To think that banks these days are a disgrace and couldn’t care less about their customers?

[LunaNorth]

This is long, sorry.

I needed to visit a bank today, to pick up some cash I ordered yesterday.

I had to drive 12 miles to my nearest city to do this, as every bank in my market town has closed.

The bank in question has a greeter, some tables for people who have appointments, a bunch of self-service machines, and one cashier.

There was a queue at the cashier, of course, and the man in front of me had a lot of complicated business banking to do, and was taking ages. Not his fault - there was only one cashier.

An elderly woman joined the queue behind me. She must have been at least 80, had a stick, and was leaning against a pillar as there was no seat near the cashier counter.

We exchanged pleasantries and I offered to let her go in front of me so she wouldn’t have to wait much longer. But the wait was still getting too much for her, so I walked the length of the bank to get her a chair to sit on, as she was looking quite tired.

Meanwhile, a woman who clearly had severe mental health issues had joined the queue. When she first arrived, she was managing to keep herself calm, but as the wait went on, she was getting more and more agitated, until a member of staff had to come along and try to calm her down.

When the elderly lady finally reached the counter, I heard her saying to the cashier that her local branch had closed down and she’d had to come all the way into town. The lady replied that the bank visited her area for two hours once a week, but she wouldn’t be able to pay cheques in or withdraw cash.

What good is that then?

It struck me as I was standing there that modern life is utterly shit for the most vulnerable. Some octogenarians might be able to negotiate banking apps, but very many won’t. The woman with mental health issues should have been in some form of supported housing, getting help with life admin - instead, she was in a stressful situation, and being treated like a nuisance as a result.

And how hard is it to provide two cashiers and a fucking chair?

Sorry for the rant. I ended up feeling quite sad standing there today.

TLDR - Barclays Bank - all banks - are bastards. AIBU?

Most banking apps let you pay in cheques. They take a photo of the cheque.

Yeah, this. I recently randomly had my debit card stopped. Had a text saying, 'we have cancelled your debit card, as there's been suspicious or unusual activity linked to it. We will send you a new one ASAP.' That's all it said. I don't know why, whether somebody I know had been trying to use it or buy something on it, whether it was something to do with ebay or paypal, whether it's some shop I've been in that's been trying to use it or clone it, it didn't give me any clue.

I got this message on a Friday night at 11pm!. I thought it surely must be a scam - so I rang Barclays the next day. (The bank's 'helpline' is open from 9am till 4pm or so on a Saturday I think.) May as well have been shut. The woman I spoke to didn't have a clue. 'I can't see anything on your account, about a new card being sent, and the old one stopped' she said.

And I said, 'well, what am I supposed to do? I don't know if this is a scam! What if someone is scamming me and they send a fake clone card and have instant access to my bank account?' She said 'you'll have to go to your local branch.'

I said 'I don't have a local branch. It's 20 miles to my nearest Barclays - as my local one was closed down 2 years ago. Do you have the number for the branch that is 20 miles away?' 'I don't have it,' she said. 'Give me a few minutes. I'll speak to someone else and see if they can see what's happened.' 7 minutes I waited, and then she came back and said 'I'm sorry you'll have to contact this customer services helpline on Monday - the people who can give us more information only work Monday to Friday!.'

I rang Monday and it took me over half an hour to get to speak to someone, and I was on the phone nearly 15 minutes after that trying to find out what had happened. I did find out in the end that it was genuine. They had actually stopped the card and were sending a new one out, as there had been suspicious activity on it.

But they STILL couldn't give me a reason why ... So what on Earth was going on? Why was the card stopped? I will never know, so I can't try to avoid the situation where my card got 'compromised!' All they said is 'some algorithm in their software picked up an issue' but NO fucker knows what it was! FUCKSAKE!

Also agree hugely about lots of people over 70 going to places like the bank and post office and suchlike, for the company and for a chat, and yes, a lot of them can't do stuff online and NEED the bank! ... And I'm not being ageist, so don't somebody of 73+ come at me and say, 'well, I can do it!' because a lot of people can't over that age.

When my local Barclays branch shut down, they claimed only 13 people a week were using it once a week or more, which I think is absolute bullshit, because every time I went in there, (which was maybe 3 times a month,) there was at least 10 people in front of me. And every time I passed it, (15+ times a month,) every single time, there was maybe 10 or 11 people in the queue.

