Last week I ventured back into the Dark Ages when I decided to close my Internet Savings Account with the Post Office because they were unable to give me a decent interest rate. (They offer a good rate to new customers but cannot transfer existing ones onto it for reasons that completely baffled me.)
So I phoned them up, went through all the security verification to prove who I was before being told that I needed to write to them in order to close the account, as they needed to compare my signature with the one they had on record. I protested that I was only asking them to transfer the funds into my nominated bank account (that they already had the details of), but soon discovered that I was wrestling with fog.
I gave up and sent them a letter. Yesterday I received a reply which asked me to send another copy of my signature because they did not after all, have the original one (that I used to open the account) on file.
I have duly complied with their request, but my brain hurts from puzzling over what exactly they intend to compare with what.
My next door neighbour, on the other hand, after being refused a loan for £5000 from his bank, went to "Lending Expert" for a loan and found them to be very helpful.
Laithwaites Wine once again proved their customer service second to none when they sent me a free delivery voucher to apologise for a trivial mistake on my account. Imagine that sort of service from your electricity supplier.
More Customer Service gripes and praises coming soon
5 comments:
I presume they have a minor point here: you have sent a request but they don't know it came from you; this way they can be sure that the original letter came from someone who lives in the address they know does belong to the account owner?
I still admit it is strange. People in Britain don't trust things like photo ID? Over here in Nordics, the government scheme for authenticating citizens over Internet failed miserably (as so many government projects do, although ours appears to be more trustable that the British government) and now banks are starting to act as authentication agents for government agencies (instead of the other way round). Despite all the complaints about bankers, here they have been overwhelmingly more efficient than the public sector.
Lucky you don't live in the Emirates, Frank. I have has cheques returned because the signature isn't an exact match to the one on the bank's records - as if every signature should be a carbon copy of the original!
Even worse, when I applied for a loan from my bank, they requested copies of my last three statements ... from their own bank!
My girlfriend recently closed her Post Office account. They made it easy, but weirdly sent the cheque to her parents home. Despite checking all of the records we haven't been able to work out where they got that address from since she's never lived there!
Because, Frank, people tend to be upset when accounts are emptied by fraudsters who have a convincing story on the phone......
Such type of savings accounts is designed in order to help the individuals to make savings for upcoming expenses related to medical expenses without acquiring any taxes
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