The worst bank in the UK (Alliance & Leicester)

Member Name: jodyv

Product:	Alliance & Leicester
Date:	18/03/09 (113 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: £100 incentive for opening a premier account

Disadvantages: Customer service, service in general

Banking with Barclays was always a pleasure, great phone service, you can speak to your branch like you can with any high street bank (reference previous review), short wait to answer the phone....but then they bought out the Pinsentry device. This requires the banker to have this calculator style verification device on them in order to access on-line banking and perform transfers.

I decided to move to A&L after seeing their £100 incentive. I opted for the automatic route in which they migrated all my standing orders, DD etc...across without any issues. This was the first problem; they cancelled payments on my Barclays accounts but didn't activate them at the A&L end. They also started payments at the A&L end without cancelling them at the Barclays end. This resulted in missed payments in some scenarios and double non-refundable in others. I complained about the mess up and A&L denied it was they're fault. They insisted it was all Barclays fault....so I called Barclays. Without prompting they advised A&L had cancelled two standing orders which they claimed they hadn't. They also confirmed A&L had requested other cancellations but not till the end of the month. When I called A&L back they still insisted they were right and denied fault.

They also messed up setting up my savings account, taking 6 months to set up a e-saver account due to claimed back-logs. The account requested no longer exists and they can only apologise.

I have also dealt with a number of difficult call centre reps who are quick to pass me over to another department even though the issue is their responsibility.

One Saturday I received a voicemail message on my land line from A&L asking for an immediate response. I called them up and as I didn't have an account number at that time they became very difficult insisting they couldn't do anything without an account number. The conversation became heated and they finally agreed to search on postcode and surname. I was then informed I needed to speak to the switching department but there was a long call queue. I waited 40 minutes to speak to someone. When I called up on Monday I was informed the switching department is closed on the weekend. I logged a complaint and never heard anything back.

My parents also switched and are moving back to their original bank and I will be doing the same.

A&L lack customer service and really don't listen. They never once apologised or accepted fault. Do you really want this kind of bank handling your hard earned cash?

Summary: A&L need to review their customer service techniques and training.