I banked with the Abbey for all of 11 months. It was the worst 11 months of my life!!!!!!!!!!!
I was previously with the Halifax and unfortunately I encountered fraud on my account with them. Whilst Halifax were investigating I decided to open a new account and throght Abbey would be a nice change. Oh I was so wrong!
I applied for a current account, application was confirmed and I was told I would get a debit card with my account. Fast forward to 2 weeks later and a lovely shiny new CASHCARD ONLY card arrives on my doorstep! I called up to complain and was told that due to the fact I had told Abbey that I had been a victim of fraud at my other bank I could only have a cashcard. Anyway I had to stay with them as I needed a bank account for my wages to be paid in.
Wages got paid in and I proceeded to my local Abbey branch to withdraw my £600 rent payment. I get asked for ID and proof of address which luckily I had. No problems there.
Next month I went in to withdraw the same amoun again. Didn't get asked for any ID and got given the £600 I questioned this and the response was that my ID was verified by comparing my signature to that on the card.
Next month I went in to withdraw the rent again, I signed a slip and again was not asked for additional ID. I questioned this again and got the same response as above. I came back with " What if someone picks up my card, walks in, just signs a slip for the money and they get given it?" I was told this would be my problem as I should not lose my card!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????????? Excuse me, what about checking that the person withdrawing the money is who they say they are????!!!!
Going on to the telephone banking, well it's total rubbish. It took me 10 minutes to get through to the queue so that I could speak to a human being. After 30 minutes I would always get through to some eegit who has no idea what he is talking about and kept on telling me to read terms and conditions and that online banking was there to help me. Yes but online banking cannot answer a questions you need to know the answer to there and then!
Abbey's call centres are based in India and are useless. They never understood what I was saying and were a total pain. I even once got told that being a woman financial things might be hard for me to understand!!!!!
I even tried to upgrade the account to a Debit card yet they wouldn't accept the ID that I had. Funny that they accepted it when I applied!!!!!!!
After 11 months I went into Abbey to close the account at the local branch. The assistant asked my why I was cancelling and I replied by saying that the customer service was atrocious and that the account was no longer needed. The assistant said something under her breath and I told her I didn't want to get into a debate with her. Her exact response was " I don't want to get into a debate either, I suggest you think more carefully in the future when opening a bank account as obviously we're not good enough for you, you've wasted our time" I lost the plot at this stage and told her of all the problems I had had.
In summary this bank is rubbish, the customer service is atrocious and non-existent. DO NOT BANK WITH ABBEY!!!!!
by (78%):
16.05.2008 15:47
Good review...