Barclays terminating my account without explanation

John_Galt

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Do your credit balances tend to exceed mortgage balance?

I wonder whether to offset mortgage is their driver.

Yes they do - I had the same thought (in the quest for answers and many other possible explanations) but that means they can use my money to loan someone else (i.e. the fundamental way banks work).

jonesMUFCforever

OP Forget the notion that they are closing your accounts due to not making enough money out of you.
Something that has gone through your accounts has spooked them - you may well be an innocent victim or perhaps you have been making transactions deemed businesslike through a personal account.

John-K_3

tenchy wrote: »

However, not doing business with you when you're not a customer, and closing your accounts when you are a customer, are two different things. You wouldn't expect your energy provider to be able to "stop doing business with you", so why should the banks be able to get away with this?

I find this sense of entitlement quite baffling, and wonder where it comes from. Of course companies can stop doing business with you, and of course it is reasonable.

Why should anyone have to have you as a customer if they don!!!8217;t want you.

To see how ridiculous your way of thinking is, turn it around, would you find it acceptable if a company said that despite having no contract with them you had to keep using their services?

Had you contracted with the bank for a fixed term, you!!!8217;d have a good point.

You haven!!!8217;t, so you are being silly.

tenchy

John-K wrote: »

I find this sense of entitlement quite baffling, and wonder where it comes from. Of course companies can stop doing business with you, and of course it is reasonable.

Why should anyone have to have you as a customer if they don!!!8217;t want you.

To see how ridiculous your way of thinking is, turn it around, would you find it acceptable if a company said that despite having no contract with them you had to keep using their services?

Had you contracted with the bank for a fixed term, you!!!8217;d have a good point.

You haven!!!8217;t, so you are being silly.

If you can't come up with something better than that, then don't try. If you stop to think about the situation with banks, and clearly you haven't, you'd realise that the relationship between a bank and its customers is not quite the same as that between other businesses and their customers. Why, for instance, are energy companies not permitted to ditch customers in the way banks are currently allowed to? There's a reason, so try and work it out. Calling someone "silly" just because they have a point of view at odds with your own is intellectually weak.

RG2015

This is unacceptable. Legislation should be brought in requiring banks to provide the reason for closing a personal account.

[Deleted User]

tenchy wrote: »

If you can't come up with something better than that, then don't try. If you stop to think about the situation with banks, and clearly you haven't, you'd realise that the relationship between a bank and its customers is not quite the same as that between other businesses and their customers. Why, for instance, are energy companies not permitted to ditch customers in the way banks are currently allowed to? There's a reason, so try and work it out. Calling someone "silly" just because they have a point of view at odds with your own is intellectually weak.

Your post comes across as smug and patronising. You obviously haven't thought about the relationship between banks and their customers either. If you had, you would realise that the relationship is the same as most other businesses.

The vast majority of companies, including banks, can refuse to do business with you. Energy and water companies are different, and quite rightly so, but banking is not a right.

Now, you can 'force' a bank to accept you for a basic account if you can't get facilities elsewhere, but even then, if you are suspected of money laundering or fraud you won't get an account anywhere (and quite right too).

Banks are a commercial enterprise and not a charity. If a customer is not profitable, why should they keep your account open? If a bank was costing you money every month, would you be happy to not have the option to move?

tenchy

camelot1971 wrote: »

Your post comes across as smug and patronising. You obviously haven't thought about the relationship between banks and their customers either. If you had, you would realise that the relationship is the same as most other businesses.

The vast majority of companies, including banks, can refuse to do business with you. Energy and water companies are different, and quite rightly so, but banking is not a right.

Now, you can 'force' a bank to accept you for a basic account if you can't get facilities elsewhere, but even then, if you are suspected of money laundering or fraud you won't get an account anywhere (and quite right too).

Banks are a commercial enterprise and not a charity. If a customer is not profitable, why should they keep your account open? If a bank was costing you money every month, would you be happy to not have the option to move?

Well that would be like the one it responded to, wouldn't it?

EachPenny

camelot1971 wrote: »

Banks are a commercial enterprise and not a charity. If a customer is not profitable, why should they keep your account open? If a bank was costing you money every month, would you be happy to not have the option to move?

The problem with that logic is that if banks decide to close all non-profitable accounts we may end up in a position where the only people with bank accounts are those who manage them poorly and incur fees and charges, or those who are willing to pay their bank for overpriced products like insurance.

If the issue is people's accounts not being profitable, then banks should offer to provide the service on a fee basis, rather than closing accounts with no justification or explanation required.

Having to change bank can cause considerable upheaval, and for some customers great difficulty - what about people living in towns where there is only one bank branch for example? If that bank decides it no longer wants you as a customer due to profitability then you could face a long journey to the next nearest bank. And what's to stop a 'last bank in town' closing all the accounts of customers using the branch to then be able to claim the branch is no longer required?

Retail banking is a regulated business, unlike the typical company which is free to pick and choose who it does business with. It is a failure of that regulation process that banks are allowed to simply close people's accounts without needing to have a good reason.

John-K_3

tenchy wrote: »

If you can't come up with something better than that, then don't try. If you stop to think about the situation with banks, and clearly you haven't, you'd realise that the relationship between a bank and its customers is not quite the same as that between other businesses and their customers. Why, for instance, are energy companies not permitted to ditch customers in the way banks are currently allowed to? There's a reason, so try and work it out. Calling someone "silly" just because they have a point of view at odds with your own is intellectually weak.

It was an apt word for someone inventing obligations that the banks simply do not have.

I can see that you’d like them to be obliged to keep customers on, but that doesn’t make it a fact. You do understand this, don’t you, that your desire and the current state of affairs is not the same thing?

I happen to think that what you want is ridiculous, by the way. Banks should be able to close accounts for any reason they pick other than for protected characteristics.

People need to stop thinking that banks are there to act as a utility, or in loco oarentis. They are companies, and some people are simply not the sort of customer that they want.

John-K_3

tenchy wrote: »

Well that would be like the one it responded to, wouldn't it?

I responded to your ludicrous post far more politely than was justified.

Your sense of entitlement is quite strange, and I can’t imagine that it’s served you well in life. You seem to be offended at companies not fawning over you.