They haven't been sold, some Scottish branches have.
I've had enough of Alliance & Leicester / Santander
- Thread starter Fr0dders
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 11 Oct 2008
- Posts
- 3,833
- Location
- London
Took me 3 weeks to close my Santander account. ****ing nightmare.
Happy with Lloyds atm, otherwise I'd go Natwest / First Direct.
Happy with Lloyds atm, otherwise I'd go Natwest / First Direct.
I've never had an issue with Lloyds TSB (had an account for seven years) but am going to switch to First Direct for the £100 joining and £100 leaving offer. After First Direct, I'll probably switch to Halifax for their £50 + £5 per month offer. I'll keep my Silver Lloyds TSB account running as they offer the best benefits for the money of any UK bank that I've seen.
Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Dec 2005
- Posts
- 12,488
- Location
- Bath
Lloyds is where it's at! 
I had problems with Natwest some years ago, they lost 2 cheques of mine which was 4 weeks worth of pay. A half decent bank should have credited me the funds, apologised, and found the cheques in their own time, but they didnt.
A while later I applied for an ISA with them, and strangely I had to bring in my Passport, despite them already being my back. A week later they told me they couldnt setup the ISA as I hadnt signed my passport
Thanks for you know... checking for me guys.... you're the bank!
As for HSBC, their customer service 'chat' is better, but they have some mind-numbingly stupid rules. Nearly lost a car that I wanted to buy because I couldnt withdraw more than £300 from a branch without a cheque.
That had never been pointed out to me, and makes no sense, because surely a cheque is FAR FAR easier to steal/forge than possession of my chip and PIN card and the PIN number itself?
1 more problem with HSBC and I'm moving banks, the problem now becomes who to move to!
A while later I applied for an ISA with them, and strangely I had to bring in my Passport, despite them already being my back. A week later they told me they couldnt setup the ISA as I hadnt signed my passport
Thanks for you know... checking for me guys.... you're the bank!
As for HSBC, their customer service 'chat' is better, but they have some mind-numbingly stupid rules. Nearly lost a car that I wanted to buy because I couldnt withdraw more than £300 from a branch without a cheque.
That had never been pointed out to me, and makes no sense, because surely a cheque is FAR FAR easier to steal/forge than possession of my chip and PIN card and the PIN number itself?
1 more problem with HSBC and I'm moving banks, the problem now becomes who to move to!
I bank with Santander ( well when it was Abbey National ) and since the merger with A&L things have got worse !
I have opened an account with Lloyds TSB paying 4% on 5-7K balances, as apposed to my Santander of 1% !
I have opened an account with Lloyds TSB paying 4% on 5-7K balances, as apposed to my Santander of 1% !
I'm actually sat in abbey as we speak waiting to close my accounts. The telephone "support" is down right atrocious, I was hung up on twice when making an enquiry, then got bank charges due to an overdraught being cancelled by accident(by the bank), this was 2 months ago and still keep getting charges which push me out of my agreed limit, resulting in more charges. Its very frustrating. I have since moved my banking to Lloyd's and am far apper with the whole package.
I've had no end of problems with Natwest including losing transfer papers, sending detailed information about my accounts to the wrong address, sent me information about other peoples accounts mixed in with my paperwork, then tried denying I'd ever signed up for a type of account (even though I had signed paperwork), then tried to tell me an offer never existed (again had paperwork) then messed up on the paperwork to try and fix the issues and to resolve the situation they had to pay in interest each month manually as they didn't have a system to fix it.
6 months after my issues Natwest brought out their "charter" adverts so they must have been letting a lot of customers down if they have to apologise for their poor service in an advert.
6 months after my issues Natwest brought out their "charter" adverts so they must have been letting a lot of customers down if they have to apologise for their poor service in an advert.
The best customer service I ever had was when I was with the Co-operative bank. Absolutely outstanding.
Unfortunately there are few local branches so we switched to First Direct. Very happy with them and have been with them for over 5 years now.
Unfortunately there are few local branches so we switched to First Direct. Very happy with them and have been with them for over 5 years now.
Co-op are good and you dont really need a branch as you can pay in etc at the post office, but their online service is slow to update, I love natwest as it shows debit card transactions almost instantly listing each one so its easy to know whats gone out. Ive heard bad things about santander they are basically crap tastic!