woolwich to barclays

exWoolich

An Update,

8 weeks after being transferred from Woolwich to Barclays my wife and I have a full set of Cards, Cheque Books, ID's and Passwords and it astounds me to say that all are now correct. Way to go Barclays only 2 months to get our names right!

Of course we still have to deal with the awful web banking inteface and the appalling telephone banking service.

Just waiting for a decent offset tracker offer to come up on First Direct so that I can switch my Mortgage and get back to a decent current account service.

ex-Woolich...

PS flyoffthewall, you maybe one of the giid guys in Barclays but it feels like that for every one of you there is another 5 or 6 who do not have a clue and spend all their time contradicting each other!

bunu_el

Hi Flyoffthewall, will we be sent an annual mortgage statement towards the end of October as was always the case before the open plan current accounts were transferred to Barclays? I can't access my Woolwich mortgage statement online...

Thanks.

dwjohnno81

hello all here is a funny one

i agreed to borrow a few grand of my dad to pay off my student overdraft because barclays where harrassing me to pay it back.

so my dad wrote a cheque for the amount on his woolwich cheque which he was told he could still use by barclays.

a few days later i got a phon call from barclays saying why have i not paid any money off my over draft???

so me and my dad went to barclays only to find the had sent the cheque back!!!

why we asked!!!

"your woolwich account is closed so we have charged you for a bounced cheque and you son for putting in a bounced cheque!!"

we asked why

and there answer was .... "because your woolwich account is shut and we now own woolwich we cant accept a cheque from them, even though we own woolwich"

its all a load of b@llocx.

madamstan

Hello everyone - this is my first post, and it comes from desperation, upset and trauma of the whole Woolwich/Barclays changeover.

Where oh where do I begin? Well opening that first account with Woolwich at 13 with my £16 winnings from a family trip to the dogs was where it started. It ends with being a shafted 31 year old with 62p to her name. Ridiculous.

I remember my hope for the Barclays takeover (despite not really wanting anything to do with them at first - I sold my shares back in 2000 to buy a computer, which I still have!) as I was told by the friendly staff of Hammersmith Woolwich that despite having to now pay £10 for a counter cheque (which had initially brought me to tears), I would get a funky monkey service from Barclays with an equivalent service. Oh yes siree.

I'm sure most of you Woolwich Card Saver account holders shared the disappointment with the toy plastic rectangle we were faced with as we eagerly tore open the envelope. Crap.

So I head over to my friends at Hammersmith, only for the branch to be closed (no warning). Walk round to Barclays and queue nearly an hour to pay a cheque in (I wished to see a member of staff to air my grievances regarding the silly blue card) and wait further to actually discuss the matter. No worries, they can set up a new account with a debit card. Great.

Not great. Get rejected.
Ex breakdown, defaulting scum me.
I'm lucky to have a little blue toy card.

So, I have to live with it. Far enough. I'll just have to wait another 2-3 years in the hope my black marks will clear.
My fault. I was depressed back then and was easily led by a psycho boyfriend who sent all my bills back with an RTS sticker.
Could happen to anyone.

And then I paid my pay cheque into Shepherds Bush Barclays on Monday.
No hour long queue, so I was happy.
I also paid in a £1 so I could withdraw my final tenner so I could eat for the week.
Had a leaving party to go to on Friday night (just gone) so trotted up to Barclays Hammersmith to make my first withdrawal with my silly blue card.
Nothing.
No, tell a lie, 62p.
OK, maybe it was a bit too close to 4pm when I paid my cheque in. I'll make a joke of it at the 'do' (while feeling lousy that I can't get a round in) and guiltily sup the ales my ex-workmates buy me (no it wasn't my leaving do!).

Saturday morning.
Hungover, but thankfully its only a few yards from my flat to Shepherds Bush Barclays.
Out comes the silly blue card again.
Still 62p.
Queue up, enquire when my cheque will clear.
No cheque.
No cheque?
No cheque was paid in Monday. Have I got a receipt?
Stumble back home to retrieve paying-in stub.
But print-out only reads £1 cash. !!!!.
Go back to Baclays.

They are 'investigating'.
Refused to provide any funds to me.
Was laughed at by 'customer service' desk on asking.

I still have 62p and haven't eaten anything, other than an ice lolly I found in the freezer, since yesterday.
See, I don't have friends who can afford to lend me £20 until Barclays decide to sort this mess out.
And I haven't had the promise Barclays they will take ownership of the situation.

Can I swear?
If not, I need advice.
Not on swearing - but
a) how to deal with this arrogant, selfish, idiotic excuse for a bank
and b) who will have me, preferably offering a debit card (not interested in overdrafts/credit) based on crap credit history but guaranteed £1000 per month receipts.

