Laughable Excuse For A Bank. (Abbey National)

Name: Spicoli

Hello doyoo user, You have to be logged in to use these functions... Login or register Close window

Send message to member

Product:	Abbey National
Date:	25/01/01 (251 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Better Than The Whole In The Floor To Keep Money In

Disadvantages: Useless Debit Card / Building Society Mentality

Dear Bank Manager

I've been banking with Abbey National for some 10 years now, and as time goes on I find myself less and less satisfied with the service, or lack of it, that the Abbey offers.

At the end of the 1980's and beginning of the 1990's, the UK public saw the Abbey National Building Society demutualise and become a bank. In my view the customers are still waiting to see this happen and any traits that have been picked up from banks happen to be the worst.

Up until 1996/7 I used my account as any teenage kid would: spending and saving in equal amounts, but without storing up or spending huge amounts of cash. Then in 1997 when i started university, i realised that the Abbey, unlike any other high street banks, were not offering student banking services. This meant i was obliged to go and bank elsewhere.

In the mean time, my nice new friendly bank starts offering me debit and credit cards, while you continue to offer me nothing. But then, you decide to upgrade your bank cards so we have this flash new symbol called "ELECTRON". So i decide to give it a test run, by dumping a large sum of cash into my account and then go shopping with it. What do I then find? That no shop i try to use it in actually accepts Visa Electron card. Please tell me what the use of a debit card is that you cant use in a shop? NOT EVEN IN HARRODS!!! So then i decide to do what any logical human being would do, but remove the cash and put it into my friendly student bank account.

Time passes by and i decide that maybe it will be useful to have a cheque book with my Abbey account. So I ask at the counter, only to be told to go and hassle some nitwit in a call centre down a phone in a booth in the corner of the branch. Low and behold, what do i get, but a complete barrage of idiocy: "Sorry sir, but you have to credit your account with £250.00 every month for 6 months before we can give you a cheque book."


Forgive me for thinking this, but isnt it normal for any bank account holder to be given a cheque book as a right? So I enquire further and it appears that you arent happy because my account has been dormant for 2 years or so.

Well surely if you offer me NO cheque book, NO student services, NO banking services and NO credit then what incentive do you think there is for me to deposit any funds in my account, than merely to add funds to cover the cost of impending direct debits.

Moreover, if i asked for credit now you would ask so many probing questions and have so little understanding of anything other than your own situation that i would be wasting my time. It seems to me in fact that Abbey National like all banks only offer money to people with money or people with ordinary and jobs which bring in £200.00 per week like yourself.

Please, Mr Bank Manager give me one good reason why i shouldnt have settled up my account and gone elswhere?

Yours faithfully,

The Disgruntled Customer - who swore down the phone at you yesterday!!!!

Summary: