Abbey is shit!

I hate Abbey. They have the worst customer service bar none. Loyal readers will recall previous problems with Abbey that resulted in them sending me a letter and giving me £160 as an apology. Well you would think that was the end of the sorry story but no, they seek new and innovative ways to piss customers off and they always manage to succeed!

There was a dodgy transaction on my card (no not porn, how dare you!) and Abbey called and said, do you recognise this, which I didn’t. So at least we know the fraud dept earn their pay cheque. They immediately cancelled my card and are sending me a new one. But what, said I, if I need money in the meantime? Go into a branch with your card or cheque book and one other form of ID and you can withdraw money said they.

So I did that today and they said, no you can’t!

The Sydenham branch of Abbey is the worst. There’s a woman in there that practically sucks her teeth at me every time I walk in because I had the audacity to be annoyed and say the service was appalling*. I queued up today, gave a bright and breezy hello, handed over my card and driving licence and asked to withdraw some money. The cashier told me I would need my cheque book, not my card because the card is cancelled. My response was, yes I know it’s cancelled, I just told you that! I pointed out that Abbey had told me that this would be ok, that I had valid ID – I also had other ID if they wanted to see that too – and previously when my card had been hit by fraud I had gone into a branch with the card and my driving licence and had had no problems withdrawing money...

But no, this time the rules had changed and no one could help. I would have to go all the way back home to get my cheque book.

The thing with Abbey is that I genuinely believe they don’t care. They are one of the biggest banks in the world and with banks and building societies going under left, right and centre, they know people will stay with them in the belief that customers, if faced with a choice, would opt for financial security rather than a decent service...

I can’t even change the account yet because of the mortgage being processed.

You know when you thought old people were a bit nuts for keeping their savings under the bed? Well actually they’re proving to be smarter than all of us put together!

*We tried to make an appointment, they told us they didn't make appointments, you just had to walk in. We walked in and they told us on two different occasions they couldn't see us they were (a) too busy (b) didn't have enough staff to serve us! We got so fed up with this that we called Abbey two months ago frustrated that we couldn't get an appointment at the local branch, and expplained we wanted to open up a joint account. They were delighted and said they would call us right back with appointment details. We're still waiting...