Oak North can't get in contact

onnipon

Hello everyone!

Am in desperate need of your expertise....

I need to change my designated account details as I have a Fixed Saving Account that will finish shortly.
Try as I might it is impossible to get any sort of contact with Oak North. I have sent more than one secure message asking for help but
all seem to have been ignored. Phone calls are not being answered only to say send a email!
Has anyone got any ideas as to what I should do now.

Would really appreciate your feedback.....with many thanks

Daliah

Did you send an email? 

refluxer

I've contacted OakNorth by email twice in the last couple of months. The first time it was to give notice on my notice account and I received a confirmation reply by email the next day. The second time (more recently) it was a general, less urgent enquiry - this took longer (around 6 days for a reply by email) but I did send it on a Friday, so that 6 days included a weekend.

From my experience, it looks like they may prioritise urgent/important emails so I would email them ASAP if you haven't already.

redpete

I emailed them on 6th Sept to ask how to change my nominated bank account (it had been reset when I deposited money from another account).  I had a phone call that I missed on 8th that was followed up by an email response - I in turn replied by email to say when I would be available for a call and they rang back later that day, and made the change whilst I was on the phone.

It was frustrating that I couldn't make this simple change online, and then that they do not accept phone calls at the moment, but the response in this case was satisfactorily timely.

onnipon

Hi Daliah

Should have said  - yes I had sent email via secure message
thanks for your reply

refluxer

onnipon said:

Hi Daliah

Should have said  - yes I had sent email via secure message
thanks for your reply

Just be aware that email and secure message are two different things - an email would be sent from your own personal email account to their email address (businessdesk@oaknorth.co.uk), whereas the term 'secure message' implies you've contacted them via a form or PM on their site (so without the need for an email) which is an option I couldn't personally find the last time I looked.

Rudyson

It's a bit disturbing that they've gone from being a bank where a knowledgeable person would answer the phone fairly quickly, to one which refuses to answer the phone at all, and has even removed the phone number from their website.

Bobblehat

My recent experience with trying to contact OakNorth was slightly frustrating but worked out in the end. 

I tried to email OakNorth on Thursday with a query as I had no joy ringing their CS number (constantly saying they were too busy to answer!). I had an automatic email reply saying they could not reply to my email as it had not come from my registered email address. After another attempt, double-checking my email address, I had a similar response. I tried to find out why they thought that my email message had not come from my registered email. I sent out a few test messages to friends and found the answer.

It seems my ISP, Virgin Media, have recently started to send out the "From" address as "XXX@blueyonder.co.uk on behalf of YYY@blueyonder.co.uk". My registered email address with OakNorth was YYY, a secondary id of XXX, XXX being my primary email account address. Obviously OakNorth security flagged this and sent the autoreply.

I tried the next day to contact OakNorth by phone to try to sort it out, but they still weren't answering the phone. I took a gamble and emailed them again explaining the problem and requesting that they either phone me on my registered number or write to me with an explanation to how to resolve the problem.

They phoned me today, proving that they read the emails  and re-registered me as XXX. Problem solved.

All I can say to the OP is ... be patient (and persistent?) ... they do seem to read the emails. If you have not had any autoreplies from OakNorth, that may be a good sign. The OakNorth CS person said they hope to back to normal phone service shortly, so that could be another way of trying to contact them.

I'm not sure if other ISP's are doing what Virgin Media are doing, but if you have registered any secondary ID email, it may be worth registering your primary ID instead if you start seeing Security trapped replies from them.

Bobblehat

Rudyson said:

It's a bit disturbing that they've gone from being a bank where a knowledgeable person would answer the phone fairly quickly, to one which refuses to answer the phone at all, and has even removed the phone number from their website.

However, the phone number is on their General T&C's and Specific Product Term PDF's .... although of limited use at the moment 

Edit: ....and on the Complaints page on their website (find it right at the bottom of their home page)!

pearl123

It will be interesting to hear how long it takes you to get a reply. 

Bobblehat

pearl123 said:

It will be interesting to hear how long it takes you to get a reply. 

My final email message was on Fri 9th, and I was phoned today (13th) ...excluding the weekend, I reckon that was very reasonable, given they took the time to phone me!

I hope the OP gets a result too.