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.