Banks

[trainboundfornowhere]

Am I being unreasonable to want to speak to a human and not a machine when I call a bank? I have just tried to phone the bank that my brownie unit account is with as I need to attempt to change my name (marriage) and ask for a statement. As it is a business account (they don’t offer a charity account) there is no option for online banking but still the automated voice asks me to access my online account that they don’t offer to get my PIN number. I also wanted to ask what documents they want to change my name and if I need an appointment for this or if any of the tellers can do it (not the first time I’ve tried). Again the automated voice gives me all these wonderful options that I cannot access as I have no account with them except my brownies account and no option for online banking. I understand I will need to go into the bank to do both things but why can I not speak to a human first to potentially save me multiple trips of over three miles each way.

Can you go into the branch?

I will do but it’s over three miles each way on the bus so I was hoping to have everything I need so I only have to make one trip and get everything sorted at once. Hence wanting to speak to them first.

A google search will give you the information like what documents are required for a name change and what the process is.

There’s a Barclays advert which I find incredibly offensive and insulting, it shows a woman walking into an actual branch and speaking to an actual human!

Are you sure going into branch is worth it? The charity account I used was considered a business account and the staff in branch couldn't help, wanted to but couldn't.

Business accounts can have online banking 🤷‍♀️ Change banks if your bank doesn’t offer it.

We’re having a lot of fun with the bank at the moment. We have finally had another signatory to the account approved though which now gives us four signatories. When we were changing from the original signatories to ourselves around 15 years ago they lost the paperwork twice and our division had to pay our rent for the term so we could keep running meetings. We paid division back in the New Year when we could finally access the account. We started trying to change the signatories in June.

Changing banks isn’t easy because now some of the accounts we can use want to charge us a monthly fee for keeping the money in that type of account. We are volunteers though and while we take a termly subs from the girls that covers things like the hall rent, books and badges.