Barclays Bank community accounts - avoid at all costs. (Barclays Bank)

Member Name: troubled treasurer

Product:	Barclays Bank
Date:	19/06/09 (149 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: account with large mainstream bank

Disadvantages: incompetent service - IF you can ever manage to get them to do anything

Barclays Bank community accounts - avoid at all costs. I have recently taken over as treasurer of a small charity. I knew the accounts were in a mess but assumed it would be easy to sort things out, as soon as I could gian account access - it still maybe, but after 3 months and numerous hours listening to tinkly music I still am wasting all my efforts on sorting out the bank account rather than the money. I have manged to complete the mandate transfer, change the address, and get the account name corrected (each a mini-saga involving hours of my time) but phone and electronic banking are not established yet and I still have the direct debit fiasco to even get started on. I am now beginning to understand why the previous treasurer failed. The basic problem is that everything about the account has to go though a "relationship manager" and one has not been assigned because the staff turnover is so high/they are so short staffed. Added to this they make mistakes at every turn, which can only be sorted out by the non-existent relationship manager. So, I suspect basically that this is a forgotten corner of Barclays and I would strongly advise any charity to avoid it and instead use a bank which is actually interested in the sector.

Summary: avoid