So I call absolute bullshit. I think some things haven't affected me by being shut down because I can buy a lot of stuff online and do a lot of stuff online. But I really, genuinely miss the bank being there. And some people are now missing it way more than me. Other things I miss are Argos and Wilkos. My local Argos shut down last year, and the nearest one is 20 miles away, and Wilkos has gone altogether of course.

@LunaNorth YANBU at all OP!

Decline in the UK service sector….. brexit

You can pay cash in at a post office btw

I live in London in zone 3, they are in the process of closing most of the banks on our high street. One of the ones that has closed is available in the next area so 10 min distance but 20 min bus ride door to door no big deal but it’s an open desk in a cafe! No privacy, no screens, just a guy/woman on a laptop on a table in a cafe!

The thing is banks have never cared, they are the foundation of capitalism and they won’t care at all but this is ridiculous.

You can post a cheque to your branch saying ‘please pay into account number xxxxxxx sort code 00-00-00’ add your full name and address and sign. No need for paying in slips.

Can i recommend Nationwide? They are keeping all their branches open. (If you want I have a recommend a friend code)

www.nationwide.co.uk/about-us/branch-promise/

My local bank has closed down (in a fairly large town of about 100,000), there is now just a little kiosk in the local library on 2 days a week.

It's shocking, banks make billions in profit, were bailed out by the government not too long ago, but can't be bothered to keep local branches open.

I really like online banking but it's all gone too far now and too many people are excluded. I'm not surprised it's Barclays either because they're shit. I was with them for many years but I think that their focus is now on business customers, not residential ones. Its very difficult to speak to an actual person about anything.
I'm also not surprised either that fraud is at record levels now.

And you can pay cheques in at the post office.

They have never cared. They may have pretended to when it was necessary for a competitive edge but really it's always been about the bottom line.

Tbh not all banks were bailed out and the government retained shares which they either still own or have sold to retrieve the money they put in.

But what if it gets lost in the post - especially if it's for a sizeable amount? It'd be gone for good with no record or trace, just like that.

Totally.

the bank know a crime has been committed. They have proper evidence - a deceased persons bank account was used for a year after her death. the bank was not told this person had died until the beneficiaries started asking where the money was.

it has been reported to them. They will only take a report/complaint from the executor of the estate.

guess who the individual taking the money is? Yep, the executor. So now they have been allowed to close the account and withdraw the remaining balance.

no consequences, no referral to their fraud dept, no police report.

they should have an obligation to report fraud and criminal activity on an account. It’s shocking that they can have a fraud report and do nothing.

I’ve got numerous bank accounts never paid a fee for them used all there services
im sure if we all paid a fee for bank accounts we’d have a branch in every town

You are 100% right.
I worked in a bank just after I left school.
It was well before computerisation.

I knew every customer’s signature on sight.

We kept the savings accounts by slide rule and pen & paper- honestly!

It sounds Dickensian now.

But we knew our customers, we chatted with them and we looked after them.

Now you are literally just a number and trying to find a branch is almost impossible.

And what if your bag gets stolen on the way to the branch?

You contact the person who sent you the cheque, get them to cancel the first one and reissue it.

Me and DH are able (and prefer) to do online banking.
DH is SE and some customers pay cheque and some pay cash. The vast majority pay by online bank transfer. Several years ago (before the all the banks in our town closed) I took some cash to pay in to the account. There were 2 cashiers. one "was not set up to accept cash" (wtf? It's literally a bank) I couldn't see useless cashier because he couldn't accept cash. The next lady wanted help with a direct debit - he also couldn't help with that, the 3rd person also wanted to pay in cash...so he couldn't help them....so he was providing minimal help. Meanwhile the queue for the more useful person was nearly out the door.

You can pay in cheques via the app....except its really temperamental and can only read about 50% of cheques and has a limit of 1k.
Every time we have had reason to go to the bank for something not possible to do online, the queue is out the door!

