweek.

Re the targets, that's what they used to tell us too- "look how great our products are, it would be a shame if our customers didn't know about them!". There was still an agreed number of referrals you needed to get otherwise you were heading for trouble. Have they scrapped this now?

Maybe I just had a b*tch as a manager!

He he! I used to have a bit of a bad tempered manager, but my new one is really chilled out! We do have targets for referrals, but they are achieveable now and based on what the branch could actually do rather than enforced generally.

ATM payments included in salary would be a laugh if they tried to enforce it, our contracts are clearly 9-5 and id service them in these hours if I wasnt paid to do it before the branch opened! I dont think they would want to risk the money involved by opening the base whilst customers were in the branch over a few extra quid!

Gareth56 wrote: »

Straight out of the Nationwide Book of Excuses to give to Customers..fantastic. Perhaps if staff did less chatting about last night conquests in the back office and the Nationwide put more cashiers on then perhaps mortgage "advisers" wouldn't have to walk up and down asking if they can be of any help in the long queues that have now developed in the branches. Perhaps if the fat-cat Nationwide directors didn't award themselves such disgusting wages rises and perks then perhaps more front line staff could be employed.

Lol - that really makes me laugh! As tarajayne says - unless you work in one of these places then you really dont understand the regulatory issues and the timeframes in which some things MUST be done within. In particular, we are ALWAYS advertising for staff because of promotions/rapid growth etc. Would you prefer we got in a bunch of temps without checking references etc and allow them to take your money? Do you want us to have an indian call centre to ensure your call gets answered? No, of course you dont - there are a million mse threads complaining about these issues. I dont take a lunch during the busy period, however, people have to eat and are entitled to a lunch break. Are you suggesting that staff should take a lunch break at 3/4pm? And If you have really been in the back office while the staff are discussing last nights conquests then make a complaint to the branch.

As for the "advisers" dig, whats that all about? They have got the same qualifications that an independant mortgage adviser does, the only difference is that they work for a company so they are tied - whats the "advice" about?? They walk the queue to help out where they can - not to cover alleged slack cashiers who are chatting about thier love lives in the back when there is a queue.

As for the fat cat payrises - yes, they earn a lot of money. However, there are less of them and they earn a heck of a lot less than a lot of high street banks for an equivalent job. If you could run a building society i'd expect you would want the going rate - whats wrong with that? Do you think that the top people in the army for instance dont deserve their salaries? What about mine - do you have a problem with my salary? Its all relative to the work involved quite frankly.

regularsaver1 wrote: »

I don't understand how this firm are going to load cash, order cash, balance the ATM, take the deposits out and key them

We have to do all the loading when closed

Thats quite interesting actually - we dont load cash etc - we just service it every day and remove cards/deposits etc. Ours get magically filled for us which is nice. I believe they enter at some point during the night, as do the company that deliver the internal mail boxes.

Jo x

Banker54

regularsaver1 wrote: »

My bank are taking ATM servicing away from us - beats me how its going to work

Do you work for Halifax by any chance??

mrmajika

peed_off wrote: »

just to let you know all the new offer for ava accs with ltsb are as follows select acc £2 for 3 month, gold acc £7 for 3 month and platinum £10 for 3 month. these are only available on the main phonebank number.

To the best of my knowledge, these are discounted until 1st November at the prices given by peed off at the moment.

mrmajika

dubs wrote: »

is this true industry wide? im in the prcoess of consolidating my loans and could save a penny here if it applied to places like Egg or the unscrupulous Black Horse...

dubs

The reason Lloyds TSB customers benefit from this is because
*Interest is calculated daily and applied to the loan account monthly.
*Overpayments are penalty free.
*There is an early settlement fee incurred.

If, for example, you were with Northern Rock then (to the best of my knowledge) there is no early settlement fee, so there's no advantage.

To take the other extreme, if, for example, you were with A&L, then they don't allow overpayments to the loan and so you couldn't do it.

It really depends whether or not the fee applies in the first place, whether the interest is front loaded (that is, all added on day one of the loan) and whether overpayments are allowed and penalty free.

Hope This Helps