Well, I'll post what happened to me. Last week I'd managed to lock myself out of internet banking, so I called up and asked for it to be reset. The only way they can do it is to send out a new passcode and log on details through the post, I was told up to 5 working days for it all. I thought this is a little archaic at the time. No matter, I still had access to my business accounts, which list my personal accounts so I get use that way.
On Saturday, I turned up to buy a car from a garage I'd already paid £1000 to as a deposit. So it was set up as a recipient within my payee's list. So I log in, transfer the money for the car and it all looks good, the app said it had sent it. It was £14500 or so, absolutely no reason why it wouldn't go through. The garage then told me they couldn't see anything. I check the statement and the balance hadn't changed, odd I thought.
So I rang them up, and they tell me that it's gone to the fraud department. They confirmed a lot of security with me, then eventually told me that they'd send an email to the department and the money would be released in 2-16 hours. I asked why they couldn't ring them and what not, but was told there was nothing they could do. I was pretty livid by this point, but it got worse.
After having a brew and a chat, the money still hadn't gone. I then went to look on the business app and it was locked out. I called up again and I was told access to all of my accounts and everything has been frozen till I can go into a branch and show ID. Luckily, I was 20 minutes away and still open. I went in and sat down with their manager. After some 30 minutes of checks it was all unfrozen. It was at this point they said the information I was given in the first call wasn't accurate and that payment had been completely cancelled. So effectively I'd been lied to for whatever reason. They set the payment up again, and it went through.
I collected the car, drove home and tried logging in again, yep, still locked out. And the security team on the business side aren't 24/7 so I had to wait till Monday to get access again. I finally got my personal reset through the post, but due to some error again on their part, as soon as I logged in and reset my details, it had all locked out again.
I wouldn't mind so much, but I've had several issues with payments over the past few months, one was buying car tax on my 123 credit card, another was a £1 or £2 payment for O2 for a credit/ID check. It wasn't till this weekend that I realised just how bad and frustrating it had got.
I've just opened an account with First Direct and I'm switching my business to HSBC based on loads of reviews I've read and switching benefits being offered.
In some 15 years of using different banks, I have never, ever felt like I'm being blocked access to my money. So there, that's why I'm moving.
I'd just like to say that since 2012 or so when I moved from Barclays's, I never ever had a single issue at all with any form of payments on the personal side. Business side is a little different as I've had issues with online payments using its debit card.