No Wonder Pensioners Panic

I got an e-mail this morning from a bank I use, offering an interest rate of 6% gross. Now as I only get 3.8% gross from my existing bank (The Abbey) this extra 2.2% is not to be sneezed at, especially as I rely on savings interest rates for my pension.

I started about 9am, after I’d completed all the housework J had asked me (told me ?) to do. I started filling in the forms online and half-way through realised I’d have to transfer some funds into my current account from my savings account in order to start up the new account with the other bank.

Easy-peasy. Just go online and use the ‘move money’ tab on the internet, which worryingly did not work a few weeks ago, but I’d received reassurance since then that it had been fixed. Nope! Not fixed. An error message saying the service was unavailable. The previous time, I’d been told it was a ‘technical problem’ and was easily fixed and as I was only transferring a small amount then it was not a problem – they did it manually.

This morning, because it was a larger amount, I immediately came to the conclusion when it did not work, that the Abbey did not want people moving money around, even between their own accounts. I called the Abbey hoping against hope that I would not get their Bangalore ‘Help Desk’ but I did. As usual, we went through all the problems I’d had and after about 10 minutes the guy said to hold on, he’d be back. Nope! Line dead. I was furious. The Abbey don’t have ‘normal’ numbers for people to call them, they only have 0845 numbers which cost about 20p per minute from France so I’d wasted about £2 already and I’d have to call back. This time I called the ‘technical help desk’ which has its own 0845 number and although still costing 20p per minute, at least you get somebody who doesn’t have to stick to a script like they religiously do in Bangalore.  

The girl was helpful but could not see a reason why my ‘move money’ request did not work. This is where I started to get a bit stroppy and it was also the point where if I’d been an 85 year old person whose life savings were with the Abbey that I would have started to panic. I’d read during the week, that despite all the positive press recently about the fact that the Abbey is one of the world’s best capitalised banks, it was still raising more money to protect itself from ‘any downturn in Latin America’. Add this slightly more pessimistic news to the fact that I couldn’t do anything with my money and you have CONCERN. Not PANIC, just CONCERN.

Eventually the girl transferred my money manually but only after another £4 telephone call.  Great – now to get on with transferring it to the new bank.

Back online. Filled out a few forms and pressed the button. ‘Sorry – we cannot complete the transaction……….your details do not pass the security tests’.

Back to the Abbey where another technical guy took my call and eventually found out (after another £6 on call charges) that my accounts were not in my name and that’s why the transaction failed. Now this is a bit of déjà vu – last year my accounts changed to my son Timothy’s name ( so using ‘T’ worked but using Thomas did not) and after several calls and a stroppy but humorous letter (both probably costing about £20) I got an apology, £50 and an assurance that it would be fixed. 

It was, for all of about 6 months. The guy apologised, changed all the details on the system and said my transaction to the other bank should now work. 

It did not! Cue glass of wine and a long long scream. Hence the picture.