Barclays £175 switch offer - new customers only, Nov 1 - 30 2023

boingy

MikeJXE said:

boingy said:

MikeJXE said:

boingy said:

I've had switch documents through the post weeks after they are relevant. I've also had a text telling me I qualify for the switch bonus. It arrived over a week after they had paid the bonus! They need to get a faster hamster.

Yep I got exactly the same 

Plus today I received and email from them apologising for the wrong text in the subject line of the previous email they sent me  last week 

Yeah, I got the apology today too. I couldn't even be bothered to look back through all the emails to see what the error was. You don't expect the big name banks to be at the cutting edge of things but you do expect them to be competent at the basic comms stuff.

Lol I couldn't be bothered either 

One consultation if they didn't make c**kups it would be quite boring and this thread wouldn't exist 

I wonder if they are aware of this thread and, if they are, I wonder if they might be surprised that their switching offer has cause 69 pages of discussion. Maybe we should have a league table for "number of posts per switching offer". 

MikeJXE

Barclay is way ahead in the stress charts it seems 

When I first saw this thread I thought s**t this is going to be a nightmare but I opened an account anyway

Having done all the switches in the last 12 months, all straight forward if you abide by the terms and conditions plus follow the correct process they all worked out quite easy, different and some took longer than others so I learned patience.

I followed the instructions on my iPad while filling in the boxes on my iPhone, sat back and let it happen

Got the £175 eventually, no problem 

I believe most problems with bank switching are pilot error, not reading t & c s, making silly mistakes etc 

Zaul22

Got my DD transfer letter for my 2nd attempt switch today so guess it worked this time.

MikeJXE

I see we have another tread running to add to this 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6488642/barclays-switch-nightmare-advice-please#latest

PinstripePhantom

boingy said:

PinstripePhantom said:

c) refused to raise the complaint,

That's really unusual. Normally any financial institution will raise a complaint at the merest whiff of one. I've even had banks raise a complaint when I wasn't complaining: once when I was reporting a bug and once when I made a suggestion for how the app could be better. And a few years ago I contacted the Co-op to say that my new debit card had not arrived and they raised a complaint for that too. A couple of weeks later I got their "final decision" letter through the post that said they were sorry for the lost card but that these things happen, that they had sent out a replacement and that my complaint was not upheld. All from a secure message where I said something like "Hi, my card expires next week and I have not received the new one. Please can you send me another one."

Yeah I found it quite strange too, I've had similar experiences to you with other banks where they've raised complaints when I'd called up just to query something and then given me 50 quid when I wasn't expecting or wanting anything. But this one with Barclays just kept going on about irrelevant things trying to explain things that had nothing to do with what I wanted, when I asked if they're refusing to raise the complaint they said no but they'll raise it but first here's 3 paragraphs of irrelevant information and then telling me it's simple and then asking if that clears it up for me? No... It doesn't 😂 also asked me if there's anything else they could do for me as if they'd somehow resolved my issue when they hadn't done the one thing I had asked which was to raise a formal complaint.

PinstripePhantom

Thh complaints team btw agree with my complaint that the terms are misleading in that it states you can choose the switch date when in fact you can not and she said she'd spoken to the switching team who say it is not possible for the customer to choose the switch date but their terms state otherwise...

Zaul22

I had a thing years ago with Thames Water when they contacted me about 'my complaint' and I said I never raised one, they said something like 'you expressed dissatisfaction so we opened a complaint'. I said that's ok you can cancel it and she said now it's open we can't cancel it, we have to give you something you want so we can close it. I think in the end she decided our conversation had satisfied the complain but I guess I should have asked for a tenner. 

Iceheart16

Hi, can anyone confirm if I'm able to start the switch on Nov 30th ? Reason being I want to switch an account from nationwide which has only just completed a switch itself on the 24th & I'm waiting on the payout which should be within 10 days, I'm worried that as soon as I start the Barclays switch that nationwide will refuse to pay the bonus even though it should be open for 7 more days before the switch completes, really appreciate any advice 🙏

Rawrzy

MikeJXE said:

Barclay is way ahead in the stress charts it seems 

When I first saw this thread I thought s**t this is going to be a nightmare but I opened an account anyway

Having done all the switches in the last 12 months, all straight forward if you abide by the terms and conditions plus follow the correct process they all worked out quite easy, different and some took longer than others so I learned patience.

I followed the instructions on my iPad while filling in the boxes on my iPhone, sat back and let it happen

Got the £175 eventually, no problem 

I believe most problems with bank switching are pilot error, not reading t & c s, making silly mistakes etc 

I mean, nah, in this particular case I think you literally just got lucky avoiding many of the pitfalls of Barclays... There isn't smoke without fire, as they say.

1) The fact they only accept app applications during the day is a bit weird, and not really like any other bank, so no surprise there's loads of people being confused about it. Of course if you're not looking at the app at non-standard hours then maybe you won't hit this weirdness.

2) There seems to be a lot of issues that can crop up if you had a previous barclays account or a barclaycard, causing anything from not being able to make an account in the first place, to weirdness when accounts are merged later. In the worst cases you have to go make an appointment to sort it out.

3) The app isn't very flexible. There's always going to be issues with verifying really, no technology is perfect, so no surprise that some people don't get identified properly. There's likely going to be issues with compatibility too, especially with android having so many different makes and models. Neither of these are issues on their own, the key is how barclays solve them, unfortunately like the previous point, their solution is making you make an appointment.

4) If you're in the unfortunate situation where you have to go to a branch they force you to book appointments which seem rarer than gold dust and also generally aren't available on a saturday, so bad luck for many working people. I literally had the choice of one appointment in the middle of the month (I assume it was probably a cancellation) or an appointment at the end of the month with barely any time left to actually complete the switch, everything else was booked up. Of course I picked the former, luckily I have some flexibility in making up hours at work later, but not everyone is going to be so lucky. I had to go in for the Lloyds switch too since they seemed to be behind on their online ID checking and their phone line suggested to just go in, night and day difference, I dropped by on a Saturday with no appointment and was seen to quickly and easily.

5) When you open the account it seems abritrary with what restrictions you get hit with. Some people can do everything straight away (I could join blue rewards, start a switch, do a transfer with no troubles) while others were hitting random errors, or 4 day delays before they could do certain stuff in the app. Doesn't seem much rhyme or reason to it.

6) The Switch doesn't give you any confirmation straight away from Barclays nor an ability to choose date as mentioned above, of course leading people to worry if it's even been submitted or when its happening. Not to mention their communication relating to the switch in general seems utterly bizarre, with letters arriving out of order, delayed, or in some cases, not at all.

Tugboat

I seem to have navigated opening the account, signed up for the rewards. When trying to complete the switch element it say not available try again later. Anyone else had the same issues?