British Banking Rip-off (& there's more!)

It would be best if you read the previous post first. I will give you a couple of minutes to do that before I continue.

Done? Okay, so finally after "seven working days", which was actually eight working days the money left my Lloyds credit card late on the 24th. I had set up a number of payments to go out from my current account to pay the bills I had not been able to pay last month.

However, Lloyds neglected to tell me that the money would leave my credit card in seven working days but not actually hit my current account for another two to three days! The next thing I know I am getting a text from lloyds saying I do not have enough money in my account to pay the bills.

I then phoned the credit card people and after a long-sih conversation was transferred to the telephone banking people who said that actually I need to speak to the credit card people who then said they had had a bit of a backlog and were very sorry that I had not been told the right information but it would be all okay as I would be getting my money by the end of the week. Remember I asked for this transfer from one Lloyds account to another Lloyds account on the 12th August and they are patting themselves on the back for completing it by the 28th August. I think you will agree an incredible achievement in this day and age.

I explained what that I was paying bills on the basis the money would be there and they apologised and said it would be okay by the end of the week. I explained again that I was trying to pay bills now on the basis of the information they had given me and they apologised for that but could do nothing to help.

I asked to have my credit facilities extended to cover the money that was being returned to my account so that the bills could get paid but they said that due to my credit rating they were not able to do that but everything would be okay by the end of the week. I explained again that it was not acceptable and that as the money was being transferred from one Lloyds account to another Lloyds account. After moving up the ladder a bit and in a phone call lasting over an hour I finally was told they would extend my credit facilities by less than half of the amount that was being transferred and for the privilege I would pay 19.3% interest.

I think next time I need money I will go straight to the loan sharks, at least they are honestly crooked!

British Banking Rip-Off

Now I know this has been said before but I think until the British banks are forced to improve their service they will continue to rip us, their customers off.

Last month instead of transferring my salary to my current account I picked the wrong option and paid off a credit card instead. This was entirely my error and for that I admit responsibility. It takes British banks five working days to complete a transfer between different banks, so I waited five working days, which was a Friday and then as nothing had turned up in the other account and once before they had not managed to complete a transfer on a Friday I waited until Monday. When it still did not turn up on the Monday I went back to the original account and realised my error.

I presumed that the bank would not transfer my money back so instead I arranged a number of balance transfers to pay off other credit cards and to put some money on a card that I could then do a balance transfer to my current account. After waiting another week because of course it takes British banks a week to do a balance transfer I phoned the credit card company to find out what the hold-up was and was told that my credit rating was not good enough to allow the balance transfers to go through.

I explained the situation to the person on the phone who said that they could transfer the money back to my account, which I was amazed and pleased at but that, guess what, it would take seven working days to complete the transfer. I asked them to undertake the transfer and as that was a Wednesday I presumed that seven working days later would be a week Friday.

Today I checked my account to find still no money. I phoned the credit card company to be told that seven working days started the day after I requested the transfer. This meant that I would not receive my money back until Monday. guess what else happens Monday? I get my next pay cheque. this whole fiasco has taken a month and the really annoying thing is that the account my salary gets paid into and the credit card that I mistakenly paid my salary onto are both the same bank! So they "take" seven working days to transfer money between two accounts! Pathetic. I will complain and I will take my financial business elsewhere but frankly all of the British banks are the same.