helpful friendly people (Lloyds TSB)

Member Name: Eloise102

Product:	Lloyds TSB
Date:	27/06/02 (60 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: friendly and willing to help, excellent internet banking service

Disadvantages: lack of historic information, silly charges for small things

I have been with Lloyds bank for about 10 years now and I have to admit I am quite well satisfied with the service I get from them.

Some years ago I was going through a bad patch money-wise and Lloyds were extremely helpful once I got up the courage to actually speak to them. It's very difficult to take that first step but once I had done so they did everything they could (within reasonable expectations) to help me. Arranging finance consolidation at a monthly repayment that I could afford and generally reassuring me that they were not just out for my blood because I didn't have a great deal of money.

Now that I have got through that and have more money coming in etc of course they are more than happy to let me borrow more and more but that is the way of financial institutions everywhere. If you haven't got any money you can't borrow it and once you've got some they will throw it at you. Having worked in banking I can understand where they are coming from though, after all none of us would want to lend money to people we didn't think would pay it back and banks are no different.

Lloyds also have an online banking service which is improving all the time. At first you could only really check your balance and recent transactions but now you can pay bills, amend & cancel standing orders & direct debits, set up an overdraft, apply for a loan and check your credit card account as well. I use the internet service quite a lot and find it very useful in keeping track of my day to day expenditure. In know they also offer telephone banking but I haven't really used that so I cannot comment on it.

The only thing I don't like with Lloyds is the ridiculous charges they make for some small things. I wanted a copy statement recently but they were going to charge me £5 which I thought was excessive so decided not to bother. Also if you want information on your account from further back than 1 statement period they c
annot get it unless they order a copy statement and yes, charge you for it. I know other banks can look at historic information dating back up to 2 years or more so I think Lloyds could do with looking into changing this.

On balance though I would say that they are fairly good as banks go and the staff have always been extremely helpful and friendly so although I wouldn't give them a gold star (because of the above little niggles) they certainly get a silver one from me.

Summary: