woolwich to barclays

gjchester

Got a reply to my complaint yesterday. Standard form letter saying basically this is how we work, tough.

Not good enough it's obvious it's a form letter they refer to "my complaint" without ever stating anything to do with my complaint.

Roll on my move...

exWoolich

I also got the standard cpmplaint letter..

I was looking at the banking awards page and couldn't stop laughing when I saw that Woolwich won this years best banking award for it's current account! Bloody ironic thant Barclays should close this down and switch us to a vastly inferior service! Barclay's obviously do not have a clue!

By the way Barclays did not feature in any of the awards categories!

soolin

exWoolich wrote: »

By the way Barclays did not feature in any of the awards categories!

Why I am not surprised?

bookshifter

smithja wrote: »

hi exbarclay, you are incorrect about "NO OTHER UK BANK other than what was the Woolwich offered a Visa Electron on a savings account" the Co-op Bank for a long time offered a Visa Electron Card on their easy access savings account, and Natwest issue SOLO debit cards on their First Reserve savings accounts. There are other small banks and buidling societies that still do issue either card on saving accounts. Airdrie Saving Bank comes to mind. Some banks in this country and others also issued and issue Electron Cards as Credit Cards, so you could not go over your credit limit, Electron is not a debit card proudct, it is merely a 100% authorisations Visa card. James


Edit: The Co-op Smart Saver account does stil come with a Visa Electron Card, this is copied and pasted from the Terms and Condition for the account"cash card means any Electron card supplied by us to you from time to time to use with your account"p>

I applied for the Co-op Smart Saver and just got the card. It is not an Electron Card, just a plain looking ATM card. Anbody else apply and get an Electron? Looks like there isn't a true replacement for the Woolwich Card Saver out there ......... i.e. a savings account with debit card facility and a decent interest rate.

08700104503_worker

Hello people - I have finally got fed up with my bosses at Barclays and have told them (in nice terms of course) where to stick their job and their crappy bank and procedures - so as of Friday I shall no longer be in Debit Card Services - so if you want to talk to someone who knows what they're doing - call before Friday - by the way a cheaper non-0870 number is 08007315387 for main customer services and 01604254689 for debit card services

gjchester

08700104503_worker wrote: »

Hello people - I have finally got fed up with my bosses at Barclays and have told them (in nice terms of course) where to stick their job and their crappy bank and procedures

Good luck in finding a new job.

As seems usual the individual people are fine, its organisational issues that usually cause the issues.

exWoolich

The Saga Continues..

We are now on our second set of cheque books and wife wifes name is still incorrect! Her Debit is still has the wrong name.. I cannot believe how they can get this wrong as it was correct with the Woolwich..

More lame excuses from the Customer support!..

aaaaaaaaaaaaahgggggggggggggggg

easygoing

I'm now mad after speaking to Barclays customer relations. Heres a story, cut down as much as possible. :mad:
My daughter who has special needs and myself have a joint account. Was a card saver with electron with the woolwich. Had the account 10 years. The account was for my daughters disability money. She has no understanding of money,or the use of cards or banks, hence the joint account. When we go shopping, if she wants to buy something, I use the debit card in the shop. Now and again but rarely, we use a cash machine to access cash. It would not work, if she wanted something in a shop, but had to go to a cash machine to pay for it. It causes all major problems with her disabilities. The woolwich account has been brilliant over the years.

Barclays take over the account, send letter saying 'we will match account as best as we can'. I dont worry, just wait for the card.
Card arrives, Its a savings card. No debit card. So off we trot to our local branch which, by the way is 10 miles away. We live in the country which has no bank facilities locally.
i explained, accompanied by my daughter, why we needed a debit card. No problem says Barclays, although a bit more inconvenient, we can open a current account and you can transer money via the internet into it for your shopping trips. It will have a debit card with it. We can open it now!
So reluctantly, we agreed, or rather I did as daughter doesnt really understand.

