God save the Queen! We are so happy to be living in the glorious UK. We love it here.
God save the Queen! We are so happy to be living in the glorious UK. We love it here.
Member since:27.11.2005
Reviews:5
First off, let me state that I am not attemting to throw mudballs at Barclays. I believe that they are, as far as banks go, fair in their practices. Fair, as in good sometimes, rubbish other times.
In this particular case, they were rubbish to us. Let me explain. About 2 months ago, on a Sunday afternoon, I wanted to take my son to McDonalds for an ice cream. When I tried to draw money, the machine swallowed my card. I immediately called the stop card number and the calm, friendly, helpful gentleman helped me sort the problem out. He said that the card had been suspended, due to possible fraudulent activity. Now, it is important to note that the Barclays computers suspected fraud and stopped the card.
The gentleman then informed me that all of my money had been withdrawn. What a shock. Yes, it was only £190, but to us, it was the last of our money, seeing as my wife and I were both unemployed. Apparently, someone had cloned our card and stole the money. We went and saw the branch in Harlow and they just shrugged their shoulders. They had us fill in some forms and promised that we'd be refunded once the investigation was complete.
We filled everything in, sent it off and did exactly what they asked us to do. Today, I got an absolute bum wrap of a letter. The woman at their fraud department justwrote a very short, abrupt letter. Basically, she said that it is our problem and there is no way that someone could have gotten our money without our card and PIN. WHAT! The guy at the stop card line told us that our card had been cloned and that the Barclays COMPUTERS issued a caution. How could she just shrug us off. The money was withdrawn on a Saturday night from a tesco Express in Theydon Bois, a place we'd never even been to.
The point of the matter is that the Barclays fraud department never even used any option to see who too our money or how. They looked at our case, bum wrapped it and sent us a snotty, cold letter without a return address or contact info. This is very very poor form indeed. To make matters worse, I couldn't even lodge a complaint because I apparently got one of my security answers wrong. When I went to see the bank, they asked for my home number and I found that the person who entered it put in the BANK's number as MY home number!!!!! What the!? How incompetent are these people? Their systems are so secure that I can't even lodge a complaint, but they let other people get away with stealing MY money!!!
So, our case isn't over yet (for us anyway). We've gotten a raw deal from Barclays and mrs Diane West at their fraud department. Why, I ask you, would I steal my own £190 and put my 2 little children and wife through so much trauma and heartache?
I'm not saying that you shouldn't use Barclays. They seem to be caught in the same 100 year old mentality that banks were at the dawn of the last century. They're so caught up in red tape and procedure, that they forget and rob the individual through bank charges. There are many people that have had good and even awesome experiences with Barclays. I'm sure I can say the same of many other banks. In the end, I suppose, it doesn't matter which bank you deal with, but which person!
So, bank with Barclays, but be careful with your card. In the end, you'll just get brushed off and sent a letter, implying that YOU'RE the criminal here....
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Hi Elenar, I got my card cloned too (see review) and got the opposite treatment from my bank. I'd switch if I were you. Kieran
mattygroves 20.04.2006 09:13
I have to say, we've been Barclay's customers for years (for the whole time I've been in the UK), and I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly - whilst when we did get our chequebook and guarantee card stolen, they were very good, and they've always called me when they've noticed large transactions on the card (always legit, I have to say), they were b'stads when we had financial problems that we were trying to sort out - they kept making it worse by charging us £25 per letter, and then when I received a large US dollar cheque, they refused to credit us with the amount straight away...because we had no money - first they tried to claim they'd lost the cheque! *sigh* Sorry to hear about your experience - you may want to talk more about 'normal' banking with Barclays if you're chasing the higher ratings - you write well! Cheers.
Moogiekupo 16.03.2006 19:00
I have been a customer for 20 years. They have it's good thing and bad thing like all other banks - Kupo x
Advantages: 'Big' bank. Personal account gives some real added features which other banks do not Disadvantages: Online banking is the future, but is there system secure?
endicojr 04.12.2000 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Barclays Bank
Advantages: Efficient, Good Variety of products, Best offered Cash ISA 2 years running Disadvantages: Try and sell you products that are not always beneficial to you.
BTreyo 18.04.2008 (18.04.2008)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of BarclaysBank Accounts
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Mar 16th, 2006
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