Stories from the horse's mouth.

Andy M - things are very very crap;

After being with crapwest for three years I was up for a new twitch card. I had recently moved house but informed them in writing and by phone of my new address and they wrote back to me to confirm this. two weeks passed and still no twitch card so I rang up, we have sent it they said maybe its lost we will send another. a week later no card, so I rang up again, sorry sir they said we'll send another. I then thought they may have sent it to my branch so I rang them and they assured me it wasn't there so most perplexed I rang crapwest again and they said they would send me another. this went on until i rang my branch again and shouted down the phone until I got the manager who told me that 4 crapwest cards had been sent to the branch and every week they cut it up because a new one arrived and I didn't collect it!!! whats more they said they had been instructed not to send it to me and never phoned me despite them having my new detail and them confirming them to me a while before. So in all it took me a over a month to get a new card and I was on issue 6 (when I started on 1). oh but thats not all crapwest ate all my cards (2 credit and twitch) in consecutive order twice despite all accounts being very in credit and i still have a zisa card which will not work on any machine in the UK only abroad!!! Crapwest cant explain this. The last story nearly made me k**l several members of crapwest (this all happened very close together and I was only at CW as they have a monopoly on the campus at Uni., now I am with shabbycat who are v.good). I paid of all my credit card bill before I went to America. I was using my card in America and charged about £300 in total then I got to New York with little cash but still had a card with only £300 on it BONUS!!!!! I thought...how wrong I went to pay for my last nights in America and they refused the card it turned out crapwest never cleared the card, they 'floated' the money for no reason at all and so I maxed my card, and was nearly stuck in America with no money if it wasn't for my girlfriend who just about had enough cash left. And I never got one apology apart from a very patronizing letter in response to a complaint I made which said it wasn't there fault these things happen and its all the credit cards company fault. So in conclusion crapwest are a bunch of incompetent imbeciles with their head up their own asses, which is what I told the crapwest manager

Stu R - I condemn this sort of behaviour, but do sympathise.

I regularly get charged £27.00 for being overdrawn by about 50p. I have now taken to smashing one of CBSH's windows every time they charge me so it costs them considerably more money. This takes the anguish out of paying these charges considerably. If everyone did this I am sure that we would be able to put an end to unnecessary charges levied by the banks

Jon F - The frustration here would be funny, on a TV sitcom.

I bank at Abbot Nationility, where I have a card account I had only £8 in the account & wanted to draw it out as I had £5 left in my pocket, I went into the branch & gave them my card & said I wanted the £8 for which they informed me I would be charged £3! I said "okay, here's £2 to put IN the account" (reason being I was going to go outside & withdraw the £10 using my card-hence avoiding the charge), at which point I was told I be charged £3 to deposit cash! I went outside to calm down & saw the tellers swap over & went in to the bank, to place my money in the account again & this time was told I wouldn't be charged £3 for putting the money in, but I couldn't deposit amounts less than £3! At this point I screamed blue murder at the teller until I saw the manager who "saw pity on me" & let me deposit the £2 with no charge, I promptly withdrew the £10, walked back in the bank & closed the account, with great satisfaction.

Jenny L - Suffered illegal disclosure.

I have been with Crapwest since I had my first job back in 1996. During that time they have given my bank balance out to my employer (When I got in contact with them referencing the data protection act, they eventually wrote back to me with a audit trail detailing why they thought it necessary, balls to necessary its still illegal) and they have made me wait over 7 working days for a cheque to clear, because their computer system went down. In which time, I couldn't buy food and was late with my rent, I wonder if I can sue them for the hassle they have caused me. I'll be moving banks as soon as I receive a report about ANY bank behaving like the customer is a human being.

Bryce E - what kind of a name is Bryce?

This past month, I have had to write checks to friends for cash because of my annoying, evil bank. On the 5th of July, a few days after getting dumped by a significant other, I attempted to withdraw some cash from an ATM. I had hoped to drown my sorrow in several pints and maybe even spend money on useless shit to make myself feel better. When I tried to get the funds (I had over $1000 in my checking account) the machine spit out my card and informed me that the card had been cancelled. Since it wasn't supposed to be cancelled until 2004, I became suspicious and called the bank. The woman on the other end told me that the card had indeed been cancelled, but there was no explanation for the problem. So I had to order another card. I have maintained this account for 8 years and continued using it after moving to NYC last year, even though there are no branch offices here. The interest rate on the account is good and checks clear in less than two hours so I kept it. BIG MISTAKE. After 20 days, still no card. When I finally received it, it didn't work because there was no PIN #. I had to wait another 5 days to get the # sent to me (they wouldn't provide it to me over the phone). I got the # two days ago and as soon as possible, I am withdrawing all my funds and getting another account.

Louise B - She lent from them, bent over to them and got shafted.

I was with fools direct, and had a loan with them. for no apparent reason last October they decided to stop all my standing orders and direct debits without telling me! when I started getting stroppy letters from council, BT etc saying "where's my money" I phoned fools direct and was put on hold for what felt like three days before someone came back and told me they had made an error and cancelled all my direct debits. I was obviously quite aware of this and asked them to set them all back up again, which they did. so for that month everyone got paid by cheque and things pretty much got back to normal. three months later!!!!!! I get a call from Fools Direct who tell me that they never set up the standing order to pay themselves my loan payment D'OH!! I could not afford to pay three months loan payment (about £300) in one go being a minimum wage girl and so they kindly suggested I take out another loan at a special low rate, because of there error. oh yes, I thought fantastic. more money each month to spend on beer. they sent me out all the relevant forms and stuff and I read them carefully and signed them and new loan was set up at about £60 per month, previously I was paying about £95. two months ago, I got a letter saying they had made another error and sent me out the wrong forms to sign and I was only paying off the interest on the loan and not the actual loan!!!! I now have until this December to find £3500 to pay off this loan with these useless tossers or take out another one. the amount has not gone down in a year, I've just been paying interest! if I'd had known I wouldn't have signed anything! GITS!

