Joanne: Don’t bank on the banks to be efficient

Sep 9 2010 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

I RARELY get so annoyed I vent it at someone who is just doing their job, but there’s something about dealing with banks which turns me from Jekyll to Hyde.

September for me is banking month – everything matures or needs to be paid at once. But it’s always a frustrating month because I don’t find banking easy, mainly because I think banks are run so inefficiently.

Customers’ needs most definitely do not come first.

Take a problem with my credit card. I signed up for it in 2007 and used it that year in Italy. At the time I ticked the box for the bank to take the balance right out of my account – in full – every month. I don’t do debt.

But before my freckles had faded I got a threatening letter with big red writing telling me I had to pay up or else! Someone at the bank didn’t tick the box at their end.

From 2007 until 2009 I didn’t use my credit card so it was a surprise at the end of last year, after using my account abroad once more, that I got another threatening letter.

Unbeknown to me the bank had listed my account as ‘dormant’. That basically means they don’t like me because I don’t get into debt and earn them a bit more money.

The dormant status also meant they had unticked the box which meant they didn’t take the full amount out straight away. Once again the letter with the big red writing came.

A phone call to the bank to get it sorted is where the annoyance sets in. Press button one for credit card services, enter your 16 digit number, enter your sort code, enter this, enter that ... then comes the ever so restless music over and over until 40 minutes later and I’ve got through two cups of tea, need the loo, ache because I’ve had my shoulder pressed to my ear with phone between – and still the music continues.

“I’ve had enough of this,’’ I most likely said aloud to myself because there was no-one else to talk to.

I got into the car, mobile still connected to the music and drove the four miles into the town centre. I parked up and walked into my bank.

By this time I’d been on hold 55 minutes and I decided to play the music aloud to the smiling woman behind the help counter. She knows my sort and walked me towards the phone on a desk.

I wasn’t surprised when she got straight through to someone who could help me – without having to press buttons or listen to music.

‘Can I help you madam?’ came a voice over the phone. The temptation was just too great, I put my mobile to the receiver and played her the music I’d suffered for one hour and eight minutes by this point.

It was resolved quickly but, sadly, it was not to last.

I was back there again this week for three simple jobs which, unfortunately, could not be done by the same person.

Wait in the queue to get a cheque to give to my parents from an account for which I have no chequebook – a bank transfer was not possible.

Then wait in another queue to speak to the woman at the desk who could change my address.

Then get into a third queue to use the dreaded phone to check that my credit card was not, once again, dormant. It was, I discovered, after the button pressing and music listening – at least they’d changed the song.

I’m too young to know of the ‘good old days’ when you could walk into a bank, speak to a human being and walk out feeling like you’d received a service, but I wish they’d come back – or at least answer their phones quicker.