Which bank to use?

Re: Which bank to use?

patrick murphy — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:46:17 GMT

we sold a house in America, and if you want to experience banks treating you like terrorist scum, out to blow up the world with your piddly amount of cash, try that out. we could not even get them to send us a form that confirmed it was us! they actually refused to answer the phone at the branch to Head Office. wow.I would take any UK bank, even the one that features weekly in the Times fiancial help.

Re: Which bank to use?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:39:15 GMT

Thomas I didn't know that-I suppose it's cheaper to compensate up to £85k than pay billions intobonuses

Wynne

Re: Which bank to use?

bob lehner — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:35:32 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"] lost a lot of money with Equitable Life, compensation has been promised for years but I've not heard anything recently - when did you hear from them Bob[/quote]

Martin -

I just heard from them last week.

The address is - Equitable Life Payment Scheme, PO Box 4110, Glasgow, G58 1EL. Tel 0300 0200 150.

Give them a call to check that they have your details - they are supposed to contact all eligible policyholders by June this year - but payment not promised until April 2014 at the latest ! I think you can only expect to get about 20% of your calculated loss.

Re: Which bank to use?

Tim Cheyne — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:35:30 GMT

[quote user="Stephen Courtney"]Speaking as an ex colonial, I can assure you that Barclays treat everyone trying to open a bank account with foreign papers as money laundering drug smuggling terrorists. It's not personal, it's just how they do business. [/quote]

To be fair to the banks (not an easy thing to do!) I think that they are simply carrying out the money laundering directives from, presumably, the Bank of England. I had a similar experience when I merged two accounts with Lloyds (one in UK and another in IOM) and tried to register for telephone banking. Lloyds were quite helpful but the regulations were inflexible. I had to be able to produce one or more utility bills bearing my name and my residential address; as we have no mail delivery system here I had only a PO box and that was definitely not acceptable. In the end, at his suggestion, a visiting regional Lloyds agent dropped in for coffee and biscuits, viewed the addresses on several envelopes that I had collected from the PO box, looked at my photo-ID work permit, and readily confirmed to the bank that I did live and work where I said I did. Problem solved at low cost!

Tim.

Re: Which bank to use?

Thomas Johnson — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:57:40 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

I'd avoid RBS just in case they go under again-and the Government won't bailthem out next time

[/quote]

As long as you've got less than £85,000 in the account it's safe anywhere, the government will compensate up to that amount if a UK bank goes under.

Re: Which bank to use?

Louise6732 — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:43:53 GMT

I had an issue with Natwest last year, they were really unhelpful when I was trying to get a loan. I wrote a very detailed letter to their customer complaints and they gave me a goodwill gesture which was quite generous. Always always worthwhile writing to companies when these things happen because 1) You might get some form of goodwill gesture! 2) They need to know what's wrong so they can fix it.

Louise

Re: Which bank to use?

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:18:25 GMT

[quote user="bob lehner"]I've just had a letter from Equitable Life - in its time the 'Gold Standard' pension company - they went belly up in the late '90s - 12 years on and they are offering me some compensation - shan't hold my breath as to how much...![/quote]

I lost a lot of money with Equitable Life, compensation has been promised for years but I've not heard anything recently - when did you hear from them Bob?

Re: Which bank to use?

bob lehner — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:04:59 GMT

Don't we all still own 83% of RBS ? If it goes under again I guess we're all completely st*ffed.

My view of all financial institutes - banks, insurance companies, pension funds etc is uniformly jaundiced - I hate the buggers with a passion.

Basically they all exist for one primary reason - to make a lot of money for their directors - and then possibly for their shareholders. Joe Public is bottom of the heap by a very long way.

I've just had a letter from Equitable Life - in its time the 'Gold Standard' pension company - they went belly up in the late '90s - 12 years on and they are offering me some compensation - shan't hold my breath as to how much...!

Re: Which bank to use?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:02:40 GMT

I'd avoid RBS just in case they go under again-and the Government won't bailthem out next time

Wynne

Re: Which bank to use?

