It's been a while since I had anything to rant about - is that good or bad? - but today's the day.
This one started off as a specific moan about the treatment we are getting from a well-known Spanish bank - the one that took over a fondly remembered British Building Society, with whom we had held our first and subsequent mortgages - but it could well be extended to a more generic complaint about individual lack of responsibility.
To explain - Jo had fairly substantial funds in a bond which was due to mature on 1st December, 2011. Prior to maturity, we/she received a number of phone calls concerning what was to be done with the funds once they matured. As usual, they were trying to sell specific financial products. Of course, they wouldn't speak to me, as the funds were in Jo's name, so we told them we wanted to see the options they were talking about in writing - could they please post us details?
They weren't too keen on that - they initially said Jo had to come in to the branch in Aberdeen to discuss the options, but when she/we said no, they tried to do it over the phone, but we stuck to our guns and insisted that they post the information to us.
Of course, we had to chase them up as, initially, they did nothing. By this time, the old bond had matured - so what had they done with the funds? When we did finally receive the documentation we requested, we made our choice and wrote back to them.
We assumed we would eventually receive some documentation back to confirm that they had carried out our instructions and we would receive some kind of certificate of deposit/bond - but no, nothing came. Nor could we view anything online - we tried in vain.
After 3 or 4 months we started to get worried - what had happened? This wasn't a small amount of money. We chased up again, but were getting nowhere until we elevated matters to complaint level. Still no joy, however, but then, by sheer coincidence, towards the end of April, we received an end of year certificate of interest earned on a new bond - something that is produced automatically by all banks at this time of year - as they are obliged to do.
We were at least relieved to know that the funds were still there and hadn't gone missing, but we still wanted to know what had happened, so we stepped up our complaints until we received an apology e-mail from a Customer Relations Officer - but still no full explanation.
We chased again and this time we got a letter from a Customer Resolution Manager. In that letter, he mentioned that the funds had been put in to a Saver account earning 1% - this was contrary to our written instructions, so we chased up again and received another apology letter, this time from a Business Manager Complaints. All it said was:
That was dated 18th June. Another month passed and this was sent out when we were away on holiday:
This one was dated 21st July.
We've now written back and told them we want a full, written explanation by the end of this month, or we will, indeed, take up the opportunity of not only taking our case to the Financial Ombudsman, but also to the media. Watch this space.
The way they have passed the buck to each other on this one is incredible - nobody is willing to assume responsibility to follow this through properly - and what's with all these different titles they have anyway?
Grrrr.
No comments:
Post a Comment