Avoid The Royal Bank of Scotland !!!!!

italiastar

Just had a ruck with Tescos personal finance - run by RBS. I have an 0161 phone number to call them - they told me that I would have to use the 0845 number and that I shouldn't have the 0161 number, which incidentally I got after threatening to close my credit card with them and RBS bank account. After discussing it with them for 10 minutes, I'm now £10 better off and they've agreed that if they are at fault (as on this occasion) in future they will compensate me for my call. If everyone complained, they'd soon be out of business.

Incidentally, she admitted that money was made out of the 0845 call to fund the call centre - at least she was honest!

Big_Nige

Been with RBOS fot 18 years, never had a single problrm with them..... Don't tar them all with the same brush because of shoddy service in one branch...

margaretclare

Hi

We've just opened a joint a/c with RBoS just for household bills. He's had an RBoS current a/c ever since he moved here in 1997, had no problems at all. We approached them with the joint a/c idea and they thought it was a good one. Opening it went smoothly - they knew him of course but didn't know me. They were quick, courteous and efficient.

My bank - cahoot - is good but they wouldn't let us open another a/c to run beside the other one. RBoS did.

Aunty Margaret

MarkyMarkD

I have to agree with lipidic. I am afraid that any post entitled "Avoid ..." or similar is always going to be unbalanced and not looking for any sensible comments.

If you cancel a cheque book IN ERROR and then go on to use the cheques, of course the bank will bounce the cheques. And of course there's no reason for them to tell you - as far as they are concerned, you cancelled the cheques because the cheque book was lost. By bouncing the cheques, they avoid themselves incurring a loss.

Even if they did contact you, it wouldn't have stopped the first cheque bouncing. And you must have noticed that first cheque bouncing pretty quickly - so unless you wrote all four using the duff cheque book at the same time, you weren't paying much attention to your finances.

MBNA (and all other credit card companies in my experience) will "let you off" late payment charges AND reinstate your incentive rate, on the FIRST occasion you make a mistake. So I don't see why you are moaning about MBNA either. If the problem is just that you failed to ask nicely for them to do the things mentioned above, that's your fault. If it wasn't your first !!!! up ... then that's your fault too.

pioneer31

MarkyMarkD wrote:

I have to agree with lipidic. I am afraid that any post entitled "Avoid ..." or similar is always going to be unbalanced and not looking for any sensible comments.

so criticism isn't sensible then in your opinion?

If you cancel a cheque book IN ERROR and then go on to use the cheques, of course the bank will bounce the cheques.

Yes of course.

And of course there's no reason for them to tell you - as far as they are concerned, you cancelled the cheques because the cheque book was lost. By bouncing the cheques, they avoid themselves incurring a loss.

So why did Halifax contact me 3 MONTHS after I'd cancelled my credit card? (when the number was used by someone else)

And you must have noticed that first cheque bouncing pretty quickly - so unless you wrote all four using the duff cheque book at the same time, you weren't paying much attention to your finances.

Monday I write a cheque to my ISA account. Wednesday I write another 2 cheques out. Thursday write another cheque. Check bank statements same day, money from 1st cheque not cashed. Well they do say allow 3-4 days. Friday still not cashed. Following Monday, letter from ISA saying cheque was stopped. Realise what is wrong.

Unless you know of a minute by minute cheque bounce alert website, can you tell me where I was negligent?

MBNA (and all other credit card companies in my experience) will "let you off" late payment charges AND reinstate your incentive rate, on the FIRST occasion you make a mistake. So I don't see why you are moaning about MBNA either. If the problem is just that you failed to ask nicely for them to do the things mentioned above, that's your fault. If it wasn't your first !!!! up ... then that's your fault too.

MBNA ended my 0% period immediately but did nullify one of the charges.

MarkyMarkD

Criticism may be appropriate, but using a thread title like "AVOID ..." doesn't suggest you want a fair debate about the benefits/disbenefits of a particular organisation. Just because one person has a bad experience isn't a basis for avoiding.

Credit cards work differently to current accounts, and I'm not surprised that you were chased up by Halifax. Often people close credit card accounts, but keep the plastics and inadvertently use them again. In those cases, they would contact you and not necessarily reject the transaction - which is a topic in itself.

