Stupid Bankers

[caddyman]

I am unimpressed with electronic and phone banking. I resisted online banking for years; every time I weakened there was another horror story in the news about hackers emptying bank accounts and other such stuff.

For the past month or so, however, I have been using online banking. Previous to that I just used phone banking, which pretty much does the trick most of then time. Depends what service you’re after, I guess: horses for courses.

It seems that nothing has changed with the digital age, though. It makes you wonder just how relatively quickly things moved before the IT revolution. When a money transaction involved bits of paper flying around between branches, three days or so to clear wasn’t unreasonable as records caught up. In the meantime, banks made profits on money in limbo.

Anyway, the story is thus: I went overdrawn without realising it and was sent a letter with some alacrity by the bank who charged me £30 for the privilege. Later that day, when I got home, I logged on to transfer funds to my account to sort it out only to find that they’d slapped a further £30 charge on in such a fashion and in such haste that I couldn’t possibly have responded to the first letter much less the second charge. I transferred the money and lo and behold, next morning there was a third £30 charge on my account; this time labelled ‘commission’.

I printed a statement and called them to complain. To be fair, they said they would refund £60 (I really ought to download and print off the letter about unfair bank charges, but that would mean the hassle of opening a spare account just in case they got stroppy). This morning when I logged on, I find that firstly the charges are still there and secondly, the transaction order has changed to show that the charges were all made before I transferred funds across. Happily I have a print out showing the original order.

I phoned the bank a second time and they told me that the charges had indeed been refunded, but that it often takes four days for them to show up online. So instant banking online takes four days now, compared to the three days of yore. And no explanation as to how the order of events changed over night.

Bloody banks.

Comments

[invisible-al.livejournal.com]

Aye the traditional banks are still on a 'learning curve' as regards online banking, this is why as soon as I've paid off the blood suckers at HSBC I'll be shifting to Smile, First Direct or Egg as they're banks designed around the internet and make a bit more sense to use.

[anubisgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yes, you really do have to watch the buggers. The long clearing time is one of the most frustrating things I found having dealt with both US and UK banks. Here in the US the delay in clearing in usually measured in hours, perhaps a day, maybe two or so for debit card transactions (which I think may have as much to do with the posted/business as anything)--though even when they are "pending" they show on my account so I know the money is not there. The 3-5 day wait for things to move around/clear in the UK always baffled me.

[phil99.livejournal.com]

I have a beef with A&L along similar lines. I withdrew cash on the 16th & 17th June, having checked my balance on both dates using the cash machines. I later got a stroppy letter from them telling me I was overdrawn. I checked my online statements and found lo-and-behold, according to them I was (allegedly) already overdrawn on the date of the cash-withdrawal.

I called to complain about the instant charges they applied to the account and they refunded those (after the 2nd call, mind you), but lo and behold then found I was charged 2 further fees for something else made-up, claiming that I was over my limit for 5 days when clearly I couldn't have been - having withdrawn the cash on the 17th, and called up to increase my limit temporarily on the 19th.

I am still yet to call and complain loudly because I get absolutely furious every time I think about it and can't be dealing with shouting at a call-centre-jockey.