Aral Balkan

I'm writing this blog post while on hold to the Co-operative Bank which I left in June.

Or thought I'd left in June.

It's easy to think such a thing when you walk into your bank branch, tell them that you want to close your accounts, zero out your balances, and get told by the branch staff that all your accounts are closed.

Fast forward to July 1st when I get a letter from one Val McCarren, Head of Managed Accounts at the Co-Operative bank, informing me:

even though there wasn't enough money in your account, I've had to pay the following items for you and your account is now overdrawn without prior agreement

The charge in question? A payment of close to £600 (about $1,200) made to Radisson Hotels -- get this, on July 2nd with my bank card.

WTF?

So someone made a payment, using a card which I had cut up and disposed of, belonging to a bank account that was closed?

Support rep: "Well sir, the account isn't closed."

Me: "I saw a member of your bank staff close the account in front of my eyes and I was told that the account was closed."

Support rep: "Yes, but it's not closed."

Me: "So can you tell me what you're going to do about this?"

Support rep: "Well, you need to..."

Me: "No, you misunderstood me, _I_ don't need to do anything. I closed my account. I did not make a transaction with a card on a closed account on July 2nd. The Co-operative bank has made a mistake. Now I want you to tell me what _you're_ going to do to fix it."

Support rep: "Well the account is overdrawn, we need to handle this situation... you need to talk to the Radisson..."

Me: "The account is overdrawn because you did not close the account when you said you did and then you honored what must be a fraudulent transaction. I am not going to waste any more of my time on this... Will you state for the record that the Co-operative bank made a mistake in not closing my account when I was told that it was closed."

Support rep: "Yes, sir, we admit that it was our mistake."

Me: "Good. Next: Have you noted that I did not make the transaction in question and that it is a fraudulent transaction?"

Support rep: "I can't do that sir, we're not a one-stop shop, you need to talk to our Fraud Department."

Me: "All right, transfer me to your fraud department."

After being transferred to the fraud department, I spoke with Emilia Park, who immediately accepted that they had made a mistake and that the account should have been closed on June 19th. She also told me that they would be refunding the transaction immediately, taking the matter up with the Radisson, and closing my account (permanently, this time, I hope.)

I didn't get the first support representative's name but she was completely unhelpful and made it sound like this colossal cock-up was my fault. I want to thank Emilia, however, who was apologetic and effective in resolving the issue in minutes.

Do you want to know why I left Co-operative Bank (or thought that I did, at least?) This is why! I was sick of having to deal with non-personal customer "service" and intolerable levels of incompetence.

I want nothing more at this moment than to never hear the name "Co-operative Bank" or be contacted by them ever again.

Go away, Co-operative Bank, and take your so-called "ethics" with you. If you were truly ethical, your ethics would start at home, with your customers. It clearly doesn't.

As a postscript: I've been phenominally happy with HSBC since I moved both my personal and business accounts there (I can't wait to finally close my account with Abbey National too!) When I go into the branch at HSBC, someone is always there to greet me. I get seen to within 5-10 minutes at most when I drop in. Most importantly, they haven't messed anything up and everything, so far, has just worked.

I don't have high demands from a bank. Just that the basics work and that they don't waste my time. Speaking of which, I'm going to get back to coding...

Comments

• And in all this you haven't even mentioned the spectacularly useless business accounts online banking system they use. 'Accumen' is its snappy name, and it's shocking. Regularly unavailable, or keels over and displays far too revealing error messages. I've had a business account for 4 years and it has been a painful experience most of the time. Best one was that they wouldn't give me an overdraft for several months when I opened the account. I was even happy to give them a personal guarantee, but no, apparently they considered an overdraft facility to be a 'start-up loan'! Quite how they reconcile that with the fact that I could have gotten an interest-free credit card from their own bank and spent 3 grand or so without anybody asking questions, I'll never know... Did you have a business account with them, or a personal one? Because friends of mine who use the Co-op for their personal current account say that the customer service is second to none, believe it or not!

  by Wolf Luecker on 2008-07-09 13:16:14

• We should all start recording these 'customer service' calls for our own entertainment. It would make for some hilarious listening. I had one to O2 the other day which I wish I had on tape. BTW Aral, how was the stay at the Radisson? :-)

  by Stefan Richter on 2008-07-09 13:12:51

• Dont even get my started on banks ... Natwest business banking is criminal ... quite literally with their entire service seemingly set up to make it as hunamly difficult as possible to operate as a business. It has often taken weeks - YES I KID YOU NOT - weeks !!!!!!! - to resolve something as simple as debit card replacements. And thats not even goeing anywhere near that fact that a removal request of a name from the mandate took over 2 YEARS (yes that's not a typo i did say YEARS)to resolve. Anyone who works for Natwest should in my opinion ne rounded up and shipped off to the nearest desert island because the world will be a much better a less stressful environment without them !

  by pete on 2008-07-09 13:53:46

• My experience has been the opposite with the banks in question. I had accounts with HSBC and moved to an area where phone / internet banking was paramount. I had been with HSBC for about 13 years, since they were Midland Bank, but got fed up with constant cock-ups over internet banking and decided to switch banks. Moved to Coop bank - for ethical reasons and I they have been pretty good with me. I don't have any branches nearby, but the only thing I need a branch for is stationery, which is a bit slow to arrive and frustrating when you run out of "paying in" slips and have to sit for 2 weeks with a big cheque waiting to go in the bank. I managed to negotiate a discount in my overdraft charges recently - my fault, but the customer services person was open to me putting my case forward, so I knocked the charge down by 1/2. So far, I have found Coop's phone customer service to be pretty good. I never have to wait, the people are always courteous and on nearly all occasions, pretty on the ball, I only remember being slightly frustrated once, but again, this was a difference of opinion, not a cock-up. Internet banking is another matter, the way data is presented is confusing and inconsistent and after providing some feedback to the website staff, I received a fairly arrogant reply about why it was not possible to show the balance result for each transaction on the screen. Compared to HSBC's customer service, where it was often very difficult to communicate with the staff, Coop's service is a dream, I guess you got unlucky, but I am mostly happy with it.

  by Glen on 2008-07-10 08:41:31

• Hi Allen, I had them double-check and he showed me the screen stating that the account was closed. Next time, I'll get something in writing. You're right, it's a very important precaution. I did ask them to confirm that their systems had a record of the account closure and they did confirm that it did and they reminded the date (June 19th). Still, from now on, I'm going to get _everything_ in writing from huge corporations.

  by Aral on 2008-07-09 19:21:59

• Hi Wolf, (Great name, btw.) No, I had (have? huh? a personal account with them. And they were horrible. Maybe it's just the branch in Brighton, I don't know, but I had to wait for half-an-hour once without anyone even acknowledging my presence. Finally, when I went down to one of the staff members behind her desk, she made a point of informing me that she was helping someone else. Both the welcome stand and desks were empty in the branch during my various visits. (And they were completely unhelpful whenever I needed anything.) So, no, I didn't have a good experience with them at all and this just adds salt to the wound.

  by Aral on 2008-07-09 19:29:41

• Not that it makes what the bank did correct, back when you closed the account did you get something official from the bank stating so? Unfortunately I've had some problems like this in the past so I make sure that I either get something in writing or they tell me that I will be receiving a confirmation in the mail. I make sure to follow up if I don't get it in 4-5 days. It's a pain but it helps a lot when 3 years later you have some collection agency calling you about some electrical bill that was for after you moved out and they hadn't closed the account.

  by Allen on 2008-07-09 17:22:10

• Why, thank you (about my name). I agree, the Brighton branch staff are pretty rubbish. On the phone you sometimes get a competent person, but as you say, I've regularly been on hold for 20 minutes or so. On a Business account. I thought a preferential customer service was the whole point of having (and paying) for one. I must get it together and switch banks...

  by Wolf Luecker on 2008-07-09 20:50:21

• May I just say.. "AAAAAARRRGGGGHHH!!!!!" - The (UN) cooperative bank are driving me crazy! - they just tried paying one of my bills on the day its due but because there were no funds THE DAY BEFORE in my account they bounced it and asked for £19.50 for the privellige! Theres loads more besides, but this is the straw that broke the camels back.. Just needed to have a moan.... grr Happy banking everyone!! D

  by Darren on 2009-07-29 11:14:21

• I vividly remember clutching my Mom's hand as a child as she deferentially proffered Co-op stamp books worth 50p each to some grammer school type on the top floor of our local store. I have been brought up to hard working and meet my obligations. My own dealings with Smile and Co-op Financial Services have been too unsavoury to bore you with. I have repaid every penny – and some, yet still they are messing me around with premium rate calls to some other confused and exploited soul in India. The charges feeding frenzy that continues even today is symptomatic of a dearth of financial innovation and utter lack of social reasoning by the so called banking profession. By continuing to insist that Smile customers have an overdraft facility of £500 they are not facilitating credit but peddling debt. The clear evidence that Co-op's charges are amongst the most extortionate and punitive of any UK bank expose the Co-op's so called ethical stance to be no more than a marketing sham. I will not shop with the Co-op, bank with the Co-op nor will I let the bury me. Deference to 'the bank' is dead and therefore so is a fundamental pillar of their business model. Smile at that.

  by Joe Public on 2010-02-20 14:16:24