Bank with branches and proper customer service?
Discussion
Toaster said:
Slightly off topic but Banks give rubbish service, two people manning the desks a bouncer at the front desk who meets and greet asking if they can help but clearly can't, you spend 15 mins queuing which would only be 5 if the front desk greeter was on a till. Go and buy a coffee for £2.50 max wait time is 5 mins and you get dealt with by the first person you speak with.
Banks.....they want your money and give you nothing back !
The chap working the line at my local Lloyds last week turned out to be a "Senior Branch manager" no less.Banks.....they want your money and give you nothing back !
Like Toaster, I did suggest he would be better employed behind the counter, but that fell on stoney ground.
However I have a pension pot with Scottish Widows (part of Lloyds) and want to do a bit of maintenance / rationalisation / explore drawdown and amalgamate some other pots into SW.
A while back you could get a SW advisor to come to branch. Sadly that facility no longer exists. Probably deleted in the quest for an improved customer service experience. I spoke to them on the phone and was told I could "just do it all on-line". Don't think so. It's too much money to trust to the ether.
Anyway, the SBM took all my details and promised to call me last Friday with a solution.
Guess what?
No call.
Tossers!
PS Lately, the best Bank I use is, without fail, The Nationwide. helpful, friendly staff. Nothing is too much trouble.
LPA registered with HSBC 6 weeks ago. We are trying to switch to Lloyds. A new account has been opened, and a switch started. Current account and ISA.
Lloyds have just phoned me. HSBC have refused the switch.
I am on the phone to the HSBC switcher team, and they say they do not allow a switch to be initiated by an LPA holder, only by the original account holder!
Are they allowed to do this?
As far as Lloyds are concerned, it shouldn't be a problem.
We are no further forward, unable to access my aunt's money to pay her care home fees
Lloyds have just phoned me. HSBC have refused the switch.
I am on the phone to the HSBC switcher team, and they say they do not allow a switch to be initiated by an LPA holder, only by the original account holder!
Are they allowed to do this?
As far as Lloyds are concerned, it shouldn't be a problem.
We are no further forward, unable to access my aunt's money to pay her care home fees
clockworks said:
LPA registered with HSBC 6 weeks ago. We are trying to switch to Lloyds. A new account has been opened, and a switch started. Current account and ISA.
Lloyds have just phoned me. HSBC have refused the switch.
I am on the phone to the HSBC switcher team, and they say they do not allow a switch to be initiated by an LPA holder, only by the original account holder!
Are they allowed to do this?
As far as Lloyds are concerned, it shouldn't be a problem.
We are no further forward, unable to access my aunt's money to pay her care home fees
I would guess that any bank can stipulate what they allow customers can/can't do under their T&Cs - however, it does sound a bit odd that HSBC are refusing to accept instructions from a LPA holder. Can't think of their logic there. I suggest you go back and ask for it to be referred upwards, for someone to give you a clear explanation.Lloyds have just phoned me. HSBC have refused the switch.
I am on the phone to the HSBC switcher team, and they say they do not allow a switch to be initiated by an LPA holder, only by the original account holder!
Are they allowed to do this?
As far as Lloyds are concerned, it shouldn't be a problem.
We are no further forward, unable to access my aunt's money to pay her care home fees
Seems like HSBC customer service and HSBC switching team were both lying to me!
I got another call from Lloyds. The reason that HSBC refused the switch is because the details we gave on the Lloyds switching form don't match their computer records, plus the fact that the form was filled in by the attorneys (me and mum), not the account holder.
They were unhappy with 2 things:
The address we gave Lloyds for my aunt doesn't match their records. We gave the care home address, which is where she is, and is the address noted on the LPA documents. We asked HSBC to change the address when we registered the LPA. They haven't done this, still showing her old LA sheltered housing address. That'll explain why we haven't seen a bank statement for 3 months......
One (or both) of the attorney signatures don't match on the switch form and their records. When we registered the LPA, neither of us were asked to sign anything. The signature they have for mum is probably the one she gave when she opened her own HSBC account well over 40 years ago. They have my signature on file too, from a current account that I opened 42 years ago, and closed 10 years ago.
It's hardly surprising that our signatures have changed in 40 years, is it?
