TSB planned outage

EachPenny wrote: »

Having grown up in a small rural village myself I can't help you in this situation, but can offer some general advice - you either need to move, or radically change the way you live. At the moment your problem is not being able to access cash, but what would you do if it snowed for example? How many days food supply do you keep at home, and what would you do if bad weather brought down the power lines?
I'm not trying to be clever, but just offering some advice about some of the pitfalls of living in the countryside when things go wrong. If you haven't already thought about plans for various 'what if' scenarios happen, then now would be a good time.
If you live in a rural area and don't have enough petrol to get you into the town, then presumably you have a local rural petrol station you normally use? (in which case you are very lucky). Have you explained the situation to them and asked them to let you have a small amount of petrol to get into town and you'll pay them later? Small local retailers are normally willing to do things like that for loyal customers. The same usually goes for convenience stores etc.
TSB have made it clear that it wouldn't be at your expense. They will make sure people are not out of pocket (for reasonable expenses). If you cannot use cash or a debit card then it would be reasonable to pay on a credit card and ask TSB to refund any interest you had to pay.
But if you clear the full balance on each statement there would be no interest to pay for up to 56 days.
....hopefully TSB will have sorted themselves out by then.

Thanks for the tips

We obviously have local shops, local post office, etc, and when it snowed bad this year I was able to walk to local amenities because I had cash or my debit card.
The issue here is, without money, I can't get petrol. Without money, I can't pay train fare to go to the branch. This is completely different to being snowed in, bank accounts have become such a necessity that when it goes wrong, we really are left up a creek with no paddle!

I made allowances for their weekend upgrade. They gave enough notice, so I had cash & stocked up on food. I received more money paid into my account yesterday and haven't been able to access it. The cash I took out ran out yesterday, as I was expecting them to be up and running as usual. This issue has now dragged on for 72 hours longer than it should have, so we can't really be blamed for not taking enough money out. I shouldn't have to go and beg, borrow or steal to pay my living costs. I imagine this has been a huge learning curve for a lot of us, but for TSB there isn't going to be a 'next time', I'm switching as soon as I get access to my accounts again.

They are still having major issues now. Another 2 hour call on hold today, finally got through to someone who can help me trace my missing current account. Whilst TSB are saying the vast majority are now able to login, I can login also but 1 account is missing, the other accounts (savings accounts) are all showing £0. Up until Friday, I had nearly £1800 in my account. All of that is completely gone, and they are trying to find out where the money has gone.

I like how the media is giving out news that its fixed. We've received no official word from TSB, and according to the manager I spoke with this afternoon, they are still frantically trying to work out what is wrong. It has NOT been fixed, despite what the news says.
The worrying thing is, if their banking system is not stabilised, the bank will end up collapsing. If they're not able to bank effectively, we're all going to need to find a replacement bank!
This is the reason everyone at TSB is running around trying to sort this - its their jobs at risk, along with all our money. I know the FSCS guarantee up to £85k, but thats not the point!