ID. does your daughter have a driving license. Errr. No!, how about a passport.. errr no. utility Bills... errr no, she lives with my husband and I, we pay all the bills. Benefits letter with entitlement with address ID. Well,I did have one, but unfortunatly it was dated april 06 but the entitilement is upto Feb 08. Will that do.. No. I'm sorry i was told, but we need ID.
So I said, but Barclays have already opened an account, the one from the Woolwich without ID. Its not the same account number, or branch ,bank even, so youve opened an account already. You just didnt give us a like for like account.
Sorry, i was told, we cant open another account without ID.
So, i complained there and then.(The electron card was still working and was told as long as i didnt use the new cardsaver card it might work for a while.) Must admit, the service was good, I recieved a letter of reply from Swansea the very next day.. 'sorry the account doesnt match, but go and open a current account at your local branch' and we are sending you a gesture of goodwill.
Box of Thorntons chocolates arrived the following day. :rolleyes:
So I write back to Swansea. Explaining the dilema and that Barclays have caused no end of distress to my daughter. I await patiently a reply.. until
two days ago... one week after sending the second letter of complaint.. the card failed.. was rejected.. so I tried the new cardsaver in the cash machine. It didnt work either... no money, daughter very distressed, had panic attack!
had to use my own account, which defeats the object of my daughter having her independant life with her own money!
Rang Barclays customer relations.. asked why they hadnt replied to my letter and also pointing out the trauma we had just suffered. Ah they said, yes i see your letter, i will ring you back before 12.00. They didnt phone back, so i rang them. Shes busy they say, she will ring you back this afternoon. Are you sure i questioned. 'yes' i was told...
no phone call, no access to money unless we travel 10 miles to the bank to get it out over the counter.
This morning i rang.. 'ah sorry i didnt get back to you. There are lots of different issues and we cant find out why the card will not work!
We cant issue a debit card without ID either'
So, i replied, we will go and open another account with another bank, one that knows me. Yes, i was told, its easier to open an account with a bank that already knows you. Not so, i told them, Woolwich have known my daughter for 10 years and Barclays cannot open the account she needs without ID but can open an account she doesnt need. :T
So theyve told me, they will not reply to the letter or do anything as I'm going to take the account away. But they can issue another cardsaver card which will work.
Whats the point, my daughter has no access to her disability money. What would happen to her if she didnt live with us?
Barclays have put us in a very difficult situation, they have caused stress, took away my daughters independance financially. What do i do next?

soolin

Yep Barclays are still mucking things up for us here.

Set up a direct debit to start on the 20th September for £500, all fine and dandy and the direct debit has sat there showing 1st payment due on the 20th September 2007. Which doesn't explain why a payment was sent on the 27th August

You really couldn't make this level of incompetence up...have decided against calling them as my OH's blood pressure can't stand the strain of yet another call to India where no one will understand his explanation of what has happened. Instead it looks like we will rely on person receiving the money (luckily not a company) just returning it to us..with any other bank that would be the complicated way of doing things, with Barclays it is the only way to achieve what we want.

One more nail in the coffin for all our accounts with Barclays..we are now bringing forward the date to pay off mortgage earlier and earlier just so we can dump the accounts.

Dickieburd

I do feel sorry for all the people who have had nothing but bother with the Woolwich to Barclays changeover.

We used to have a Woolwich card saver joint account since last year and when I heard that Barclays were going to take over Woolwich I thought fine. A while later I read in the paper that a majority of the woolwich customers were expected to get accounts with cash cards that could only be used at Barclays and Woolwich cash machines and would not work in the Link network of cash machines, it was this that made me want to ditch this account as soon as possible.
We got an account with A+L and transferred everything ourselves with the exception of the car insurance which had a final DD in April so once that had been paid it was down to the woolwich branch to close the account. When we got there a sign said the branch was finally closing the next day and the cash machine was blocked off. We closed the account and about a week later we received a letter from Barclays saying they will be opening an account within the next few weeks as it was our change over date (May 2007) after that we never heard anymore so looks like we nipped it in the bud at the right time.