Biggest load of useless *ankers in Edinburgh ? (Banks! Aarrrggghhhh!)

Member Name: sidneygee

Product:	Banks! Aarrrggghhhh!
Date:	21/11/01 (157 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: £150 !!!, Our son learned something

Disadvantages: Aggrrrrrravation !!

On 24 September 1999 our son (then 18 years' old) opened a Current Account, just before starting his first year as an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh.

He chose to open an account with the Bank of Scotland partly because of the convenient location of the Branch at the University (for paying in cheques, etc.), but also because he actually believed the assurances given in their advertising literature indicating that, although he would receive no 'freebies', he would get a better service. Indeed, their slogan at the time was "Beware of the Freebie Jeebies". Our elder daughter had also a variety of minor problems with her accounts with Barclays and the TSB in Edinburgh, and our younger daughter's opinion of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Oxford was not high.

Very soon, he became very disenchanted with the service that he received.

My son shows many of the characteristics that I showed when I was his age (Oh, you poor wee girls at the University of Edinburgh !!!). A prime example is that he will generally NOT take the advice that I offer him.

Thus, when he opened the Account, he declined the invitation from the Branch to make arrangements for overdraft facilities because he did not expect to have need of them. Now I would have taken the overdraft and invested it (7% was available at that time !!). However, he has a fear of debt and, apart from my (VERY generous) allowance, he is a keen semi-professional musician. He earns a bit from gigs and will even resort to busking on Princes Street with his fiddle if he is short of cash. (Don't you dare mock !! He can turn in at least £40 for a couple of hours playing when the weather is decent !).

Problem No 1
Anyway, he also completed and handed in an application for a Bank of Scotland Credit Card on opening the Account. Having received no acknowledgement of this application, after about 4 weeks, he made enquiries at the Branch,
to be told that they "had no record" of his application. Another application form was filled out and eventually, after two months, his card arrived. This compared very unfavourably with the issuing of credit cards to all his student friends at other Banks (even taking into account the Branch 'losing' the original application). Minor irritation ... but slightly worrying ....

Problem No 2
His first bank statement, dated 22 October gave him a little ‘shock’. He was mystified to see that he had been first of all credited with a sum of £1900 on 3 October, which had then been 'corrected' (and removed) on 11 October. Needless to say, he had received no letter or other explanation for this at the time.

Obviously, if he had checked his balance between those dates he might have assumed that his Dad had had a 'fit of extreme generosity' and made him an extra 'donation'. Indeed I was actually finishing a period working in Argentina at that time and it is, indeed, quite conceivable that I might have got real pissed at the Druid In in Buenos Aires (as was occasionally my want) and done such a thing (???). So he might then have spent at least part of this money in good faith. Well ... at least that made us smile ....

Problem No 3
We had bought a flat in the Marchmont area for our elder daughter to stay in whilst at Edinburgh University and, after our son had decided to stay in Edinburgh, we had hoped that she would allow her 'dear little brother' to have one of the rooms there whilst she was in her final year.

Some Hopes !!!. I cannot write the sort of innuendo that she uttered in her process of rejecting that idea. We thus accepted that he would have to move into a Hall of Residence or a University student flat for the first year and a share of such a flat was all that was offered by the University Fortunately, the costs were, in effect, paid by the rental obta
ined from letting out the room that he would have occupied in Marchmont.

He thus completed a Direct Debit mandate from his current account, for paying the rent to the University of Edinburgh with the sum of £229.78p to be paid on 28 October, and £229.77 to be paid on subsequent months until the end of the University year. Subsequently, he received a copy of the Agreement with the University, which included a reference number.

A sum of £250 was paid in to open the account, ample to settle the first direct debit on 28 October. He received no communication from the Bank of Scotland at all until, on Friday 26 November, his second Bank Statement arrived, together with the separate "Account Maintenance Charge £8.50" notice (?).

The statement itself showed a single direct debit deduction of £250.54, putting the account into over-draft of 54 pence, but there was also an entry that completely mystified him (and me when I saw it). This was "RETD S O CHARGE" of £25.00, placing his account into a temporary overdraft of £25.54 (plus an Account Maintenance charge of £8.50. A further £800 or so had then been credited to his account via the Student Loan on 2nd November, so the account had been put into credit.

The Direct Debit reference number was very different from that given by the University so, on our advice, he contacted the University Accommodation office. He established that they had no record of any payment from him, and that the Direct Debit relating to his tenancy had been "returned unpaid" by the Bank of Scotland. This therefore seemed to explain the rather cryptic entry on the Statement and the charge made (but it wasn't an "S O" that had been "RETD", but a "D D" (?!!?).

