Bloody Royal Bank of Scotland

[BeaTwix]

I'm PoA for an elderly relative. She is a long term RBS customer and her cognition is declining rapidly. I feel like I'm constantly fighting the bank.

It's just been one fuck up after another.

At Christmas she wrote a random cheque to a carer (?? under duress) and I requested that no more cheque books be issued.

I had a long chat with an accessibility officer about her needs and was explicit that she needed access to money as she still manages to get out and needs to pay for groceries, shopping, activities and transport but the I wanted to limit her risks.

RBS don't offer a prepaid card for adults (they have Go henry for kids) so the best option seemed to be to simply limit the money in her current account and to facilitate this I battled to get a savings account opened (as a PoA this all had to be done by phone - no online option available).

I then spent months trying to get her current account overdraft facility reduced from a four figure sum to £200. This took forever as according to RBS policies PoAs can't "borrow money" despite the fact that I was:

1. reducing the borrowing
2. specifically have permission in my aunt's PoA documentation to borrow on her behalf.

I had to do this by letter as I'm a PoA so online/ phone wouldn't work and due to the huge branch reorganisations in her home city and the placement of the super branch in head office the branch mail is routinely getting lost and I'd had no response to either of the two letters I'd written. . Therefore I wrote a complaint.

I finally spoke with a complaints team person, who agreed compensation for the time taken and that I could have the £200 overdraft I wanted. But that hasn't gone back on to her account so I think that was also a myth.

Meanwhile my aunts paranoia about not having access to money is worsening so she requested a new cheque book. This was issued despite my conversation with them in December.

I then raised a second complaint about this verbally, once again explaining her ongoing need for money when out and about and haven't heard anything back.

Except this week my aunt's debit card stopped working - when I phoned the bank it had been cancelled.

Oh yes, the complaints team decided that as she doesn't have capacity to manage a cheque book she can't have a debit card either. So they have just made her really unsafe as she has no easy access to her own money. I've had to arrange for cash to be taken to the house. And to hope the she remembers to replenish the supply in her handbag when it runs low.

Then when her new card arrives we need to go and change the pin to one she will remember. The chance of her remembering a new PIN is precisely zero.

I am so cross. She has been a longterm customer and they are making her last few months of independent living so much more risky and creating a huge admin burden for me and the wider family.

Why do people not understand that capacity is spectrum. You can have capacity to decide what to buy in Tesco but not have capacity to pay your carer.

Urgh.

When we had PoA for DH's parents the only financial institution they used that were efficient and helpful were Lloyds Bank. Maybe move her bank account elsewhere after giving the new bank a cross examination before doing so?

I’m so sorry RBS have been so shit @BeaTwix and I wish it could feel fair to name and shame RBS in the money pages but I’m sure more admin is the last thing you need.

It sounds like you’ve requested perfectly reasonable things that would help her. The reduced overdraft and no cheques are within their gift to deliver and it must be so frustrating. I’m putting off tackling a tiny S&S ISA because it’s a minefield.

@imbolic I think many PoAs find themselves stuck because a new organisation would be another confusing thing.

@imbolic at the moment I can't change for the reason @FiniteSagacity has suggested.

Also it takes ages to register PoA and opening new accounts is tricky as an attorney which makes it even less appealing. Some accounts even say they can't be opened by a PoA which is quite frankly age or disability discrimination.

In addition, not all banks offer decent internet banking to PoAs. This is where RBS score highly - the app is good (better in fact than my own bank - Bank of Scotland) and makes it easy to monitor her spending. I'm in it most days just keeping an eye on things.

I can't access my PoA accounts using the app for Halifax/ Bank of Scotland or Nationwide. I don't always travel with my computer so this is annoying. The log in process for Nationwide is particularly irritating - as moving to her accounts means I'm logged out of my own so if I've forgotten to do my own task first I have to go back through security.

I’m so sorry you’ve experienced this. I actually work for RBS and this post makes me so upset you’ve not been treated right. Do you have a Customer Support Specialist? If you don’t, go to your nearest branch and request one immediately.

Can you just open an account in your name and give her a debit card on it. Then limit the amount she can spend and dont have an overdraft at all?

its shit though.

RBS went downhill after the crash, IMO.

I had POA for each of my parents. I was also executor for each of them.
After Dad died, I went down their branch and a lovely young man helped me to fill up all the necessary forms.

I double checked them all before I signed them. They were definitely filled up correctly.

The Glasgow office sent a letter of condolence. To my dad.

I took it to the branch and showed the young man who had filled up the forms with me. He put his head in his hands.

I made a point of telling him that I knew that he hadn't made a mistake, but requested that he let Glasgow know, lest they do the same to another family.

If it's any help, we found Bank of Scotland really helpful as you can see someone in branch as a POA. We also have online banking as POA so I can monitor daily transactions and transfer money out of the current account once the balance creeps up. I also changed the correspondence address to my home so all statements and cheque books etc come straight to me.

I feel your pain OP. I had HUGE problems registering POA with RBS, OP. They even destroyed an original POA document IN BRANCH (NatWest) but denied it to my face! It ended up in a 4-page letter to the complaints dept and CEO. The complaints department dealt with it well, considering everything I had been through. I demanded compensation for my time and distress, which I got.

I think some financial institutions are still struggling with the whole POA thing and have no idea what they’re doing.

That said I did speak to RBS on the phone yesterday for the first time since that debacle, and my questions were answered surprisingly quickly and smoothly.

I hope everything sorts out quickly for you. I know how incredibly stressful and time-consuming all this can be. I would go straight to the complaints department?

I have PoA on my mum’s Santander account. In their app I can see my Santander account, her Santander current account and her Santander deposit account and easily transfer money between them all.
One Login covers it all.

Complain at EVERY error. I’ve had well over £1000 in compensation from financial institutions since taking on my parents affairs. ‘I’d like to raise a complaint about this which can be referred to the Ombudsman if you don’t resolve it’ are the words I use.

Banks are awful at dealing with older people and their specific needs.

Fyi when she gets a new card and PIN you should be able to change the PIN at a cash machine, so can change it to the old number.

I have divorced since the PoA was set up, so now I have to provide the Decree Absolute alongside my ID documents when registering the PoA as I reverted to my maiden name. Despite filling out all the forms and providing ID documents in my maiden name, Santander still set up the PoA, including debit card, in my old name, which I have legally renounced.

I've still got quite a few places to register the PoA and I have to brace myself each time. The latest one is Fidelity, who asked for a copy of the PoA, but nothing about my own ID, so I am assuming that this is another account in limbo until I work out how to sort it out.

@Oldermum84 she can't do the change at the cash machine. Can't process that change your PIN is hidden behind the "other services" button.

In fact I think trying to to do that before led to the cheque book situation.

She is on a knife edge for continuing to live independently.

I've already dealt with a phone call today because the keyboard disappeared on WhatsApp (she had gone into voice memo) and she was due to an exercise class 5 mins ago and is still at home. I phoned to remind her about it <90 mins ago.

I feel your pain re POA, I have had a particularly trying time with Nationwide that has taken 2 branch visits and 2 hour long calls and I still don’t have the matter resolved.

i have decided any more POA I need to set up will be internet only. So far I haven’t got any sort of satisfactory internet banking on any of them I am registered with ie just using an app to check balance and make payments. Can anybody recommend? Good to see Santander recommended above for this, particularly since I already bank with them.

My dealings with Barclays for my mum's POA have been pretty stress free, though significantly helped by me living in walking distance of a big branch when setting it up. I seem to remember the phone banking wasn't as good as the Internet side but it was OK. That said, I'm not asking for anything complicated as when i set it up she was still fully capable of financial decisions (just needed to talk a few of them through and to write notes of the details) and then lost all capacity for all financial decisions overnight. So there have never been any grey areas.

It doesn't really matter though - Mum was never going to tolerate changing banks because one or the other was better or worse about POA use. We are captive customers. Will they take email complaints?

@RememberDecember Barclays online banking for POA is pretty good with occasional clunkiness and I would recommend, but I think if I could choose I would have any POA accounts at Lloyds because that's my bank and I know their online setup inside out.

@RememberDecember I was POA for my mother for many years, she banked at Halifax who were excellent. I went into the branch to register the POA and they could not have been more helpful, even helped me set up an internet account while I was there. In ten years as POA I had no problems with them at all.

Update:
I finally got round to complaining to RBS about the age/disability thing (they removed a longstanding overdraft facility purely because there was an attorney involved) and thry cancelled a debit card with no consultation leaving an elderly vulnerable person at risk.

7 weeks after submitting the complaint (Financial ombudsman gives 8 weeks for a definitive resolution) they have informed me they cannot deal with it because they gave no proof of my signature.

I registered PoA <12 months before submitting the complaint with two forms of ID that contained a signature, which they took copies of, and an application form (which also has a signature).

I wrote the complaint using my home address as the contact address. The same home address that I registered with them and at which I’ve been receiving bank statements.

It is just crazy.

I’m going to escalate to ombudsman and include EHRC due to equality act breach.

Anyone got any advice?

Have you considered Sibstar? We had to start using this after issues with FIL's bank (not the banks fault to be fair, it was FIL causing chaos). There's a monthly fee attached but we're helping him from a distance & so far it's working out ok

We are beyond that now. But I did consider Sibstar.

It's the sort of thing where it might be worth writing to a paper's consumer advocate.
I suspect (from my limited dealings with one, decades ago) they get so many incoherent or nonsense letters, that a coherent, egregious complaint like yours would be catnip to them.
Alternatively my Dad would look up the contact details for the CEO and write a "private and personal" letter to them to get things moving - but I can't say I have any experience of that personally.

I had POA for my late husband through RBS over 13 years ago and it was fine then. I have also recently taken over my dad's affairs with Barclays and again they have been great but I know there is a lot of individual and inter organisation differences
There should be independent guidelines set up for managing poas so everyone does the same thing. I live in Scotland but my dad is in England and there you have an online system where you generate a code for the organisation and hey presto up comes the poa. Should be so simple.

@BeaTwix I sometimes deal with letters sent to the CEO as @MysterOfwomanY suggests - they get fast tracked to a competent person (even if I say so myself!). Also likely to be handled quicker than an Ombudsman complaint so well worth a try - do lay the distress and inconvenience and discrimination on thick so the CEO wants it handled fast and well.

I think a money journalist would love your story too, but I appreciate you might not wish to go the public route - although the appalling service does deserve to be named and shamed!

Ironically this complaint started as a CEO complaint.

The person who dealt with it promised something that didn’t happen, didn’t deal with the inequality issues at all and then someone else got involved who cancelled the debit card.

i then raised a second complaint also via the CEO route.

i think the best option now is the ombudsman and EHRC. It makes me so cross that banks would remove an agreed overdraft facility and the convenience of knowing the penalties of fucking up your debit dates wouldn’t be catastrophic simply because someone needs an attorney…

I know this won’t help the OP but I have POA on my mum’s Santander account. I can see her current account & mine & the Santander saver account I set up for her (as POA) all in the one app with one login. Works well.