Stephen Courtney — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 22:01:39 GMT

Speaking as an ex colonial, I can assure you that Barclays treat everyone trying to open a bank account with foreign papers as money laundering drug smuggling terrorists. It's not personal, it's just how they do business. I suspect staff ignorance is the real cause, but no one in the branches seems to care. Natwest were far more civilised.

but any bank can and will make mistakes and when they do, they are all shocking. I gather from Lovemoney.com that first direct has the highest customer satisfaction ratings.

Re: Which bank to use?

Bob Russell — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 10:52:16 GMT

No complaints about RBS (soon to be Santander) at the moment but personal banking wise pretty unhappy with Barclays who refused my daughter a bank account because her passport is Thai despite on-line advice saying this is fine.

I am treating this as ignorance rather than racist but this is not the forst time there have been similar problems with Barclays. Lloyds welcomed with open arms and no such attitude!

Re: Which bank to use?

Jon RUBEN — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 22:05:28 GMT

[quote user="Fiona Dale"]I am a locum operating through a limited company. I have been banking with Natwest for 3 years now, and have been fairly happy with them. Just over a month ago I had to pay a corporation tax bill of over £7000. Not being very clued up on banking, I went into my local branch and asked the chap at the desk the best way to pay the bill. He took the payment slip from HMRC off me and said we could use that. I signed the slip and thought no more of it. This morning I was checking through my account payments and discovered that I have been charged £73 for this transaction, as apparently this type of transaction is charged as for taking cash out at a branch. I was never warned of this, and feel that another method of payment could have been suggested. I am now seriously considering changing all my business and personal accounts and credit cards. Are all banks like this or can anyone suggest any decent, honest ones?

[/quote]

yes always pay direct online - either through the bank website or the HMRC website. By the way if you're paying that much corporation tax you're either charging way more than me or you need to change your accountant!!

But meantime you should have a business manager appointed - I've always found my (NatWest) guy really helpful even when suffering the ignoramuses at the front desk or even so called advisers - and I'd phone him, complain and you should be able to get the charge waived

Re: Which bank to use?

mariette asselbergs — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 20:51:09 GMT

But the easiest and maybe cheapest way of paying your tax is online. You can even do direct debit and spread over the year instead of all at once.

Mariette

Re: Which bank to use?

Alan Tevendale — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 19:03:28 GMT

I changed Banks when I moved from Studying in Scotland to working down here in England and have stayed with the same bank since. I've managed to build up a fairly decent relationship with both banks that I use. Lloyds for my personal banking and Natwest for the practice. I agree with Rob that actually knowing someone who you can speak and at least have some level of trust is very important. It also helps when things do go wrong as when they know you chances are you'll get sorted that bit quicker.

Re: Which bank to use?

Rob Reid — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:54:39 GMT

I think they're all as bad as each other to be honest, it's probably just a case of finding the best of the bad bunch!

I have switched banks several times since starting college. Started with Clydesdale, took the humph with them after finding out their student accounts were rubbish and switched to Bank of Scotland for the remaining 3 years of Uni. Graduated and moved to Wales - BOS were going through merger with Halifax at the time and completely cocked up my account so switched to Natwest who did the practice banking. Turned out to be fairly convienient at the time as this practice only paid by cheque (even in this century... and I believe they still do now) so my pay cheques cleared the same day. Was with them for about 3 years before they cocked up a loan so closed my account with them and ended up moving everything to HSBC who I have now been with for 6 years.

I have found HSBC pretty good and up front about everything, though it does help that my wife used to work for them and our account is still an old staff account, so I think they do go out of their way for us a little. I have to say that I was very unimpressed with Natwest when they cocked things up - not a word of apology on the matter, but then BOS and Clydesdale before them were just as poor in the communication skills department. The consensus I've had from talking to other people is that there is always problems and really it's about finding a bank where you are most comfortable at dealing with their way of doing things. Also does help if you know someone who works there, they can usually alert you to any problems or any good deals that are on - do you have any friends/clients who work for one?