Monday, May 17, 2004

Banks, doncha just love them. In February, thewife paid an amount into an account for me, I had lost the statement, but knew the amount and had the other details so it went through okay. At least I thought so. In March I received a phone call from the bank to tell me that my account was overdue, my first reaction was shit the cheque must have bounced. But no, there it was on my statement cashed and on time. So I phone them back and tell them, this is okay, but I will need to get my branch to request the return of the cheque to confirm where the money actually went. (Okay I know it doesn't physically go anywhere.) I have to go into the branch personally to do this. So I have a flexi day cos I a m going to the dentist, so I can go in then, I do and they advise that they will need to request a trace which can take up to 10 days. I phone the people who never got the payment back and explain this, so they put the details in their system and I assume I'll hear from the branch and I forget about. About a month later I get a call back from the bank that never got their payment to say that they haven't heard anything yet and that my account is still in arrears. I tell them the story again and tell them that I'll need to go back into my branch, which I can manage in a couple of days time. At the branch they take ages trying to find out stuff and get back to me explaining that there is no trace of the original trace request, so they will need to do it again, they have all the details printed out on a sheet though and it has definitely gone through, they suspect its in a holding account somewhere. I let the people waiting for payment know and tell them it will be sent to them.

I then get a letter in from them, telling me my account is in arrears and that they will charge me £ 20 for this. I don't fucking think so. I paid you, you lost it, serves you right for having so much fucking money in the first place. I phone them and politely inform them of this. The woman is really quite nice about and explains it'll be sorted when the trace is complete.

They have phoned me back twice so far, I think there's some big call centre where they take it in turns to phone me as a wind up. I have the story marked down to perfection dates and sort codes, the people, the works.

Anyway they phoned again today. I thinkChristt is this still not fixed. I phone my branch, I have the person's name I want to speak to. Instead I get Nigel with a Norn Iron accent, I immediately think call centre which he confirms. I tell him I want to speak to the person in the Irvine Branch and he asks me to spell it. "Is that Irvine in Scotland?" he asks. Yep. He says its a Bank Holiday in Scotland. Its not I tell him, it is next weekend but not today. He puts me through in seconds and I get the person I want to speak to at the local branch. She recalls what its about, takes my number and rings me back minutes later to say yes she has the trace through, unfortunately, they have only sent the front of the cheque despite a specific request for both bits. She takes the details of the other people, phones them, tells them stuff, phones me back again and tells me that it should all be fixed on Monday and she'll phone to let me know.Noww if she was doing the fixing at the other ends I believe it would be, but why am I not too sure on this one?


posted by timesnewroman at 11:39 AM  

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