Abbey National screwed up again.

exel1966

Abbey and their customers have another major headache !!!!

It would appear that Abbey have a major computer fault which is causing non-payment of monthly interest on their current accounts at the moment.

After spending a long time talking to various offices including the complaints department within Abbey I've discovered that many customers have not been paid interest due for nearly two months now and there is no sign of solving the problem quickly.

Abbey have also failed to advise their customers of this and are potentially sitting on hundreds of thousands accruing interest for themselves. I would advise anyone who might have been expecting interest to check their accounts thoroughly and immediately complain.

Sagaris

Bet that problem doesn't stop them taking interest off people's overdrawn accounts though! :rotfl:
Must be why they are taking soooooo long to sort our complaint out!

sav4it

Have they not reimbursed you anything, Sagaris?

saxmund

Sagaris, by sending you that letter Abbey have breached their own complaints procedure. They should have given you a substantive reply within 8 weeks, or told you when you would get one. At this point I wrote to the person whose name was on the letter mentioning this and saying that although I thought my complaint was too trivial to take to the FO, I would do so if they were incapable of following their own procedures. Magically somone phoned me a week later and offered me £150. You've now gone to the FO so I'm not sure this approach will work, but as there will be a further delay you could try writing back to Abbey saying that you have taken it to the FO but might be minded to cancel it if they can give you an acceptable response. I believe that where the FO decides there is a case to investigate, it charges the bank £450 so that might give them an incentive to make you an offer.

Personally I never make formal complaints of this nature by phone; I write, if possible to a named officer of the bank. FO cases should be completed on the from which can be downloaded from their website, with copies of all correspondence.

Anyway, I presume you're taking your business elswhere.

I had another problem with Abbey last week - although I've moved my main account to Bank of Scotland, I've left the Abbey one open as I've had a couple of large transactions and wanted to keep the money seperate from my everyday money. Well last Wednesday they couldn't issue me a banker's draft as their systems were down... which is a bit of a basic thing to fail on if you ask me, a bit like not being able to pay interest to account holders.

I've found out that Abbey offers better deals than BoS on cash withdrawals abroad so unfortunately I may have to keep the account open for that reason, although I suppose I could apply for a Nationwide account.

Sagaris

sav4it wrote: »

Have they not reimbursed you anything, Sagaris?

Nope, not a penny - all we've had is the fobbing off letter! It really is unbelievable, they have messed up big time and are just not bothered at all.

Saxmund, all they said in the letter was that they felt sorry I felt the need to complain :mad: and that they wanted to investigate the matter thoroughly (as if they are able to do that!!!) so they needed more time.

So - I think I'll search that letter out tonight and be writing to them soon! To be honest I'm thoroughly fed up with the whole thing now. At least they are being consistent in not even being able to investigate complaints properly - I'm so glad I moved everything away from them!

lola_26

I'd speak to the branch manager at Lakeside and tell him of your utter disgust. Ask him/her to escalate it to their regional department (usually involving more senior members of staff) also tell them your going to the financial ombudsmun and watch them s*it their pants. Good luck, but definatly ask for compensation.

Sagaris

lola_26 wrote: »

I'd speak to the branch manager at Lakeside and tell him of your utter disgust. Ask him/her to escalate it to their regional department (usually involving more senior members of staff) also tell them your going to the financial ombudsmun and watch them s*it their pants. Good luck, but definatly ask for compensation.

I went to the Lakeside branch on 17th July with the whole sorry tale written down - it was taken in to the manager and then I was told I didn't need to see him/her! A further visit got the same response - I have to say at this point I lost my temper (and I am sooooo placid usually!) so I think I will stick to writing to Richard Whatever-his-name-is that wrote me the last letter (from the Complaints Department.)
Their reason for me not needing to see the manager is that because the Fraud Dept investigated the first problems on our account, they are now apparently the only ones that can deal with it - it's 'not the bank's problem'!

Sagaris

Well good morning to you all!

Just got a letter from Abbey - I'm not amused! It explains everything that happened on the account - all the fraudulent transactions dating back from April, the fact that Abbey disputed them, then re-imbursed them. And the reason for them debiting our account twice for £815.45? All down to a huge work load and staff error - and I will be glad to know the interest I was charged during this period that I was overdrawn was less than £2. Well that's ok then! :rotfl:

Now to the interesting bit - 'in recognition of the inconvenience you have been caused I have arranged to credit the account with £55 as a gesture of goodwill and will be credited within 10 days'.

So all the aggravation they caused me is worth £55 in their eyes? And their closing comment was 'we would like to take this opportunity to let you know how much we value you as a customer, and hope our association continues on a happier note in the future' - so they've not noticed I've cleared out both my savings accounts and am in the process of paying off the overdraft - all other activity has ceased on it as I'll be closing that too shortly!

So - what's my next move? They haven't addressed any of my comments about the staff in the branch and their don't care attitude, tey did state in the leter that I could still go to the Ombudsman - I re-sent the forms back the them this week - should I still take it up with them?

Sagaris

Well I checked the Abbey account online today - and they've put the £55 in as they said they would - it's the only thing they've done right so far. The letters and copies of previous correspondence have been sent off to them and the FO - now to wait and see what happens!

Sagaris

After all this time and no further action from Abbey, I thought the account should be closed, so we visited the branch at Lakeside.

Large sign as you entered the branch 'Due to staff shortages all customers will be dealt with at the counter' or words to that effect.

Queued up for 10 minutes or so, only 2 counters open. Eventually got to the front and saw an assistant, only to be told that the single person in the branch who could deal with account closures was now 'behind there' (pointed to the bit bhind closed doors) and was too busy to see us - funny, as while we were queuing up she was chatting to all and sundry while sitting behind her desk! Furthermore they don't just 'close accounts', we need to make an appointment to see a customer advisor to close the account!! First I've heard of it, as the call centre in India told me I could just go to a branch and close it, on my own (although it's a joint account - of course they won't just let one person close it!)

I'm really fed up with being an Abbey customer now, the only time we can both get to a branch is Monday evening, although we were told if we go there between 9 - 5 any weekday they should be able to help us! Shame we both have to work at those times.

I feel another stroppy letter coming on, with a copy to the FO - not that it will do any good, but it might calm me down!