woolwich to barclays

soolin

OH took his courage in his hand and phoned call centre, was told no standing order had gone out yet, but there it was sitting on the account. When he suggested they might want to recheck they hung up on him.

Called again, was told that he must have mistaken months and that if it was due to go in the 9th month then it must be the 9th month and again they hung up on him.

This is very inpressive...NOT

freebird65

I've never had anything sorted out with my mortgage problem. The call centre tell me to go to the branch, and the branch (totally overwhelmed by all the Woolwich customers) tell me to call the call centre.

Oh and my complaint.......had a letter saying a full and satisfactory explanation will be sent to me within 4 weeks. I've now had another letter saying they are "unable to give me an explanation at this time and will contact me again within 4 weeks."

By which time my mortgage will hopefully be elsewhere!!!!

easygoing

ah, reading some of these posts, has unearthed the mystery of why my daughter cant access her money. we cant use the cardsaver in link machines. So we have to travel 10 miles to get her money out as well as paying for parking to get to the bank............ no way
The letter Barclays refused to open a debit card account with was taken along to the A & L with the story of my disabled daughters need. No problem, could have various different interest paying accounts with a debit card. Account out of a choice of three was opened there and then, with the letter for ID. Full debit facilities attached to the account. Personal banker informed me that they had lots of customers coming from Barclays to open an account with them!
bye bye Barclays!!!

Well, were happy. A & L account details came through this morning.:p Full debit facilities, better rate of interest on savings account. Also got a letter from Barclays saying they cant do anything unless i go into local branch and if they know my daughter, they will open an account for her!!! huh! Double standards.. So if we are friends of someone who works at Barclays we can have an account without ID?:eek: The letter says thats all they can do and of course they are very sorry... not going to let it lie there though am I!!!!!:rotfl:

Martin81162

My OH was told that Barclays would match her Woolwich accounts, not so! She used to have an ISA and when she needed money out of it, she used a cash machine to transfer the money into her current account and then drew the money out. Barclays then told her that she couldn't do that any more, she had to go into a branch and ask them to transfer the money, so she wasn't happy about that.

When we moved address recently, she went into Barclays to change her details, the stroppy man behind the counter turned her away because her driving licence had a spelling mistake on it. She then decided to close her account and went again to a local branch, this time she as told that her accounts had been closed and that was the end of that.

A couple of weeks later a letter arrived (redirected from our old address) asking her to bring proof in if she wanted to update her details, this went straight into the bin.

A week later a statement arrived (redirected from our old address) for the account that she had closed earlier. This went back with a note on it saying "not known at this address"

They aren't doing very well so far, now her mother got a letter from them saying that her account was in debit, this was due to the cashier taking the money from the wrong account...

Tylerama

I have been with the woolwich since I was about eightish (i'm now 28 ! I won a competition at primary school for designing a firework safety poster no less and hte prize was a woolwich account with £5 !) anyway, so I got swapped to a barclays current account in june from my previous woolwich openplan account that had been perfectly fine for years before - the savings part would top up the current part when I spent and vice versa when money was paid in ! but not so with barclays.

Their accounts (the savings and the current part) are tied together, but it only sweeps between the two for dd and so's - not for spending on the debit card ! so when I came to pay my credit card bill a few months ago, I found my payment was rejected due to their not being enough money in the current account part - strange I thought, it's always worked fine before.. so I rang barclays - waited about 10 minutes (if I recall correctly) then spoke to some poor indian chap who could speak barely understandable english (though much better than I could speak urdu, i'm sure !) - who said no sir the account only sweeps for dd's and so's, not for spending on the debit card. So if I wanted to spend more than £250 on the debit card, i'd actually have to ring up beforehand and sweep the money on the phone from the savings to the current part of the account ! I nfact, I think I may buy a crystal ball so I can predict what i'm going to spend and then sweep the money beforehand, all the while spending time on the phone, no doubt using as number that in some way makes barclays money !

Brilliant Barclays, just superb, take an account that has worked faultlessly for years before, change it so it's not as good as it was before and then lose my custom cos i'm now moving elsewhere which will pay me more interest and will pay a higher interest rate on the whole balance sintaed of sweeping it between savings and current accounts. Oh and they never made that clear with the new account that it wouldn't sweep any spending only for dd's and so's !
Paint yourself green and call yourself Kermit, you muppets :T

exWoolich

Dear All,

got an update from the Barclays Complain department.. They called through and wanted to talk and said they would rather not send a letter but only gave me two hours to call back.. So they ended up sending a letter anyway..

Lot's of the usual appologies and excuses in the letter. A £50 credit for the inconvenience plus the woderful phrase - ' we assume that all the issues you have raised have been sorted out'... Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrr NO!!!

Names on my wifes debit card and cheque books still wrong! What does it take to get through to these people.. You would tink it would be simple enough to cheque the names on the new Barclays account against the ones on the Woolwich account! But NO!!!

Still a shambles!! :mad:

Lara

Ah! so I am not the only one to discover that my card is simply a savings card with no chip & pin because it can only be used in Barclays machine. I can't go shopping and see something I want to buy "secretly" because my card won't be accepted .

I went into Barclays local branch this morning but no advisors could speak to me as all their appointments were taken :mad: .

I had my Woolwich account (Visa Electron card) so that I could put any money in there as and when I was able. This was my little account that I used to buy presents etc without OH knowing all the time .

After reading this I am going to close it down. Don't know where I'll put the money though perhaps just open a Nationwide or Halifax account . Stupid Woolwich - I had my account with them for 12 years and was quite happy with it :mad: .

hebe

It's taken us a few months, but as of this afternoon I shall be free of Barclays :j The last straw was trying to move savings out of my Barclays account to my new FirstDirect account... the call centre wouldn't do it as I got the amount of a direct debit wrong going through the security questions, and hung up when I pointed out that I had waited 15minutes for them to answer the call, so would they please wait 2minutes for me to check the dd online. I then tried to move the money online, due to the moneylaundering stuff you can move £1000 max per day, but it wouldn't even let me set up a consecutive payment for the next day....

So my current account is now fully up and running trouble-free at first direct, with a British call centre who answer the phone promptly and treat me like a grown-up... and our mortgage went across to FirstDirect on Wednesday, so we're off to Barclays this afternoon to close the accounts and move the remaining cash that was offsetting against the Woolwich mortgage across to FD. I am still staggered at how barclays have destroyed such fantastic products - offset mortgage with superb online and phone support, and current account/savings sweeping.

Good luck to everyone sorting things out.

chrisk2007

Is there anyway, just cant think of the logistics, that we can all sign (not literally I dont imagine!!!) a letter to the Ombudsman complaining about the withdrawal of the electron. I have only just found out today and have a day of panic attacks just wondering how I cope with buying anything other than with cash - how can I pay for flights/supermarket unless I have a pocket full of cash - would be grateful of any suggestions as to how we can kick up a big a stink as possible

flyoffthewall

I can understand most of your frustration in regards to the Woolwich migration to Barclays. I work on a team of 3 (soon to be 2) trying to support Barclays and Woolwich with queries on Woolwich current accounts. Dont get me wrong, I enjoy doing it but it does get a wee bit annoying when people cant get the basic things right. We even have customers come through, which isnt supposed to be happening, we dont mean to be rude but we have to divert them elsewhere. If any of you need advice about Woolwich to Barclays, just ask.

flyoffthewall