Good Advice Angela and all well and good for those alive and kicking...however, the point of this particular thread was Abbeys treatment of the bereaved and going through their probate department. It would appear that despite the longitude of this particular thread things are no better with Abbey.. I for one have got my parents to shift their accounts from Abbey so i won't have to deal with Abbey when the inevitable time comes....

DD

For everyone complaining about the service at Abbey there's an easy answer - just leave and go to another bank. If enough people do it they will get the message eventually. Especially those of you who have had more than one problem and still stay for more

It's really easy to set up another account somewhere else - they'll even transfer the direct debits for you.

at the end of the day, banks have us where they want us and they're moto (never mind who they are) is kick 'em when they're down and get as much as we can while we can. I don't care what any bank says - thats all they're there for. you can't get paid by cash anymore when working, you have to have a bank account so we need them almost as much as they need us - and they're all a bunch of hyenas that can smell when you're in trouble and take advantage of it.

Never mind deceased people their customer seervice is awful full stop!

EXAMPLE 1.......

About 1 year ago I filled my car with fuel and when I went to pay for it my card was declined. I found out this was due to problems at Abbey (more precisely their banking computer syatems), nothing to do with my card as it had funds in and was in working order as was the petrol stations cards readers etc. Subsequently I had to leave my works lap top at the garage and passport as proof of ID (this was the only way I could leave the garage) and make a 100+ mile round trip the next day to take in the cash and retrieve my lap top. I also had to take a days annual leave from work to do this! I phoned abbey on the day it happened to try and resoolve then and there but after being hold for what seemed a life time my phone ran out of credit (it had £15 credit on it so you can imagine how long I was on the phone for!).

Anyway the Abbey were not interested in ANY of this, I never got an offer of compensation for the fuel I had to use to travel back and forth. I never got an offer of compensation for my phone bill (I did request both of these things). I never even got an appology for the time spent waiting on the phone without it being answered. I never got an appology for the poor customer service or even an explanation of why there systems were playing up and what they would do to resolve it. I did put in a written complaint and you guessed it I never even got a reply and when I spoke to the complaints department they had no record of my complaint despite it being sent to the complaints dept address shown on their website!

EXAMPLE 2....

My fault I know but I forgot my bank card when out one day and only realised when I went to the hole in the wall. No problem I thought I will go to the local branch and as I only needed £3.50 to pay for the car parking. In I went with a utility bill containing name, address etc, a National Insurance card and a photo driving license. They would not even let me draw this small amount out without my card, despite having lots of evidence of identity and explaining that I had done this before at other branches, and knowing my bank account number and last transactions etc. I explained the situation to them and they refused to help. I put the question to them about how I travelled 50 miles home as I couldn't get out of the car park and had no money for a bus, train, etc. ''Not our problem'' was the answer I got and a helpful ''Well perhapse you should check you have your card in future''. I had to get a taxi home as the taxi driver stated I could pay the fare at the other end. I could not do this with the bus and rail companies. This cost me a lot of money and because I had had to leave my car in a car park 50 miles away from home I had to get a bus back there the next day. A WATED SATURDAY!!!! I got to the car park to find my car had been broken into over night, (nothing taken but they/he/she/whoever had smashed the side window) TOTAL COST OF TAXI + BUS + CAR WINDOW = £267!!!!

When I complained again I was on the phone for over 20 mins just waiting for the complaints dept (they are obviously busy people in the complaints dept, you may wish to draw infrence from that about their levels of service!). Anyway they appologised which was something but again were not even interested in compensation despite being able to provide bills etc and the name of the local branch manager who I dealt with. They stated the branch manager would call me with a personal appology as she should have served me and given me my money, something they stated any branch manager should know. She never called and despite me chasing it up on severa occasions I never got an appology or call back. Out of curiosity I tested the water next time I was in the area by going to the branch with full ID and asking for £10 prentending I had lost my card (although I had it on me). I got refused the money and actually spoke to the same branch manager I had the first time who still refused me my money, despite her apparently being told (Abbey customer services apparently informed her) after the previous incident that she should be doing this!

EXAMPLE 3...

Today I have been for a meal and again all the Abbey banking systems have gone down and so neither me or my girlfriend could pay the bill at the end of our meal on either of our Abbey cards. This is highly embarrasing as you see the people looking at you thinking you are dead beats that can't afford to pay for their meal or are trying to pull a fat one etc! With the entire systems going down the cards would not work at any of the holes in the walls either (RBS, NatWest etc). Obviously we couldn't get through to Abbey for several hours as it was a National problem and so everyone was also trying to get through.

This meant that I had to laeve my 5 year old child and my girlfriend in the restaurant while I drove home and raided my spare change jar and go back and pay in coppers and silver. Very embarassing coppering up at the desk of a nice restauraunt and not to mention a pain for the business.

Abbey National's response when I asked what they were going to do. Maeve (the lady I spoke to at Abbey) stated well it should be okay within the next hour the systems will be back on line (not much use!). Asked what they were going to do about this the answer was ''We can't do anything''. and ''Your lucky you got through as very few telephones are working'' Asked about compensation for inconvenience and extra cost of having to pay to park my car again when I got back to town ''Dont know you will have to phone back later when our computer system is working''. When I stated that on Monday morning my girlfriend would be closing her account and I would close my account, cancelling my mortgage with them and also closing my savings and ISA accounts which I have held for 16+ years I got the following response ''I dont blame you''.