So, thus there were at least three issues to be addressed.

1 Why had the bank paid £250.54 to the University, under a reference number for a Direct Debit that he had not
knowlingly signed ?

2 Why had the Bank not queried the request for two Direct debits from the University on the same day ?

3 Why had the Bank not contacted him, for clarification of the problems, but immediately putting him into over-draft and returning a Direct Debit unpaid ? Certainly I would have expected that to have occurred (and a further fee imposed for the issue of the letter ?).

A telephone call was made to the branch explaining the conundrum (with reference numbers given) and a meeting arranged for the following Monday morning with a representative of their so-called Customer Services Manager.


I accompanied my son to this meeting on 30 November (for the entertainment value more than anything else !). At the start of the meeting the woman (no lady her !) checked my son's account, to find that both the authorised and the unauthorised Direct Debits had been debited to his account again on 29 November !!

It seemed to me very difficult to understand how this chain of events could occur, when even a cursory check of the situation would have shown that a payment had been made from my son's Account which had not been authorised by him.

She immediately blamed the University, suggesting that the Bank had "other similar problems", but that she would "sort it out", and ensure all charges would be credited back to the account.

Whose fault?
I was , to say the least, furious with the University, and accompanied my son to the Accommodation office, complaining in the most vociferous terms. The Administrators were non-plussed, saying that they would "liaise with the Bank".

A week went by, then another ... no noises from either parties. He telephoned the University .. and the Bank branch... and eventually, the University told him (in no uncertain terms !) that it had not been their fault ....

THEN, on Monday 13 December, he received an
Invoice from the University Accommodation Service demanding £1808.40, the full remaining rental on the flat, with payment described as "NOW due". The issue and terms of this Invoice implied that it was because he had not complied with the original terms of the Agreement (in other words, the direct debit request for £229.78 in October had not been honoured), then the whole balance of the rent for the year was now due. Furthermore, he "might not be eligible" for a 5% concessionary discount allowed for making either direct debit or pre-payment arrangements.

Furious ? well I was LIVID when he telephoned me, and I immediately went to see the (different) Customer Services Manager at the University Branch with my son. A telephone call was made to the University, the demand was withdrawn and, on my suggestion, the matter of the one owing payment corrected by my son issuing a cheque to be paid into the University account immediately. So simple to sort out .... (Huh !!)

Explanation ?
Eventually, by mid-January, we did get an explanation, and the Bank, although initially less-forthcoming and trying to play down the problems that they had caused, admitted that the mistake was entirely on their part. But it took a stiff letter to their Head Office in Perth to produce the full explanation that we had been seeking, an unconditional apology, and an offer of compensation.

The mistake occurred when two students had been given the same account number. This explained the 'mystery' £1900 referred to above. That mistake was found (no doubt as a result of someone asking where their £1900 was !) by 11 October. This person was given a new Bank Account Number and a suitable apology. However, no checks were made to see if that person had issued any Direct Debit mandates, and not even a cursory check had been made on my son's account, compounding the 'lack of care' provided by the Bank of Scotland, and making a
nonsense of their advertising claims.

Initially my son was offered a desultory £50 compensation, that (on my suggestion) was rejected. This was soon increased to an offer of £150, which he accepted. Myself I would have hung out for an offer of the complete value of the Direct Debit incorrectly refused.

So there you have it - certainly IMHO, the Bank of Scotland were the biggest load of useless *ankers in the vicinity of the University of Edinburgh in 1999. And if you have similar problems a Bank, I suggest that you ask for an outrageous amount for compensation, and then haggle ...

The principal problems with the organisation were:
the unwillingness, all the way along, to admit that they were in the wrong ...
their conceit ... and
their intrinsic insistence that all was well that (eventually) ended well (" .. after all, as soon as you pointed out the problem to the branch, the charges were removed ...." - that is a quote from the second letter from the Branch ... er ... well no ... the Gee boys (young Siderney & Son) don'y quite see it THAT way ...

Mind you, our son was obviously very happy. Gave him a topic of prime conversation apart from Vauxhall Novas ... Shetland fiddle music .... Solid-Edge Mechanics ... the obtuseness of mathematics as a tool ... and how he obtained funding for about 75 extra pints of Draught Guinness from the Teviot bar ....

© Sidneygee 2001

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