Taking my bank to the financial ombudsman over their crappy downloadable statements

daveystew

It was the one of those responses which doesn't even attempt to address the concern, but ticks the box as being "a response".

It was good to hear from @richardmk that at least Lloyds have addressed this, so I guess this really is a Barclays issue.

I agree that one voice probably won't have any impact on the situation. Will need to think if I have the energy to mount a more sustained crusade on this one ... after having manually entered all the entries from the PDFs in Excel!

withabix

What ON EARTH has this got to do with the FOS?

Barclays are providing what they said they would when you became a customer.

If you don't like it, just change bank.

Simples.

innovate

agrinnall wrote: »

I don't understand why MS dropping support for Money has caused you to stop using it, I use it in exactly the same way as Grommit and the lack of support (which I've never needed anyway) doesn't seem to prevent me using it pretty much every day.

And me.........................................

innovate

daveystew wrote: »

You probably haven't needed to change your hotmail password in that time. As soon as you do that, MSMoney can't authenticate. Unfortunately my account was hacked, so as soon as I change the password back (which allows Money to work again) it allows the hackers back in, and my friends start receiving all sorts of dodgy emails.

You don't need a Hotmail ID for MS Money

innovate

There is no way on God's earth that the Ombudsman will tell any bank they have to invest tens, if not hundreds, of thousands to change the way they present historic account data so that one of the bank's customers likes it better. There is also a good chance that Barclays would have one or two higher priority developments, with a better Business Case, to carry out.

If you find it so unbearable, find a bank that meets your statement needs and move your account(s).

daveystew

It's amazing what low standards some people have.

Gromitt

daveystew wrote: »

Just expand the existing system to let users download the data (which already exists) in electronic format. It isn't hard - I'm a web developer myself and I write code all day long to do this kind of thing.

It already exists, the code is already written. It is a business decision to not show this information to people who receive statements. If you agree not to receive statements, they'll keep your transactions for years. If they don't send out monthly statements they save money, and it might save you money as well as you won't have to store them or request duplicates. Plus, your statements are less likely to end up undelivered in some posties home, or in the hands of someone wanting to steal your identity. So it's win-win.

opinions4u

daveystew wrote: »

It's amazing what low standards some people have.

Barclays is a business.

You want them to make a change that will probably cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to deliver, if not more. Just because the code is simple doesn't mean the broader systems implementation is dirt cheap.

I would expect a typical ROI requirement of four times the up front cost.

How would you convince them that this is worthwhile prioritising? At the moment they run the risk of losing one customer who admits to a few cash flow issues. It needs to be more compelling than that.

daveystew

PS. You should probably work in banking if you think implementing something like that would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. I mean really - listen to yourself.

All I'm asking is that instead of querying a database and printing to PDF, they query a database and output to CSV. The systems are already in place for this, it just needs some middleware - the sort of stuff technies (liek myself) write everyday.

As for Money - it won't even open my money files now, as from the note on my CD case I wrote a few years ago "Remember to let Money update itself before opening any .mny files". As yet, it hasn't updated itself. I guess, because there's no support at MS.

As for not needing a passport to use money, I didn't know that. If I manage to get it back online, I will use your advice, thank you.

As for financial ombudsman, it's a fair point. Writing a letter is not going to have the wheels of big business grinding to a halt though. And as you may have noticed, I'm seeking opinion here as well.

opinions4u

daveystew wrote: »

PS. You should probably work in banking if you think implementing something like that would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. I mean really - listen to yourself.

I did. For twenty years. Including working on a project to deliver a paperless system online.

Minor changes like the one you would like have a range of other dependencies that have to be fully investigated and cross referenced.

If it requires new T&CS to be issued to several million customers at £1.25 a pop the cost becomes several times more than the guesstimate I gave previously.