The Invisible Bank Manager (Lloyds TSB)

Member Name: Festa

Product:	Lloyds TSB
Date:	14/11/01 (100 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of local branches, Pleasant staff in the branches

Disadvantages: Trying to speak to the manager is impossible, Charges are higher than some other banks, Inaccurate information provided by telephone banking

Lloyds TSB, the bank where you have to pay £10 per month for the bank manager to do absolutely nothing!

I was introduced to the world of business banking with Lloyds TSB in March of this year and received a glowing report of the services. Unfortunately just after I started dealing with them, the wonderful bank manager that the company had dealt with for the previous ten years of their existence went to higher places.

BRANCHES
Since the two banks merged, there seems to be branches in almost every town and city that I have visited. Even in the Cotswolds where there is only one bank in the village you will find, more often than not that it is Lloyds TSB.

In fact in one North East High Street, there are two branches within 4 doors of each other.

On the plus side, the four branches that I have used on a reasonable service when it comes to paying money in or having to draw money out (so from a personal banking point of view where you operate a simple bank account it may not be quite so bad). The queueing time is usually a couple of minutes at the most. The staff themselves are always pleasant too.

TELEPHONE BANKING
This is where the problems arise for a group of companies operating several different accounts.

Flaws discovered so far:
* calling the service on a Friday afternoon to check what receipts you have received by BACS that day can be incorrect. Fact - we knew of one BACS receipt that had definitely gone into our account but the person on the other end of the phone didn't. Another call to a different person one minute later informed us that we had six receipts that day. From zero receipts to six in a minute - a miracle had occured!

* a call from the bank because their staff couldn't trace a receipt appearing on our own bank statement produced by them!

* this helpline is the only way you can now contact your branch and when they try to transfer you they can't get throu
gh. Instead they promise to send a fax to your branch to ask them to contact you .... but nobody ever returns the call!

SERVICE FROM THE BANK MANAGER
Obviously if the telephone business banking service can't contact him - neither can you! Unless of course you still have the mobile number of your previous manager (who is now his senior). But even when you finally speak to him and he promises you the earth, there is no end result after 10 weeks!

CHARGES
The company for the past four months has been charged a fee of £20 per company for a personal banking service (4 companies mean £80 per month wasted).

Other charges for transactions are slightly higher than some of the competitor's banks (which I have been reviewing with the intention of changing banks).

SUMMARY
From a strong banking relationship until about 8 months ago, the group's relationship has deteriorated so badly that we already have one company with a rival bank.

Maybe this is just one bad bank manager and we happen to have found him. And maybe we alone have experienced a very poor telephone bank service. Unfortunately if our companies gave that level of service we would be staring liquidation in the face.

Summary: