Lloydes tsb never again (Lloyds TSB)

Member Name: STACEY0526

Product:	Lloyds TSB
Date:	11/12/08 (253 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great customer services when you have money

Disadvantages: impolite, unprofessional, dont care attitude

Lloyds TSB now where do I start,

I started banking with Lloyds about 6 years ago after a good report from a friend and being informed of the variety of accounts including internet banking they offered to their customers it seemed like the best place I could hold an account, when I first started going customer service was second to none. I praised and recommended them to anyone that would listen. For 4 years I had great banking history, my wages went in bills came out but I never entered my overdraft,
It wasn't until I started having financial problems that the customer service went to 0 the staff didn't have the time to listen and as for the branch manager he wouldn't give me the time of day telling me my account had noting to do with him.

I will start at the beginning of my problems I had just given birth to my little boy, my maternity pay was coming in £200 a month short, my land lord was selling the house from underneath us and my partner wasn't able to work due to an amputation,
First thing I did when I notices that I wasn't getting my full maternity allowance was cancel all my direct debits and explain my situation to everyone in a hope that they would understand, everyone was great except for Lloyds, they cancelled all of my direct debits apart from 1 and for the trouble of sending me a letter stating that a direct debit for £11.00 could not be paid they charged me £145.oo. As I couldn't pay the £145 due as this was the majority of money I had coming in they charged me an extra £70.00 for convenience of not paying this charge. This was ongoing for a couple of months, during this time I had phoned the bank a number of times to try and explain my situation and ask for some help wich was to no avail, I had one particular member off staff in the call centre shout at me and tell me that I was in the wrong and I had to pay the whole amount off and no monthly instalments would be accepted,
Knowing that phone calls had not made any difference just increased my phone bill I decided to go into the bank and ask for help. Explaining that I had rent to pay I needed a deposit and a bond on another house to rent and going through my other situations they offered to write off a £70.00 charge as a gesture of good will, they accepted that I could only pay the account off in monthly instalments until the account was completely paid off or my situation changed an agreement was made. The member off staff that dealt with my case was very polite and extremely helpful but when I got home and the conformation letter came through the amount they were asking me to pay each month was far more than I could afford so I made an appointment to see the bank manager to see if he could authorise lower monthly repayments.

While waiting for my appointment to speak to the branch manager the amount in charges had reached near £2000, and passed to a debt recovery agent within Lloyds tsb or so I thought. The debt recovery agent still went under the name Lloyds tsb and the payments were made at my local branch through a Lloyds tsb paying in book which I was given when I opened the account, so I presumed that I was paying Lloyds tsb, so seeing the bank manager to claim that my bank charges were unfair and see if we could come to an arrangement was a good idea. When I got to the bank I was made to wait 30 mins to see him only to be told that it was another department within Lloyds tsb that was dealing with my account so there was nothing he could do or was willing to do (he made it very clear that he wouldn't help even if he could) and I should speak to the call centre again, Each time I called this no. I was held in a queue for at least 25 minutes and guess what I am still paying off the £2000 worth of charges but I have managed to get it down to an affordable payment each month

So my opinion of Lloyds is they are a great bank as long as you never need any help through having financial difficulty or need any kind of understanding as this is not the right place to go.

I have finally managed to open a basic account at Barclays where again I believe that the service given is 100% and staff are extremely kind and polite, all my bills are being paid and I have no overdraft and any missed payment only incur a £12.00 charge but even though this seems quite high it is nothing compared to the £175, the £145, and the never ending £70.00 charges I received from Lloyds, so beware who you bank with you could get stung

Summary: great bank as long as you never need any help through having financial difficulty or need any kind o