Schizophrenia
It's funny how schizophrenic banks can be.
The other day, whilst on the phone to mine, cap in hand, begging for them to lend me vast sums of money (i.e. sorting out my mortgage), they were a delight. A nice, friendly girl guided me through everything and then agreed I could have some of their money. Wonderful. Banks are great when they sense they are going to make a killing from you on interest, and so put their nicest people onto the phones.
Today I tried the opposite - getting them to give back some money they had incorrectly taken. This was the opposite experience. Last week I cancelled a Direct Debit, but yesterday they let the money go out anyway. So I called up Customer Service (their term, not mine) and spoke to a lady with such a thick Scouse accent that I could barely understand a word she was saying. I actually had to ask her to repeat several things. Basically, she didn't want to give me my money back, but wanted me to goto the company that had taken the money (incidentally, that was another part of Natwest). I said I thought this was covered by the Direct Debit guarantee, which she claimed to have never heard of. Vowing to find out and ring back, I hung up.
A brief bit of research on t'Internet soon showed me that the bank was indeed in the wrong, and was supposed to immediately give me back my money.
Armed with my new knowledge I called back and got a man with a Brummie accent, which is slightly preferable to the Scouse from earlier. I tried a slightly different tack of "Hi, I want my money back under the Direct Debit guarantee, please." from the off. This worked, but he tried to tell me it would take at least 48 hours. I said it should be immediate. He said this was. I said my dictionary must have a different definition of "immediate" to his and asked to speak to somebody with a more up-to-date edition.
I got passed to somebody else in a different department. He also tried to tell me 48 hours. I re-iterated that I did not want to be parted from my money (and my interest) for at least 2 days whilst they bank sorted out their own error. He then seemed to agree that this was their fault and said I could have it in 24 hours. That's good enough, so it ends there.
What a difference! Try asking for £70 quid back and it's a nightmare, but borrowing huge sums is as easy as pie.
The other day, whilst on the phone to mine, cap in hand, begging for them to lend me vast sums of money (i.e. sorting out my mortgage), they were a delight. A nice, friendly girl guided me through everything and then agreed I could have some of their money. Wonderful. Banks are great when they sense they are going to make a killing from you on interest, and so put their nicest people onto the phones.
Today I tried the opposite - getting them to give back some money they had incorrectly taken. This was the opposite experience. Last week I cancelled a Direct Debit, but yesterday they let the money go out anyway. So I called up Customer Service (their term, not mine) and spoke to a lady with such a thick Scouse accent that I could barely understand a word she was saying. I actually had to ask her to repeat several things. Basically, she didn't want to give me my money back, but wanted me to goto the company that had taken the money (incidentally, that was another part of Natwest). I said I thought this was covered by the Direct Debit guarantee, which she claimed to have never heard of. Vowing to find out and ring back, I hung up.
A brief bit of research on t'Internet soon showed me that the bank was indeed in the wrong, and was supposed to immediately give me back my money.
Armed with my new knowledge I called back and got a man with a Brummie accent, which is slightly preferable to the Scouse from earlier. I tried a slightly different tack of "Hi, I want my money back under the Direct Debit guarantee, please." from the off. This worked, but he tried to tell me it would take at least 48 hours. I said it should be immediate. He said this was. I said my dictionary must have a different definition of "immediate" to his and asked to speak to somebody with a more up-to-date edition.
I got passed to somebody else in a different department. He also tried to tell me 48 hours. I re-iterated that I did not want to be parted from my money (and my interest) for at least 2 days whilst they bank sorted out their own error. He then seemed to agree that this was their fault and said I could have it in 24 hours. That's good enough, so it ends there.
What a difference! Try asking for £70 quid back and it's a nightmare, but borrowing huge sums is as easy as pie.
posted by Nej at
4:08 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home