Abbey blues
Aug. 14th, 2008 09:19 amWhen I started out with Cornwell Internet I just put all the money coming in and out through my personal bank account, but after a while I decided it would be a good idea to separate out the business transactions from the personal and looked around for a suitable bank to give my business to. At the time Abbey Bank had an offer on: free banking for life providing you did not overdraw (indeed they said overdrafts were not permitted) and also providing transaction rates were below certain limits. So, despite problems we had had dealing with them after ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shewhomust's sister died (if you're planning on dying, take your money out of the Abbey first), I signed up and for several years was very happy with the service provided. But recently things have started to go wrong.
There was an incident about a year ago when I lost my debit card. Its replacement took so long to arrive that I called up and they weren't sure it had ever been sent, and if it had it had been lost in the post, so they cancelled it and started the whole process again. Of course card #1 turned up the following day.
Then about four weeks ago I made a silly arithmetical error and as a result ended up being £1.17 overdrawn. For this they hit me with £50 in fees which I thought was extremely steep so I called up and got it reduced to £20 which, for an automatic process, I still think is excessive.
Then I received my quarterly bill for my NI contribution (if you're self-employed you will know about these) and so, as they did not need the money for 28 days I set up an advance payment to take the money out of my bank account this Monday just past. Then on Tuesday morning I checked my bank statement to see that the payment was still showing as 'pending' so I called up and was rather weakly given the excuse that it was due to a 'computer error'. So I agreed that the operator would make the payment immediately, which she did and I could see the effect instantly on my online statement. But the original payment was still 'pending' so I cancelled it, got an acknowledgement of the transaction and the 'pending' statement had disappeared from my account.
End of story? No. On Wednesday morning I logged on again to my Abbey account and discovered that my NI contributions had been paid twice. Fortunately this did not make me overdrawn but I have just written a strong letter to Abbey Bank demanding an explanation and suggesting that if they feel it is in order to charge me £50 when I make a simple mistake then they might pay me some compensation when they make a rather more serious error.
I have reached the point now where I don't have the confidence that I ought to have in my bank and wondered if any LJers out there had any more positive experiences with banks that they could recommend? I'm looking for one that is reliable, easy to deal with, and also with minimal charges.
shewhomust's sister died (if you're planning on dying, take your money out of the Abbey first), I signed up and for several years was very happy with the service provided. But recently things have started to go wrong.There was an incident about a year ago when I lost my debit card. Its replacement took so long to arrive that I called up and they weren't sure it had ever been sent, and if it had it had been lost in the post, so they cancelled it and started the whole process again. Of course card #1 turned up the following day.
Then about four weeks ago I made a silly arithmetical error and as a result ended up being £1.17 overdrawn. For this they hit me with £50 in fees which I thought was extremely steep so I called up and got it reduced to £20 which, for an automatic process, I still think is excessive.
Then I received my quarterly bill for my NI contribution (if you're self-employed you will know about these) and so, as they did not need the money for 28 days I set up an advance payment to take the money out of my bank account this Monday just past. Then on Tuesday morning I checked my bank statement to see that the payment was still showing as 'pending' so I called up and was rather weakly given the excuse that it was due to a 'computer error'. So I agreed that the operator would make the payment immediately, which she did and I could see the effect instantly on my online statement. But the original payment was still 'pending' so I cancelled it, got an acknowledgement of the transaction and the 'pending' statement had disappeared from my account.
End of story? No. On Wednesday morning I logged on again to my Abbey account and discovered that my NI contributions had been paid twice. Fortunately this did not make me overdrawn but I have just written a strong letter to Abbey Bank demanding an explanation and suggesting that if they feel it is in order to charge me £50 when I make a simple mistake then they might pay me some compensation when they make a rather more serious error.
I have reached the point now where I don't have the confidence that I ought to have in my bank and wondered if any LJers out there had any more positive experiences with banks that they could recommend? I'm looking for one that is reliable, easy to deal with, and also with minimal charges.