DH and I "recently" wanted to open a new joint account. It couldn't be done done online and needed a phone appointment....the next appointment available was 7 weeks, which involved a 2 min chat, and then they sent some forms via email, we returned the forms. They alleged they hadn't received them. We filled them in twice more - each time they said they hadn't received them. Multiple emails, at least 4 phones calls and a whole load of hassle later, the account is open....5 months after we first applied! And we are hopefully not elderly or vulnerable, and do know how to use online banking!

But it's far more likely to get lost in the post - than it is to get stolen from your handbag on the way to the branch!

If banks want people to totally rely on online banking then they need to introduce more anti-scamming measures. Back in the day of bank branches and cashpoints you used to hear stories of people being mugged but you never heard stories of people losing their entire life-savings at the press of a button or because of one phone call.

This. ^ Me and DH for the first time in around 35 years together have a 5-figure sum in the bank in savings. (Been building at a decent pace for about 5 years.) Low to mid 5 figures but a nice 'cushion.') And I see it when I log into our internet banking. I am terrified that one day, I will log on, and the 5 figure sum in the savings will say £0. There will be a massive withdrawal that appears to be me - or DH - and we can't prove it wasn't us!

I mean, we are super careful so hopefully nothing will happen! Well I should say I am super careful. DH is a bit cautious but not super careful. He has nearly got scammed twice in the past year - by phone/text scams. Only my intervention has stopped him responding! Luckily I am the one who deals with the finances and bills and he doesn't go near the bank accounts. He can have access when he wants, (joint accounts,) but he leaves it all to me.

'You can post a cheque to your branch saying ‘please pay into account number xxxxxxx sort code 00-00-00’ add your full name and address and sign. No need for paying in slips.'

Can anyone advise which banks allow this . Nat West 'lost' my cheques and told me this was not acceptable (although someone on the phone a couple of years ago had told me it was). I moved from Barclays because they didn't allow it either, to Nationwide who closed the nearest branch 11 days before they made the 'not closing branches' promise.

I'm in East Anglia/edge of the midlands and have changed banks in an attempt to get a decent service.
Nat West 17 miles away is open on Saturday morning open but only for a clueless idiot to direct us all to machines which can't answer our queries.
I'm not an idiot. I manage to hold down an intellectually challenging career, run a home, support elderly relatives, raised a clutch of children to adulthood (the last two at uni). I live in a semi rural area between 2 counties where I see perfectly normal people coming into the village food bank asking for advice because they can't access their money and can't buy what they need unless online.
No, most banks do not accept a handwritten note with 'please pay this cheque into my account' , even if account details are provided.
No, it isn't possible to get cash back from the local coop any more since they put a cash point machine in.
No, it isn't possible to get cash out of the machine since someone ripped it out if the shop-front with a digger and the decision was made not to replace it.
So, no, it isn't possible to buy a small amount of groceries from the market as you have no access to cash so you are stuck with the prices in the co-op.
So we switch to electronic bank transfer, which means that for every £5 you pay for potatoes, your greengrocer loses 25p to the bank.
When cash becomes unavailable to the masses and thus the small trader, the e if the small trader becomes less viable or the local cost if goods goes up for all. The only winners are the banks. This isn't about them saving money. It is about them making money.

Now that the branches are so few and far between there is always a monstrous queue of people waiting. DH went to the bank on a Saturday once. He was there before opening time and there was already a queue. The staff were only able to see about 5 people in the queue, before it closed a few hours later, and the rest were told to come back another time.
I feel sure it must be stressful for staff to have more customers than they can adequately serve.

Everyone is there either because the problem is not a straightforward one rhat can be fixed online or they are not competent/confident to do online banking. The banks are blatantly ignoring the fact that while cash and cheques are still legal, and online banking cant be used for 100% of issues there is still a need for in person banking.

And the fluffy "we're here for you" type tv ads grind my gears, you're literally not there, you've closed down!!

I voted YABU because this isn’t a recent thing - banks are there for them to make money for shareholders. Of course they don’t give a shit about customers!

I suppose so - but it's the potential waiting and not knowing.

If you lose your bag or have it stolen, at least you know that straightaway. If it doesn't show in your account, how long do you wait until you're sure it's been lost? What if you give up and go though all the faff of getting the payee to cancel and reissue (which they may not want the hassle or potential cost of) and then it was on the verge of clearing anyway?!