Jennifer W - bounce, bounce, bounce

Well I had made a withdraw from my checking account at an ATM ... IT TOOK THEM 30 DAYS to Take It from my ACCOUNT then I began bouncing checks ! Then They f***ing charge me $30.00 plus the Amount of the check WHEN IT WAS THEIR FAULT!

Andy T - No one listens

Having spent a wonderful weekend out in Olde London Towne with my parents I discovered that I had managed to leave my debit card in some tourist trap drinking establishment. That evening I rang the very helpful 'cancel your stolen card' line to cancel my stolen card - which they did. The one thing they couldn't do however was access my account to tell me if any of my hard earned wonga had been lifted by some thieving scally. They told me I would have to contact my branch directly when they opened in the morning. Having banked at 'the bank with the three blue circle logo' for most of my adult life I didn't expect this to be an easy visit. However even I wasn't prepared for the spotty teenage tw*t who, after listening to my problem and nodding in a serious manner asked me for my account number so he could check things out. When he returned do you think he had anything useful, like a printout of the most recent transactions? Proof that I still had at least enough money to buy a pint? Or confirmation that a shiny new card was at that moment winging it's way to my house? Oh no! he returned with a nice brochure which, he explained, would allow me to upgrade my basic - though now quite possible empty - account, to the new PLATINUM level, which gave me lots of wonderful extras, like cheap car insurance, "you do have a car?" "yes I do have a car.." I can only assume that just for a moment I had slipped into 'blatant gobshite' rather than my usual English. BANKS TAKE NOTE & LISTEN WHEN WE TALK!!!!!!

Marius M - not compensated

I moved to California from England in 1996. When I got here, one of the first things I needd to do was open a bank account. To do this, you must have a social security number (just like an NI number). So I went into Bank Of Am***ca, waited about 30 minutes to see somebody, and explained that I had just moved from England and wanted to open an account. The bank employee simply laughed at me as if I was from another planet. I walked out. Eventually I opened an account at We**s Fa**o. They were happy to help, and the first thing they did was do a credit check. The bank employee said, "the credit agency has no record of you - have you been in jail?". Finally we got the account opened and deposited enough in it to start writing "temporary cheques" which most people don't accept. Then they offered us a "secured credit card". The deal with a secured card is you give the bank $500, and they give you a card with a $500 credit limit. Umm, no thanks. We had no credit card and we needed to transfer money from the UK. I knew about the expense of international wire transfers but the bank said I could deposit a cheque drawn on a UK bank, with only a small transaction fee and a decent exchange rate. I gave them a cheque for GBP2000 ($3000). "Oh, your account is new - we will have to put a 10 day hold on the money." Fine, whatever gets it done. The next day we get calls from people complaining that our cheques are bouncing, and both they and our bank want to charge $50 delinquency fees for each one. But there should be about $1000 cleared in the account. I call the bank. "You're $2000 overdrawn." It turns out that when they put a hold on the cheque, they normally add the money into the account as if it had cleared, then take it out again for the hold; when the hold is done, they put it back. Well the cheque I gave them had got put in with the domestic paperwork, was rejected by the system, and then lost, so it never actually got credited. Of course, the hold had been debited so we were now overdrawn. The bank agreed to pay all the people the $50 fees and compensate us for the inconvenience. Our compensation: $15.

Melanie T - Does what any 'normal' girl would.

Right, I'm currently on my third bank this year. I'd been with Soyal Sank of Bcotland pretty much all my life but suddenly after opening an additional savings account, things started to go wrong. Money was getting transferred between accounts without my authorisation, and I was repeatedly charged £20 plus interest for being overdrawn when my account was in credit. On the odd occasion when I did go overdrawn they took 5 days to inform me and charged me the interest for 5 days, which normally resulted in £60 for being overdrawn by a tenner. I finally decided to switch to Xalifax, who were wonderfully helpful upon starting. I arranged a £100 overdraft with the woman and then found I had a £1000 temporary overdraft for 4 months. I protested, saying I didn't need it but apparently it was essential. So I did what any normal girl would do and spent the £1000 on clothes. A month before I was due to pay it back I went into my branch and requested a £500 overdraft to help me pay it back. I was told this was fine and heard nothing of it after this. I repeatedly called both my branch and phoneline to enquire and was told everything would be fine. Wrote a cheque to pay my friend for concert tickets and that cleared okay, but the day it was meant to run out I went in to confim my overdraft and was told they had no record of the application. They then informed me that because I was overdrawn they wouldn't be able to give me an overdraft (what's the point of taking out an overdraft when you're in credit) and then they took back my cheque from my friend's account, charging me an extra £20 for a bounced cheque, even though the money had come out of my account. The money was never put back into my account, it simply disappeared. Friend's bank charged him £6 for the cheque too. So I decided to switch to the Saggy National, and used their Twitcher Service which apparently 'does everything for you.' Except contact your old bank for bank statements or tell you that they need bank statements before they can set up your free temporary overdraft or give you a cheque guarantee card. I only found this out when I asked them when my overdraft would be available. But they still didn't believe that I'd been sold the account under false pretenses. I was left 3 days before payday, and 2 days before going abroad with no money to sort things out before I left. When I got abroad I discovered that they hadn't transferred any of my old bank funds but hadn't informed me of that either and luckily I was with parents who kindly agreed to pay for stuff. Have given up switching over accounts. It's more hassle than it's worth.