*Sigh.................*
*Whimper...........*

exWoolich

aghhgghghhg Tried to ask a question via online banking but got the 'this service is not available' response. Now been waiting on the telephone banking for 10 mins!!

I am paying for the call and all they want to sell me everything under the sun while I am waiting! The system is so bad!..

I am trying to get an upgrade to the pin sentry system! They have just told me that I need to try and make a payment to a new plave before they upgrade me! But that it will take 6 days to get the kit. ie it will be too late to do this electronically!

Now on Hold for the second time! Held in another queue!!!

Aghgh now on my third person who has just put me on hold! It turns out that the pin sentry system will not be given to ex-Woolwich customers and that we will be able to continue setting up new payees after the stated cut-off date of the 26th November. Oh and by the way the log on message they sent to me does not apply to ex-Woolwich customers..

Again the customer support people just contradict each other. I have absolutely no confidence in what they are telling me.

Any other ex-Woolwich customers heard of this pin sentry system?

The poor customer service continues...

hampshirehog_2

As another who is thoroughly frustrated by the Barclays way of doing things - and we never got a say in changing from the Woolwich - I have been annoyed by the paper statements. Pages and pages - and we still get a Woolwich one as well! This has prompted me to attempt downloading the statements = exporting the data to Microsoft Money. Anyone else having a frustrating time with that as well? :embarasse

I have a number of accounts - they were the highly convenient 'pots' in the good old Woolwich Openplan system - but some export and some do not. I get as far the screen requiring a date range - and on some accounts it does not prompt the range. On inputting my own required range it promptly shoves me back into logging on again to the Barclays web site - which I was already in! Others have exported fine. So I have only a partial downloaded statement. Is this a Barclays problem or a MS Money one? Anyone help?

Philstarr

Watch out all you Loan Potters.

The 'bank' has just cancelled my loan pots, and incorporated them into my current account. My mortgage reserve was (for instance) 50,000. I had used 30,000 in loan pots leaving me with a mortgage reserve of 20,000.

Guess what - they took the 30,000 off the mortgage reserve leaving me with an unauthorised overdraft of 10,000. It should have been added to bring the total loan pots and reserve to 50,000.

Rang Chenni - did not understand, and stated I should transfer all my savings over to bring the account into balance.

It may be prudent to check if it has happened to you.

'still drinking the cheap cider'

John_Pierpoint

Think yourselves lucky; at least you are still alive.

I'm the executor for someone who died in Autumn 2008, leaving his 50K plus nest egg in an account with Barclays.

(It took me some time to realise that this account used to be a Woolwich account. Old people in their dotage don't keep very good records).

The problem is that the staff of Barclays knows nothing about it, or more accurately, if you want 4 mutually exclusive statements of what sort of account it is, how much interest it has and is still earning and how much tax has (or has not) been deducted; just ask Barclays.

The executor starts by finding himself talking to India - Joke.
Somewhere along the line he speaks with Cardiff; but they cannot "see" back beyond about June 07.
He gets fobbed off to Leicester, they try really hard, tell a story all about an account; then write saying its not a deceased account after all.
They try again - it looks good and official. So the executor completes the deceased's tax return for 07/08.
The tax man's computer fines the executor 100 GBP for not completing the tax return by 31/10/08.
Then out of the blue the executor gets a letter saying that the information is incorrect and providing different Liverpool, or was it Leeds, calculated figures.
Ah well lets try this version of events for the Inheritance Tax return and pay 40% tax on it.

Ah but we are not finished yet - there is the deceased's 08/09 income tax return and the return of estate income to be made.

Step one: when does the "meaty" fixed rate end? May 09 !
Wrong again, it appears to have been February 09. 0.5% anyone?
How much interest was earned (and paid) between 06apr08 & date of death? Think of a number!

How much interest was accrued (earned but not paid) as at date of death? - This is the bit that gets taxed at 60%.
Here is another figure from the random number generator!.

At this stage contact was made with Barclays peripatetic "bereavement" department, currently residing at Warwick.
.
How much interest has the estate earned and been paid from death until 05apr09 & again for 06apr09 until closure of the account in summer 09?

The request is buck passed back to good old Leicester after two chasing letters.
Leicester goes into overdrive, or it's computer does and produces about 4 years of non certificates saying that no interest has been paid for for the "period" (year ? six months?) ending ddmmyyyy. Not a single number greater than zero on the wad of bumph except for the date and each non certificate comes with a nice letter explaining how pleased Barclays is to provide this information.
Some brain dead moron mails this to the executor. Let's be fair. perhaps the computer was so proud of its automated work that it popped the whole lot in an envelope and automatically mailed it.

The truth of this situation - when it comes to the Woolwich heritage accounts - Barclays staff don't know their @rse from their elbow.

The moral of this story:
Move your account now. Don't die with Barclays.