Throw loyalty out the window

I left Santander due to their awful tv ads with button, Ennis and Rory. Couldn’t be associated with a brand who produces that level of garbage

I was a loyal customer until my building society left my local town. I generally keep all products with one bank for ease now, e.g. current, joint, savings and isa. With interest rates so low, ease of banking is more of a priority.

Switch to Metro Bank after HSBC kept on telling me they were cancelling my card due to fraud activity every time I phoned them to say I was due to fly out of the country, despite never having any fraud detected on my accounts. They just happened to always say, ‘we were just about to phone you’. No good when you are at the airport. Numerous complaints just fell on deaf ears. Large banks don’t need to care when they have such a massive customer base. Now Metro bank is a complete different kettle of fish. They are great. Local call centres, no overseas transaction fees on withdrawals. When I had a problem in China where I tried to take cash out at several machines, but the machines didn’t dispense any cash yet still debited me, a phone call to Metro bank got my money back in a few hours. No large bank can do that or is willing to do that. They are open late and on weekends. If I need anything, I can just walk in and they will sort it there and then. Even issue new cards on the spot. They may not offer good interest rates for current accounts, but that is not what I am after. Service and availability is worth so much more.

As a Lloyds TSB customer I am left in a difficult position. My branch, the one where I lived 12 years ago and never visit is to become a TSB or until it is hawked on the market to another bank.
My local branch is to become a Lloyds and in order to remain a Lloyds customer, the bank I originally chose after all, I have to apply as a new customer with all the hassle involved.
Lloyds have no apparent plan to ease my transition yet there must be thousands of customers in a similar plight. So much for loyalty!
The breakup is allegedly to increase competition and choice yet customers are not being offered a choice. What happens when another major bank buys TSB? Back to square one!

My husband & I had both banked with NatWest since we left school in 1983. I worked for them from 1983 – 1990. Up to 2010 that is 27 years of loyalty from both of us as individual customers and then joint account customers from 1993. We had an impeccable record of account management up to that point and were Private Banking Customers and had our mortgage with them. Oct 2008, one month after their owners RBS were bailed out by the government, we were offered a loan £38,000 by Private Banking based purely on income. I was concerned about the level of debt we already had outstanding and thought it better we look at adding the funds to our mortgage as we had just under £100,000 equity. The monthly payment would have been a lot more manageable. But the member of the Private Banking Team, who no doubt earned commission on the sale of the loan, pushed us to take the product as the funds would be in our account in 48 hours (adding to the mortgage would take a lot longer) and we could look at a reduction in the monthly payment should the BOE Base Rate reduce, which it did shortly after taking the loan out. All that happened was we were pushed back into more debt as we found the monthly repayments a struggle and by the end of 2010 needed the help of our Private Banking Relationship Manager to reorganise our finances. Supposedly being ‘Britains Most Helpful Bank’ and with 27 years of loyalty and in excess of £100,000 equity on our property you would think we would get the help. Instead Private Banking removed our overdraft facility, told me how nice it would be when my mother-in-law dies and my husband and I come into her inheritance, were exceptionally rude about temping work and refused to look at reducing the loan repayments even though we were ahead of our repayment schedule. Our accounts were moved to their Risk Management and in order for us to eat and pay bills we opened an account with Barclays to have our salaries paid in. My husband was in full time employment on a decent salary and I had started a temping role, hopefully leading to permanent work. However, Risk Management only operate the hours of 9-5 Mon-Fri & bowing to the pressure via messages left on my mobile, had to speak with them during this time. Apparantly e-mail and letters were not an option!!!. This disruption lead to loss of my job as I could not get a mobile signal and had to ask to use the office telephones. Now in 2013 and thanks to numerous PPI complaints being upheld, other than the loan, we are now debt free. Unfortuantly the loan is now in default (repayment plan has been set up) as the loss of my job has caused problems finding new work and the repayments were frozen while the FOS reviewed our complaint submitted in 2011 which I am very disappointed to say has not been upheld. As this whole dreadful scenario has had an impact on my health and relationships I am now closing this whole sorry episode and moving on, but my message to you all. Loyalty counts for absolutely nothing and switching banks is going to be so easy. Find a bank who will be there for you in good times and bad and not slam the door in your face when things go wrong. NatWest came incredibly close to destroying my life but I wasn’t going to let that happen and now I am in a much better place. They have lost all of our daily banking business and when the damage to our credit report is repaired will lose our mortgage as well. To them we were just a number not human beings who like many people these days had lost their way and needed help to get back on track. Shame on them.