Your OP was moaning because they didn't tell you the cheques were being bounced - but on your own admission, you wrote all of them so quickly that they couldn't have done so before you'd written and sent all of them. So what the heck did they supposedly do wrong? If you write cheque Monday, it wouldn't clear until Wednesday. The bank would normally write to you that day or the next day. That letter would arrive with you on say Friday, Saturday or Monday depending on the post.

But because you'd already reported the cheque book lost, they wouldn't necessarily have treated it in the same way as a normal bounced cheque - for example, they probably wouldn't charge you.

pioneer31

MarkyMarkD wrote:

Criticism may be appropriate, but using a thread title like "AVOID ..." doesn't suggest you want a fair debate about the benefits/disbenefits of a particular organisation. Just because one person has a bad experience isn't a basis for avoiding.

I've seen threads with similar titles to mine.

Credit cards work differently to current accounts, and I'm not surprised that you were chased up by Halifax. Often people close credit card accounts, but keep the plastics and inadvertently use them again. In those cases, they would contact you and not necessarily reject the transaction - which is a topic in itself.

Not in my experience. My CC was terminated and they rang me as a matter of course. They told me not to worry because the payment bounced. There was NO way that my card could have been used after account closure.

So as far as I'm concerned, CC's aren't any different.

Your OP was moaning because they didn't tell you the cheques were being bounced - but on your own admission, you wrote all of them so quickly that they couldn't have done so before you'd written and sent all of them. So what the heck did they supposedly do wrong? If you write cheque Monday, it wouldn't clear until Wednesday. The bank would normally write to you that day or the next day. That letter would arrive with you on say Friday, Saturday or Monday depending on the post.

I would have thought the bank would contact me by phone. After all, why is a bloke who has cancelled a cheque book, writing out cheques from it?

The words 'stolen' and 'wrong hands' spring to mind.

By the way I had 3 conversations with RBS in total. The first was to their central number where CS told me they didn't know why the cheques were stopped......but someone would ring me back about it, they didn't. Then I rang again and was told that they couldn't shed any light on it so someone from my local branch would contact me, they didn't. So I rang them and spoke to someone who quite frankly gave me the impression that they couldn't care less.

The moral of the thread is SECURITY (and RBS's lack of it). The girl shouting the questions over thw window was just another example. She shouldn't have been doing that to start with. What if someone not too smart walked in and inadvertently divulged all their personal info in earshot of everyone else? Do they train their staff?

We have passwords, mother maidens names, postcodes etc to answer when we just phone up to make an enquiry so why do they fall down in other areas?

Walletwatch

DC / Marky

I agree with Pioneer in that if a Bank is to cancel my cheque book, when I complain that I haven't received it, I would expect to be told online that they're going to take such an action. I would say, if the bank hasn't done so, it is the failure of the bank, and not the account holder's fault if he finally does get the chq book and issues any number of those chqs, absolutely unaware of the fact that those chq leaves have in fact been cancelled.

A similar thing happened with my credit card - Citibank renewed my credit card, and when I called them to say I hadn't yet received it fifteen days after they had confirmed that they'd sent it, they promptly placed a 'hot' on the card, so that when I did finally receive it, it was worthless, as they'd disabled it. Same thing happened then, as though they disabled the card, they did not inform me that they would deactivate the card when I spoke to them regarding non-receipt of the card. I promptly complained in writing, and got a £20 compensation from them for deactivating the card without having informed me. Hence my original suggestion to write to them complaining about the cancellation of the chq book without having informed the account holder.

Pioneer

On the other hand, if I've asked a Bank to cancel a chq book, and then leaves from the chq book are presented for clearing to the Bank, I don't see why the bank should do anything over and above rejecting the chq, The bank is acting in your interests by returning the chq, and while some of them may go out of their way to inform the customer that a cancelled chq drawn on his / her account has been presented, I don't see why you consider this necessary. They have already done what you wanted them to, by dishonoring the payment, so why expect them to tell you they have done so?

Jacster_2

You seem to be having loads of customer service issues - saw your thread about Egg.

Wonder if you might get more out of these people if you were calmer with them?

If not, you might get more sympathy from other posters on the vent board?
:beer:

CopperPlate_2

I was a customer of RBS for about 5 years. In all that time I didn't have one problem with them. In fact, they telephoned me three times over that period to advise me that I was due to go overdrawn and could I pay in cash to the account (direct debits are wonderful things when they work properly - and when they don't? Unexpected cash flow problems!) Their customer service on the phone banking was excellent and the staff, when I had to go to the branch - although not the quickest in the world, - were at least pleasant and friendly.

I moved to Smile a year or two ago only because RBS pay rubbish interest and I liked Smile's ethical policy - other than that I'd have stayed with RBS.

Pioneer - the problems you've been having with them are problems that many people experience with their banks and other major institutions. You said that you had problems opening the account. As I've seen written already, why not just ask to have a private meeting? The branches of RBS here in Scotland have signs up inviting you to make such a request if you don't want to discuss personal or private matters. So, all you needed to do was ask perhaps? Is it the case that the staff assume that everyone is happy to discuss these matters in public unless they're told otherwise? The tendency is to tar all employess with the same brush when you have a bad experience, but lets not forget we all get rubbish service in a supermarket one day, and good the next.


You say that you were unable to pay in a cheque (in another person's name) to their own account? I've had the same experience at a Post Office attempting to pay in a cheque to someone else's account. In this day and age of the FSA and fraud-combatting guidelines, staff take 'identity security' to another level altogether. A word with a senior member of staff would have sorted that out and clarified it one way or another, away from the counter.

The cheque book incident is a puzzle. The bank have obviously been unable to provide you with a reasonable explanation as to why or how the cheques were cancelled. You said that the bank told you that they cancelled the book as you'd told them you hadn't received it. If it had been me and I'd been expecting a cheque book when I'd opened an account and it hadn't arrived then I'd have done as you did (presumably, as your original post doesn't say whether or not you actually did report the book as not received) and tell them it hadn't arrived. I'd assume a replacement would be sent out. Once that arrived I'd see that the cheque numbers didn't start at 000001 or whatever and assume that this was the second cheque book as the first had gone astray. If that first cheque book subsequently turned up I wouldn't use it. I'd call the bank and at least tell them that I had received it eventually. I don't pretend to know what security measures the banks have in place for this sort of thing so I'd probably play safe and check before I started writing cheques from it. Putting all the onus on the bank isn't entirely fair - they are not mind-readers.

You make a point about the cheques bouncing - the banks security system kicking in perhaps and them assuming that as the book had been reported as 'missing' or whatever, that it is in the wrong hands and we'd better not pay out on the cheques...? Banks don't always write to you to tell you until the end of the month or statement dates or unless you've gone massively overdrawn. If, as you said, there was £3k in the account and you hadn't become overdrawn then the banks security was robust enough to have prevented the cheques from being cashed. What do you expect the bank to do? Phone every customer each time a cheque bounces just in case they've had their cheque book stolen?

You say that you phoned the head office and that someone would phone you back from your local branch. You don't say when you phoned - late afternoon before a weekend? How long did you wait for the branch to phone? An hour? A few hours? A day? A week? Ten minutes? You miss out a lot of information that would help others form an opinion as to which party was being reasonable in all of this.

As you say, neither RBS nor MBNA see it as their problem. A clear letter detailing the circumstances of the whole affair, sent to their head office customer services department/manager in the first instance is usually enough to set the record straight. If that fails, you go higher, until you get what you want. Simple as.

From the tone of your posts - and replies to other posters - I can see that a calm, rational approach is perhaps not going to be the one you would adopt. I appreciate that it's frustrating when circumstances develop where you are out of pocket and disadvantaged financially, but in the whole scheme of things this is really a mountain out of a mole hill and one that could have probably been sorted out with much less fuss than you're probably experiencing if you'd approached it in a far less aggressive and antagonistic way. If that's wrong, then I apologise, but from the way in which you've come back to posts here - to total strangers essentially - I wonder if that approach isn't too far from the one you used with the institutions.

I think you're being a little bit precious over all of this.

And before I am criticised for not reading the posts - I HAVE read the posts, however, the content of some appear to change perspectives as the thread progresses.

CP