Abbey National wont give us our own money

Greenstuff_2

My Husband and I have an account with Abbey National and they are driving us barmy.
Our card keeps getting declined even though we have a very healthy balance.
We phone them each time and they say there is nothing they can do! - and are jolly rude to boot.
My Husband phoned them just now as his card was declinied again and the woman he spoke to said and I quote 'well what do you want me to do about it'?!?!??
The man he spoke to last week was equally unhelpful, I'm so cheesed off I cant tell you, it wouldnt be so bad if they were not so flippin rude.
We applied for a new account with Aliance and Leicester but they sent us the application forms for the basic account which is no good not to mention not the one we asked for, and our business account is with Abbey too so all our invoices will have to be changed if we swap, I know we are going to have to change but it's a right kerfuffle and we shouldn't have to in order to get at our own money and have a modicum of manners.
We have enough to do without this. GRRRRR!

Epiphone

Vote with your feet and change banks.

Bogof_Babe

I imagine that now Banco Santander have taken over Abbey, there is probably some confusion and disinterest all round, as the staff must wonder how secure their jobs are. Doesn't excuse blatant rudeness though, and you should maybe complain in writing (although goodness knows who to ) about that .


You might just have to bite the bullet and move your finances to a different bank. I understand that most banks will do all the transferring of DDs etc. for you, if you are changing to them from another one. Ask around anyway before you take the plunge.

Freebie_Hunter_2

You're not alone.
I'm with the Halifax and that has been declined many times at Sainsburys with a big queue! Halifax blame Sainsburys and vice versa.

To be honest I think it's to do with the amount of people using the system. If lots of customers are using their Halifax cards and there's no 'gap' for you, it just declines it as it can't process the transaction.One Halifax assistant even told me that it was because too many people had used their cards that day and their marchant systme at Sainsburys needed 're-setting' as it could only do a certain amount of transactions!!!
I did remind her that I didn't arrive on the lats banana boat and that she could have come up with something better than that!

Nobody seems to want to take the blame and it does happen to us all at some time or another.

davidcampbell

Our card keeps getting declined even though we have a very healthy balance.
We phone them each time and they say there is nothing they can do! - and are jolly rude to boot.
My Husband phoned them just now as his card was declinied again and the woman he spoke to said and I quote 'well what do you want me to do about it'?!?!??

wholeheartedly agree of course that rudeness is unacceptable but what reason is actually given for the decline?

I imagine that now Banco Santander have taken over Abbey, there is probably some confusion and disinterest all round, as the staff must wonder how secure their jobs are. Doesn't excuse blatant rudeness though, and you should maybe complain in writing (although goodness knows who to ) about that .

thats a bit of a sweepng generalisation. since the takeover the level of confusion re jobs may have increased slightly but saying staff are now disinterested in doing their job properly is unfair and frankly pretty insulting


DC

raeble

Alliance and Leicester in my experience - 20 years as a customer, of late have very poor customer service. They irritated me so much that I switched to Smile (from the co-operative), so far I've not had any problems with them and they have always been very helpful. I would recommend them to anyone.

buses7675

Hi All,

Probably changing banks would be the best option, although especially with a business account, if could take a while. (Any idea exactly why Banco Santander changed Abbeys logo, just after all the branches got the previous new logo!)

Alliance & Leicester in my view are good, and they do also have a good business account I believe - The previous owner of the shop I worked at used them without any problems.

I've no experience of Abbey directly, only through Cahoot, and never had to call them anyway, but I can see how annoying it would be to have a card transaction refused. Maybe Abbey could get the VISA number for your debit card changed, in case its a fault at VISA?

Cheers

Steve

Webbie_2

We too have had fun and games with Abbey, Alliance and Leicester and Lloyds TSB. Your best bet is to threaten with the banking omburdsman - suddenly tones change, "Well I don't see what your problem is," becomes "I quite understand your concerns Madam and I shall look into the problem further...grovel...grovel!

The bank should then provide you with the details of the banking omburdsman or their complaints procedure.

davidcampbell

buses7675 wrote:

Hi All,

Probably changing banks would be the best option, although especially with a business account, if could take a while. (Any idea exactly why Banco Santander changed Abbeys logo, just after all the branches got the previous new logo!)

missed this part first time round steve.

Quite simply we were rebranding because of the takeover. Its supposed to give us a distinct identity in the uk market and try to push the point that the takeover will make us stronger. its not exactly a secret that abbey was in trouble a few years back and this is supposed to be the turnaround.

suppose part of it as well is to continue our core values installed at the relaunch - those of how we will be "of your (ie the customer) world"

adapting to change and all that.


hth
DC