crapwest...not natwest...vent your spleen.



Stories from the horse's mouth. Becky S - a traveller visiting London writes; Upon entering my local branch one afternoon with 10 minutes until closing time, I am informed to hurry. I said I have plenty of time thank you. The teller, who is in training takes my deposit slip, carefully studies it, and asks for I.D. I said its right there on the deposit slip, look at my account number. She then says, I need your NI NO. I say that too is on my acct info. She now wants two forms of photo I.D. Good God, let me deposit some money please. I get a little bit upset at this point. Finally receiving my deposit slip, I strut off towards the door, a full brisk walk ahead. I go to push the glass door open to exit and SMASH, all 135 pounds of me becomes one with the glass. OUCH...didn't see that one coming. They had locked the doors and said they didn't see me in the bank ! Marc B - of Surrey has this to say; I had a simple query on my current account. This involved the reasoning behind £3000 being transferred from my account, that I had not authorised. Apparently the BASTARDS dish out duplicate account numbers but with similar sort codes so it is easy for a mistake to occur. An office junior had made a keying error. Now I'm no mathematician, but I'm sure it is possible to not duplicate account numbers. I was compensated with a hamper. It was sh. Fraser K- from New Zealand had this experience; Banking is awful in the UK. I withdrew £1200 from my HC business account to deposit in my Bar*** personal account. The teller counted the money and put it in an sealed envelope for me. I took the envelope to Bar*, took £40 for play money, and put the rest in one of those auto-deposit machines. Two hours later I got a call saying there was only £860 in there, instead of £1160. Bar* said two people counted it. HC said the teller's till balanced. So I'm out 300 nicker and someone is taking the pi. Paul H - shows off his cryptographic skills; who agrees that since the crusty savings bank has joined with voids to become voids/csb they really are dark horses? Kurita K - is from Germany - it would seem the banks are no different there; Think UK banks are crap? Mind this tiny tale from Berlin: I once received a "2nd-and-final" letter from my (former) bank about a matter I am too embarrassed to expound upon. Any, I responded, thought "Sheesh, how could I forget that?", and that was that. Six weeks _later_ I get the _first_ letter, which ought to have been there three months earlier! The frosting on the cake: less than 500 yards from my home to the local branch! Either the Deutsch Post tried to get into the Guinness Book, or some lazy dimwit at my bank should've been fired eons ago. My money's on the latter. Matt F - smiles hard; Moving away from lliance & Beicester should have been so easy. "It's all automated, nowadays", they said. And so it is... kinda. I transferred my salary payments, and L&B moved my balance to the new bank with relative ease. Only they wouldn't transfer my direct debits and standing orders. And with no cash there, all these direct debits bounced... and that's when the nasty letters started arriving. It was sorted out - after many phone-calls, and some hours of hassle on my part. And the odd threat or two. Bunch of muppets. So I moved to 'Smile'. I'd offer to tell you how good they are, but I'd only embarrass myself by gushing uncontrollably. Let's just say that they're a decent bunch, and I'd buy them all a pint if I could. Steve P - Disadvantage Bronze - I like the anger in this one; Every time I attempt to do any banking at Crapwest, they try to flog me "disadvantage bronze". I got insurance from them, and they said they could change my account to a "disadvantage bronze" and I would save 10% on the insurance. At no point did they tell me its £6 a month to be in DB. When I realised, I complained. Every time I visit, they tell me to upgrade my account, and the ways that they do this are so sneaky - they never mention the fact you have to pay. I've seen a chinese couple getting SCREWED into taking the account, despite them obviously not understanding what the assistant is saying to them. And if you read the leaflets about DB, its absolutely a scam - it only sounds good if you don't know the charge. If you read the leaflet from the start, be aware that it costs £6 a month. It is unbelievable just how sh value it is. STAY AWAY FROM DISADVANTAGE BRONZE "Did you know sir, we can upgrade your account?" "You are eligible for an account review!" F* OFF CRAPWEST - Im changing my account to somewhere else. Debbie F - A student, but I include her for the apathy vote; I opened a student account at a northern irish bank...(namely f t)....you get £50 free...but HELL! What every student really wants is an overdraft. Apparently they don't do one so basically a "student account" consists of 50 quid and f* all else. Pardon me for sounding like an ungrateful twt, but come on, how long is £50 really going to last you?? Mind you, you can set up an overdraft, provided that you pay it back when your next student loan instalment comes in. And on top of that, get into the red and the bank take great delight in charging you £11 for a letter. I have received 5 since being home 2 months..the most I've been overdrawn??? £80. EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL I SAY ATTACK! Emily P - Holyhead Rd Branch, Handsworth, Birmingham; I had a job and it was awful so i quit, they gave me my last pay cheque, and i was like wahey cos it was full of fat sales bonus' that i didn't know i'd made, so with excitement i took it to my local branch of lyds to pay it in. i needed the money cos i was a bit skint. i paid it in, i got the usual "4 working says till it clears". so i struggled by on rollups for 4 days and then went to the cashpoint to withdraw, but no "insufficient funds". argh!!!!. i thought, well maybe they're being a bit slow. 4 days later........ "insufficient funds". i went into the bank and asked them where my money was, they looked it up on the computer. do you know what the bastards had done with my money?? paid it into some other persons account! it took them a further week to rectify the mistake. all i got was one of those poxy letters where they just have a template and insert your name into it, didin't even have a real signature on it. i promptly closed my account and went with hifax. mind u, they're not much better! Stu R - I heard him punch this into his keyboard; About three years ago I moved into a flat paying about 170 a month rent. Wishing to get ahead of myself rentwise, so I'd always be sure I'd paid up well in advance, I decided to pay the deposit plus a couple of month's rent in advance. Now I know it takes four days to clear a fking cheque there. So I dated my cheque appropriately and popped to the local branch. They cleared it in three days - against policy, and one day before my payday. Needless to say it bounced like a sprung baby. So they sent the cheque back to my landlords, but before they did so some bright spark/total wker put it through their system and lo! I was almost half a grand overdrawn. I had the landlords on my back for my first ever rent payment (they hated me from then on), and Twatfest on my back for a huge bounce. In fact they made me take out a consolidatory loan to nix the 400 quid unarranged overdraft that the above wker had bestowed on me. Three years on they will still not give me an overdraft on account of unarranged borrowing which would never have happened if they'd been a proper bank in the first place. Mitchy K - Not the listening bank; My wan..... sorry bankers, LL**TB, decided to make me overdrawn by a couple of quid by letting a transaction go through, which i hadn't authorised. Then they tried to charge me 25 quid for their mistake. When i went ballistic at them, they backed down, and told me there'd be no charge. Guess what happened the very next month? That's right, repeat performance. they've also payed someone's elses direct debits from my account, made me overdrawn, and tried to charge me for that as well. And despite the fact that i've been into the bank half a dozen times and written to them as many times in the past seven years, they will not sort out the problem, where by, all my cheque books etc come to my present address, but bizarrely my statements go to my old address, so i very rarely get them! what is that all about? Adam P - would rather sing along with Howard; In January this year, I cancelled two standing orders, because I didn't have enough money to pay for them, I was told by the on-line message that my next payment would still go through. I then arranged to have some money sent back from saving's account, to sort the problem out. 3 days later ii received some letters, telling me that my standing orders had been cancelled, and another one saying that I had insufficient funds to pay the one that had just been cancelled. And because money they said would go into my saving's account hadn't, so thus it could not go back. so I was charged £30 for bouncing, and £25 for a paid referral, I was still paying the £6 a month they had persuaded me too part with for disadvantage bronze, but was still within my 3 months. I went to the bank to complain, and they said it was my fault. I also got them to cancel my disadvantage bronze-that money should go back into the account next month. I left the branch highly confused on how it was my fault, and a leaflet explaining fees, I called complained, got told it was now my fault, because I hadn't made sure money was ready before 9am that day(Because banking policy states that money goes in at 3:30, but leaves at 9, so in-between you’re f***ed). I then wrote back, and called, and got a three page letter to say why it was my fault, and that the bank was justified in charging me. After 5 letters telling me it was my fault, and at least 15 calls telling me the same, I still had got nowhere. I took my case to the ombudsman, who requested a copy of all correspondence, an itinerary of all charges, balances, and correspondence. My report was 20 pages long; I had by now been charged £116.54(they also charged me £14 more each month, because the account went overdrawn when they made a charge). I was still also paying £6 a month for the advantage gold that I had cancelled. Shortly, after the ombudsman received my complaint, crapwest wrote to me saying they will refund all charges made, and offered me a £50 goodwill gesture (this would cover the interest paid, and the advantage gold fees, so really my goodwill gesture amounted to £15). To top it all off, I was asked if I wanted to actually cancel my advantage gold!!! Well I have now left crapwest, to join an ex-building society, who adapts pop songs for their TV ads.