I can't believe the sheer incompetence of HSBC. If they had done what they were supposed to do, and what we asked them to do, when we registered the LPA, we wouldn't be having this problem now.
I wonder if they will close the accounts and give me a carrier bag of cash if I go to a branch? I doubt it, since they haven't sent us a replacement cheque book or debit card - unless they sent them to the stranger who's now living in my aunt's old house.
What a contrast to how Lloyds are doing everything they can. Mum will be moving her account from HSBC to Lloyds as soon as she can. In total, HSBC have lost £60k of business from 2 customers over 5 accounts. It could've been avoided if they had honoured the cheque that my aunt wrote several months ago.
I got another call from Lloyds. The reason that HSBC refused the switch is because the details we gave on the Lloyds switching form don't match their computer records, plus the fact that the form was filled in by the attorneys (me and mum), not the account holder.
They were unhappy with 2 things:
The address we gave Lloyds for my aunt doesn't match their records. We gave the care home address, which is where she is, and is the address noted on the LPA documents. We asked HSBC to change the address when we registered the LPA. They haven't done this, still showing her old LA sheltered housing address. That'll explain why we haven't seen a bank statement for 3 months......
One (or both) of the attorney signatures don't match on the switch form and their records. When we registered the LPA, neither of us were asked to sign anything. The signature they have for mum is probably the one she gave when she opened her own HSBC account well over 40 years ago. They have my signature on file too, from a current account that I opened 42 years ago, and closed 10 years ago.
It's hardly surprising that our signatures have changed in 40 years, is it?
I can't believe the sheer incompetence of HSBC. If they had done what they were supposed to do, and what we asked them to do, when we registered the LPA, we wouldn't be having this problem now.
I wonder if they will close the accounts and give me a carrier bag of cash if I go to a branch? I doubt it, since they haven't sent us a replacement cheque book or debit card - unless they sent them to the stranger who's now living in my aunt's old house.
What a contrast to how Lloyds are doing everything they can. Mum will be moving her account from HSBC to Lloyds as soon as she can. In total, HSBC have lost £60k of business from 2 customers over 5 accounts. It could've been avoided if they had honoured the cheque that my aunt wrote several months ago.
It looks like we've finally got this sorted. I went into HSBC on Thursday, saw the same person as we did when we registered the LPA. I explained that we had received nothing in writing since the previous visit (paper statement, internet banking activation code), and that a switch had been rejected.
The account was still registered at my my aunt's previous address, so all post was going there. I explained that we had informed them that she had moved into the care home in March. The new address was on the LPA paperwork, and we had asked her to change it. Her reply was that she assumed we had changed the address when she actually moved. She got a bit annoyed that we had complied with our obligation to keep the address data up to date.
In very simple words I explained that my aunt couldn't change the address herself, and we couldn't do it since we didn't have LPA. The only person who could've done it was my dad (who had LPA for his sister), but he was dying from leukemia at the time. He passed away 2 weeks after aunt moved.
Aunt's address changed, correspondence address changed to mum's, internet banking set up for me. 2 hours wasted, as all this should've been sorted on our previous visit.
The internet banking activation code still hasn't arrived.
On Monday, mum phoned the Lloyds switcher team to tell them that the address had been changed, and could they try again? Next morning I got a text to say that the switch had been accepted, completion with 7 days.
Mum will be switching her account from HSBC to Lloyds next time she goes into town.
The account was still registered at my my aunt's previous address, so all post was going there. I explained that we had informed them that she had moved into the care home in March. The new address was on the LPA paperwork, and we had asked her to change it. Her reply was that she assumed we had changed the address when she actually moved. She got a bit annoyed that we had complied with our obligation to keep the address data up to date.
In very simple words I explained that my aunt couldn't change the address herself, and we couldn't do it since we didn't have LPA. The only person who could've done it was my dad (who had LPA for his sister), but he was dying from leukemia at the time. He passed away 2 weeks after aunt moved.
Aunt's address changed, correspondence address changed to mum's, internet banking set up for me. 2 hours wasted, as all this should've been sorted on our previous visit.
The internet banking activation code still hasn't arrived.
On Monday, mum phoned the Lloyds switcher team to tell them that the address had been changed, and could they try again? Next morning I got a text to say that the switch had been accepted, completion with 7 days.
Mum will be switching her account from HSBC to Lloyds next time she goes into town.
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