Barclays (non)Premier Banking

karl1963

Barclays are dreadful. Really dreadful

They recently made me a Premier customer - which was nice of them

Then they messed up a simple cash ISA transfer....

Twice....

After 10 calls to the call centre I went into a branch to talk to my "personal adviser"

Twice

The first time I was told I'd have to wait for 40 minutes

The second time an hour

If that's Premier Banking then how bad must it be normally !!!!

First Direct here I come

dr_adidas01

karl1963 wrote: »

Barclays are dreadful. Really dreadful

They recently made me a Premier customer - which was nice of them

Then they messed up a simple cash ISA transfer....

Twice....

After 10 calls to the call centre I went into a branch to talk to my "personal adviser"

Twice

The first time I was told I'd have to wait for 40 minutes

The second time an hour

If that's Premier Banking then how bad must it be normally !!!!

First Direct here I come

Well as a normal non premier customer I can say normally everything from my experience has been ok and not bad at all, and i've been a customer for nearly 20 years.

Where my experience of First Direct has been awful and full of problems and them always getting things wrong. I'm thankful I don't use it as a main account.

So moving from one bank to another may not solve your problem at all, banks make mistakes and aren't 100 % perfect!!

mrchiggles

Maybe it comes down to your personal banker - I've had 2 of them, just ring them directly on their mobile and they sort everything out for me.

InsideInsurance

karl1963 wrote: »

After 10 calls to the call centre I went into a branch to talk to my "personal adviser"

Twice

The first time I was told I'd have to wait for 40 minutes

The second time an hour

If that's Premier Banking then how bad must it be normally !!!!

First Direct here I come

My "Premier Adviser" actually left the company 9 months before he was appointed as my adviser. After 2 years I was eventually changed to a new Adviser but on calling her turns out she's the branch manager in a town 250 miles from me and "doesnt do Premier Advising". 3 years on she is still down as my adviser with the guy that's left as the fall back.

To be honest I do find their Premier call centre to be reasonable and far superior to First Direct.

With FD they have the whole "no IVR" thing but when setting up the account they kept calling me and leaving a number to call back on. Call back on that number, their general customer service number, wait for 5 minutes to get through and be told that its another department I need to speak to. So why leave the general number?!?!?!?!

Kept calling my wife leaving a message for her to call back during office hours but as she was outside the UK and timezones didnt work I called given it was a joint account. Again they'd left the wrong number but when I finally get through they said they couldnt speak to me because of data protection.

When wife was back she called them and they said "we are calling about the letter your husband sent us". Wife's reply was she had no idea about any letter and they said that they'd have to speak to me then (after saying they couldnt before). What was the 12 calls about? The fact that the utility bill I had sent as proof of address was unacceptable as it didnt have her initial on it but as the other two were acceptable it didnt matter. Why did that require 12 calls? Why did the DPA suddenly not matter when it did before as they never asked her permission to speak to me? Why do they always leave the wrong number to call?

Barclays arent perfect but they dont waste my time or phonebill.