Telephone banking Complaint - please advise

finnigany

Hi there
....First post, please be gentle!

Abbey telephone banking:
Do you know if telephone banking has a service level guarentee with its customers? I phoned up late in the evening to put through a BACS transfer, I was told the system was down, and it couldn't be setup that evening:mad:
, and to phone back the next day. I phoned up the next day at 7am - just after the service opened and the BACS transfer was setup - no problems.

If I made a complaint about this - as it took more days to process the payment as it was setup the next day - would they just say that it was due to 'technical difficulties' and I wouldn't have a leg to stand on? or do they have something which guarentees the service to be available at all times it is open? - I am referring to the telephone banking where you speak to a person, no the automated phone banking.

Cheers for reading!

Lokolo

Although I can agree to some extent, they can't help if there are problems with their system.

And have you not heard of interent banking?

debbie42

finnigany wrote: »

I phoned up late in the evening to put through a BACS transfer, I was told the system was down, and it couldn't be setup that evening:mad:
, and to phone back the next day. I phoned up the next day at 7am - just after the service opened and the BACS transfer was setup - no problems.

If I made a complaint about this - as it took more days to process the payment as it was setup the next day - would they just say that it was due to 'technical difficulties' and I wouldn't have a leg to stand on?

I'm not sure how that timing you describe would have made any difference to the BACS transfer? It certainly wouldn't with my bank (Halifax).

Mikeyorks

Exactly. With most Banks there is a cut off time to set up a BACS payment (SO / bill payment) for processing that night. Around 2000hrs with my Bank.

And yes ... they will simply re-iterate that the system was down. What else could they say?

RichyRich

IIRC Abbey's Updates system goes offline at 8pm to update for the next day, so although you can still make inquiries you can't make a change to an account after this time (this used to be the case circa 2004, obviously it might've changed now). This was part of the system and not a glitch/fault, it happened every night. The solution? Ring before 8.

In terms of "companies can't help their systems going down", I disagree. If they invested in the right technology and kept it maintained correctly, incidences of systems "going down" would be significantly reduced. Instead they try to cut costs by buying cheaper systems, outsourcing technical support and not taking correct advice, because they know they'll get away with it.

nicko33

From their general Terms & Conditions

Abbey home page > Cash > Current Accounts > Abbey current account > The Abbey current account > Legal details

13.8 Inability to provide services
If we are unable to provide services generally or any particular services to you because of any causes beyond our control (including, strikes, industrial action or the failure of equipment or power supplies), we will not be liable to you for any loss which you may suffer.

ianmr65

Even if there were no clause, proving consequential loss - which i assume is why you would be complaining, and getting compensated is hard when companies provide a service, and there has been no obvious damage.

If the bank had made an error, and say, lost your cash, They'd almost certainly admit liability, and pay up, and prolly throw in the lost intrest. But if you went on to claim, that you were, say, going to use the cash for an investment that had now fallen through. And claimed a big chunk on top, you'd struggle to get them to admit that.

Consequential losses are much easier to prove when you have suffred damage, or been injured.
The loss or even delay of cash which was say, due to be used to make an intrest payment, on another account; which you then could not make, and were charged a penalty as a result. That would be much easier to claim for. As you would have a paper trail, and a provable amount of damage.
And the electronic failure clause would not hold much water, especially if the delay was more than a day or two. As you could easily argue it was an unfair term.

finnigany

Thanks for the replies. Reading what you have said it didn't make any difference how long the BAC transfer took in days, as when I phoned up it was past the cut off time for accepting BAC payments for that day - at night, therefore it would have gone onto the next days payment. so it took the same amount of time if it had been put onto their system that night, or first thing the next day before 9am.

Thanks!