Virgin Money account but only Clydesdale branch can assist?

Giammy85

Opened a Virgin Money current account some weeks ago. It got blocked and letter received to get in touch to unblock it.
Visited a Virgin Money branch but was said that account is actually allocated to Clydesdale Bank, so they cannot help. Is there something more ridiculous in life?

gt94sss2

Clydesdale (and Yorkshire) Bank have recently taken over Virgin Money (ex Northern Rock) and are using the Virgin brand for their new current account
However, their IT systems don't yet talk to each other.
You could try calling instead?

Giammy85

It is for my dad who can't hear properly on the phone, so they refused to help him on the phone. Classed as extremely vulnerable, but at least from Monday Boris has allowed him to go out. So he is happy to have another excuse to stay out more!

Speculator

Giammy85 said:

It is for my dad who can't hear properly on the phone, so they refused to help him on the phone. Classed as extremely vulnerable, but at least from Monday Boris has allowed him to go out. So he is happy to have another excuse to stay out more!

Put the call on speaker and write down the question so your dad can answer.

eskbanker

Giammy85 said:

It is for my dad who can't hear properly on the phone, so they refused to help him on the phone.

They are obliged by law to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate disabilities, which includes hearing difficulties.  If they literally said they couldn't help and that he'd have to attend a branch then I suspect that this would put them in breach of the Equality Act 2010, so they should have directed him towards alternative means of contact as outlined at https://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/accessibility.jsp, unless he was quite happy to go to branch instead (which he obviously wouldn't have been able to do a few days earlier).

jonesMUFCforever

So why did (you) open an account with Virgin money for your dad? Do you have Power of Attorney?

colsten

Giammy85 said:

Opened a Virgin Money current account some weeks ago. It got blocked and letter received to get in touch to unblock it.
Visited a Virgin Money branch but was said that account is actually allocated to Clydesdale Bank, so they cannot help. Is there something more ridiculous in life?

Giammy85 said:

It is for my dad who can't hear properly on the phone, so they refused to help him on the phone. Classed as extremely vulnerable, but at least from Monday Boris has allowed him to go out. So he is happy to have another excuse to stay out more!

It doesn't seem surprising that Virgin would want to actually see the person who the account was opened for. 

[Deleted User]

eskbanker said:

Giammy85 said:

It is for my dad who can't hear properly on the phone, so they refused to help him on the phone.

They are obliged by law to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate disabilities, which includes hearing difficulties.  If they literally said they couldn't help and that he'd have to attend a branch then I suspect that this would put them in breach of the Equality Act 2010, so they should have directed him towards alternative means of contact as outlined at https://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/accessibility.jsp, unless he was quite happy to go to branch instead (which he obviously wouldn't have been able to do a few days earlier).

That looks like the pre-merger VM website with a few basic updates. These new Virgin Money accounts are basically a Clydesdale/Yorkshire account and would follow their procedures not VMs

That said, I don't know why they couldn't call through to Clydesdale and help that way..?

Giammy85

eskbanker said:

Giammy85 said:

It is for my dad who can't hear properly on the phone, so they refused to help him on the phone.

They are obliged by law to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate disabilities, which includes hearing difficulties.  If they literally said they couldn't help and that he'd have to attend a branch then I suspect that this would put them in breach of the Equality Act 2010, so they should have directed him towards alternative means of contact as outlined at https://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/accessibility.jsp, unless he was quite happy to go to branch instead (which he obviously wouldn't have been able to do a few days earlier).

CS simply said that my dad looked unable to answer the questions and therefore advised that he had to visit a branch. He was quite happy to go.
Problem is that I called the closest Virgin branch to double-check that they could have helped him with this and they said yes. I would have expected Virgin to be more proactive and say "even if you have a Virgin account and debit card, it does not mean that we can help. Can I check your sort code?"
I don't know why at the Virgin branch they did not offer to call through to Clydesdale, they just told him to go to the Clydesdale branch which is further away. He will go there tomorrow as today was too late.