Given the amount of people that have been trying to get through and the long, long delays on the phone you think that any business with even 1/2 a brain would put an aoutomated response on the phone line explaining the situation so that at the very least people were not panicing thinking their accounts had been emptied by a frudulent means etc, but sadly alas NO this is not what they have done, you need to phone up and wait to be told, which given that it took me several hours in total is not only quite annoying but idiotic to say the least!

My partner resigned from his post as a PBA with abbey in May of this year. He had to seen the new systems make his job completely impossible to do to the standard he expects to work. He has returned to his previous employer.

We still have our major bank account with abbey, although we have sold his shares for a pitiful amount. They have hugely decreased in value since he was given them. Shock?

We have had NOTHING but problems with abbey. He has been waiting for his internet banking codes from them since february 2008, they are repeatedly ordered to no avail. The call centre is ridiculous, we submitted a formal complaint regarding charges made when abbeys systmes were taking debit card payments 3 weeks after they had been made, therefore making us past our overdraft limit. He has had several transfers fail in the last month, incurring late payment charges. They have repeatedly cancelled my direct debit to my employer (i work for a mobile phone company) which has resulted in charges and the possibility each time of my staff contract and half price lines being put to full price or cancelled! We are sick to death of not recieving call backs from the complaints team, and he is now considering going to the press regarding all of these issues

We have 4 bank accounts with them, a business account, 2 savings accounts and they seem uninterested. We credit almost £3k per month.

it is now 5 weeks since our formal written complaint and they have one last chance on monday to rectify everything before we go to the financial ombudsman and FSA. they took £180 in unlawful charges on bank holiday monday, i filled my car up and my card was declined. i had to fill in a pink slip and return the next day to pay. i was mortified. and terrified.

our bank statements have been recieved once this year. this is completely unacceptable and we are sick to death of it all.

overworked banker:

Hi

The problems were around certain types of accounts which we were able to close easily on the 'old' system eg. bond accounts - they have had to use workaround to enable us to close them which entail the customers actually receiving monies from a 'dummy' account and the cheques bearing the name of 'Mr Abbey National' instead of the deceased customer.  It is a long drawn out process which causes delays in closures.

 Other types of accounts are also affected eg High Yield Bond accounts - we cannot do anything at all with these and at present they are being stockpiled in a cupboard.  Trustee accounts cannot be dealt with and any account held by a customer with an address registered abroad. 

Very professional!!!

 

How about passboob savings accounts such as monthly savers, are these safe?

I am utterly disgusted to hear what has been going on at Abbey. It seems it is very badly managed all the way through. Although slightly off subject, I am now contacting my son who has an account and a business account, posting him this link to read and suggesting that he move his accounts as a matter of urgency. I'm so glad I'm not with Abbey

Hi

The problems were around certain types of accounts which we were able to close easily on the 'old' system eg. bond accounts - they have had to use workaround to enable us to close them which entail the customers actually receiving monies from a 'dummy' account and the cheques bearing the name of 'Mr Abbey National' instead of the deceased customer.  It is a long drawn out process which causes delays in closures.

 Other types of accounts are also affected eg High Yield Bond accounts - we cannot do anything at all with these and at present they are being stockpiled in a cupboard.  Trustee accounts cannot be dealt with and any account held by a customer with an address registered abroad. 

Very professional!!!

what sort of problems did they have?

Hi markiaq

 

Yes savings migrated onto the Partenon platform ages ago - loads of problems then too - some still not resolved!!!

 It really is a shambolic company to work for - on a positive note it now appears that more of the bereavement work is being given back to branches for them to deal with.

 Hopefully this will mean customers wil not have all the delays and inconvenience they have been exposed to by the Probate Centre in Bradford.

 With a bit of luck the staff will be made redundant and we can all find more meaningful employment elsewhere!!!

hi,

 

can you tell me if there has already been a migration for savings accounts.

Thanks for the reply overworked.  Do you have any hints that'll help us get this sorted quicker?

Hi

 I actually work in the probate centre and can give you some answers - not that I am proud to be able to!!

 We have large amounts of work that has been stockpiled because new computer systems are being installed - now these new systems are not geared up for the Probate department processes and when my colleagues try to process the cases we can only get so far through them and the systems then fail and prevent us from going further.  This means we are stockpiling accounts which are to be closed or have the owner's name amended.

 We are so frustrated and I know that does not help anyone who is dealing with their relative's accounts, but we want to be able to help but cannot do so because of the idiots in charge.

 There is no time scale on when the problems will be recitfied, months probably and yet there are still more systems to be implemented.

 Mortgages are shortly due to go onto the new system too so my advice to anyone with a Mortgage with Abbey is - MOVE IT NOW!!!!

 

Yeah have thought about that and the fact they won't give a monkeys, however, I have a current account with them and my mortgage and would be more than happy to move it if they give my Mother any more stress, that might start them thinking maybe!  Customer service when dealing with this sort of thing should be at it's highest as you are dealing with people's emotions, if they fail at this, there is no hope!

It might be worth her mentioning this forum and the fact that it is not just being discussed in the newspapers.

Mind you they are so arogant these people that they really don't care. Unfortunately people have to deal with them and their delays as it is the only way that they are going to get their money.

DD