any ideas on how to close an abbey account??

MummyHol

Hi everyone (hope i writing this in the right forum?!)

I'm having a massive issue with Abbey (who isn't, right?). About 6 (ish) weeks ago my OH & me went into our local abbey branch to close our joint current account- signed the forms and had our cards cut up there & then (we'd cancelled all our direct debits about 2 months previously). About a week later we called them to make sure it was closed and to ask for a letter to be sent to confirm its closure and were told it wasn't closed because they'd accidentally paid in some interest (33p i think). I was told that we would have to wait until 1st march for them to sort out the interest and then they'd clkose it and send a letter. Last friday we called to find out what was going on and were told that there is nothing on system to show that we've tried to close the account and that we needed to visit the branch. Then on saturday we received a letter saying we're being charged because there wasn't enough money in the account to pay a direct debit (we've had about 8 of these this year and so far all charges have been cancelled/reversed because they have taken full responsibility for not cancelling the direct debits properly!)

My 10 month old was pretty sick over the weekend so i couldn't go & had to go yesterday (straight from the hospital with my sick son i tow, i might add) only to be told that thet can't deal with it in branch because all they do is send the forms off!! TBH, they were short staffed (as usual) and i was talking to 2 young lads who obviously didn't know what they were doing!! So, today i called the telephone banking again and explained the situation only to be told that i need to go back to branch. The guy on the phone was really rude and unhelpful and i have to admit i lost my temper (although i didn't shout or swear). He basically ended the short conversation with ''you need to go in branch to speak to someone, thanks, bye'' and then he hung up!

Does anyone have any clues as to how i can close this account?? If their branch and their phone staff are both refusing to do this for me, what can i do??

Any advice would be so appreciatively received (thanks for reading x)

littleredhen

not sure if this will help you - ring the branch and ask for an appointment with the manager - you may have to wait for a few days/week then go along and explain to him/her what the problem is and get him to sort it out -

MummyHol

thanks LRH, i'll give them a call this afternoon. The only problem is that last 2 times we've made appointments they've called half hour before hand to cancel because of staff shortages. TBH i've never asked for the manager though (don't know why i didn't think of that?!)

MummyHol

My OH has spoken to the branch on the phone and have been told to come into branch to speak to a specific person- we have to fill out forms again and now we have to take 2 forms of ID because we no longer have our ABBEY cards!! I won't be leaving the branch unless they give me something they've signed to state that they've received the forms and that they guarantee to send them off!
I can't even express in words how sick i am of all the rubbish we've put up with from ABBEY!!

PBA

If there's charges due to come out of an account, the account can't be closed until they're settled. Even though Abbey have agreed to refund the charges for you, the account can't actually be closed until the charges have come out (which can be up to 2 months, depending on when in the month they were incurred). They can then refund the charges and close the account.

MummyHol

All of the charges were cleared a while ago- this one is a new since they were supposed to close it.

I would completely understand that if it was my fault the charges were incurred but the charges are only being applied because abbey keep trying to take cancelled direct debits (this has happened several times now and on the phone we're told that even if direct debits are cancelled the bank can still take them and in branch we're told this is rubbish and that they can't if we've cancelled it in branch- which we have!)

I'd like to wring abbeys neck right now!!

Sagaris

Exactly the same thing happened to us - it took 3 months and 3 visits to close the account down!
Eventually we went to our local branch on a Monday after work - it was still pretty busy, but we stated our case, that we wanted to close the account - and were told to return another day when they had more staff! We took root in the comfy chairs and said we were happy to wait until someone was free to come and see us (i.e. we were not moving until this had all been sorted out) - 2 minutes later we were ushered into an office by a very apologetic member of staff who dealt with everything on the spot - and 3 weeks later we've had a statement saying the account is closed.
Well - I hope it is!
Mind you I'm not their favourite person as I'm still going through the FO with my Abbey complaint! :rotfl:
Good luck with your quest - be persistent (and polite!) would be my advice - although, as you say, neck wringing would be nice!

MummyHol

Thanks Sagaris.

It doesn't suprise me that i'm not alone in my quest to be rid of the evil abbey, haha! Everytime i go in there, there's at least 2 other people complaining about something! No wonder they've got no staff, eh?

MummyHol

Went back into branch on saturday and had to fill out a new set of forms which were apparently sent off the same day but they wouldn't give my any proof that i'd filled them in so they could still turn round this week and say we haven't done it, again!

I'm so sick of it in there- theres never any management and the 2 boys i've spoken to the last 2 times i've been in can only have a combined age of 30! I'm not having a go at young workers- i just can't understand how they've been put in a position to deal with such large responsibilty when they quite obviously haven't been given enough training and don't have any experienced staff to support them. (i guess i feel quite sorry for them in a way)

MummyHol

also, should i be asking for compensation for all the running around i've been doing to get this sorted? Am i likely to get anything? This has left me out of pocket and relatively stressed (as i'm sure you can imagine!)

ajaxgeezer

By all means claim back your out of pocket expenses. I've claimed back from banks before, but have only ever left after receiving the cheque. I dunno how successful you'll be claiming when you're leaving.