'Apartheid' call system filters out poor Barclays clients

[minestrone]

I wish lloyds would do the same.

[Clippy]

P.S. Has anyone anything bad to share about First Direct? Their customer service always seems to be first class to me. You do get Scottish operators, but you can understand them and whoever you get always seems to be clued up and helpful. Very little in the way of a hard sell before you end the call too.

Another fan of First Direct.

Moved back to them a few years ago after about 20 years with Abbey/Santander where the service got progressively worse every year.

As you mention, nowadays, it's not just having to deal with overseas call centres but downright dumb staff in branches who haven't got a clue.

[Troll]

P.S. Has anyone anything bad to share about First Direct? Their customer service always seems to be first class to me. You do get Scottish operators, but you can understand them and whoever you get always seems to be clued up and helpful. Very little in the way of a hard sell before you end the call too.

I was actually customer 14 to sign up to FD way back when ...the only problem is their Scottish operators IMHO

[TheFaQQer]

P.S. Has anyone anything bad to share about First Direct? Their customer service always seems to be first class to me. You do get Scottish operators, but you can understand them and whoever you get always seems to be clued up and helpful. Very little in the way of a hard sell before you end the call too.

Some years back, someone paid money into my FD savings account. I never looked at the account, but over the year there was about £1400 paid in - I guess because they had set up the wrong direct debit. The child benefit goes into that account too, and when my family give me any money, it goes into that account. Periodically, I'd look at the balance on the summary page, and then move the balance to pay off a chunk of mortgage.

One night, FD rang me to say that someone had been paying the money in by mistake, and they wanted it back. I denied all knowledge of it, but agreed to repay the money over the same time period. They agreed.

Couple of hours later, someone different rang and told me that this wasn't good enough, they would take the £1400 immediately from my mortgage account because I should have known that there was money in there that wasn't mine, and it was my responsibility to check every payment in and out of all accounts, and if there was anything I wasn't sure of, I should ask them to check the transaction. After half an hour of arguing (I kept saying it was the responsibility of the person making the transaction and / or the person who was meant to be receiving the money to check they got it, rather than a random stranger), they basically said that they would take the money the next working day, so I had chance to make sure there was money there to pay the bill (this was now about 9pm Friday night).

So, not too good there.

I wrote a really sarcastic, stroppy letter about the situation and asked them to check EVERY transaction on ALL my accounts and let me know where the money had come from, where it had gone to, and why - their operator had said they would check any transactions I want to question, so I was questioning all of them. I told them I was distinctly unimpressed that they would ring at 9pm on a Friday night and demand £1400 with no working days to find the money.

Monday morning, they rang me to apologise, they had read the letter and listened to both conversations, and would I be happy with the original repayment plan to repay it over the course of the year.

So, good customer service all round really - I'd recommend them to anyone, having been with them for 7 years now.