I applied for a Barclays Tax Haven ISA right at the start of the 08/09 tax year.

I supplied all the necessary information and identification documents and received a confirmation letter on April 9th 2008. Over the course of the next few weeks my deposit remained in my current account so I rang to check if there were any problems, and was told that there weren’t, but the staff checked my details “just in case” and found that my date of birth did not match on all parts of their system.

Despite their representative admitting that the date of birth on my original application was correct, and me stating that my confirmation letter matched this, I was told that I would have to go into a branch to provide ID again. I appreciate that mistakes happen though so at the time was willing to put it down to a one-off.

I waited for several more weeks, and still my deposit sat in my external account, until on 4th June I received another letter. It stated that “some of your personal details were not verified correctly during our Account Opening process” – and again asked me to go into a branch. As it was inconvenient to do so I rang Barclays again, and upon further investigation by staff, I was asked how long I had lived at my address. It had been incorrectly entered as 0 years despite me stating in my original application that it had been 4 years. I was told that this would now be correct, I would receive a confirmation within 14 days of the account being successfully opened, and there was no need to go into a branch.

I waited another three weeks until Tuesday 24th June, when I rang AGAIN. I enquired if there was another problem and was told that the branch I opened the account in had not verified my security, so I would have to go in to the branch AGAIN. I was not prepared to do this as I find it totally unacceptable that I should constantly have to chase Barclays up, and go to their premises, so that they can benefit from my money.

I enquired if there was an address that I could write to complain to, and was told that there wasn’t, I “could ONLY do it over the phone”. Since visiting Barclays website I have found that this is not true either – they clearly state a postal address! I was given a complaint reference over the phone.

I also wrote to Barclays officially and got a reply saying they were looking into the matter.

In the meantime, I received another letter saying another part of my application had a problem. I called Barclays to log this with the rest of my complaint.

I run my own business and simply cannot afford to keep spending this kind of time and effort phoning, visiting and writing to Barclays to complete what should be a relatively simply process. I have spent approximately 5 hours in total trying to sort this mess out and at my hourly rate that works out at £250.

The account was finally opened on 16 July, and I have been told interest will be added to my account from 14 days after application, as well as being offered £75.00 compensation.

Does this seem a fair amount bearing in mind the phone calls, time out of work, petrol and letters involved in this fiasco?

It sounds fair to me, and my hourly rate is about double, and I bill seven hours a day, five days a week. The fact is that banks are all pretty rubbish at the moment and you have done well to A) remain patient and actually open the account (which is after all one of the best in the market at the moment), and b) get them to offer anything.

In the past I've managed to get banks to cancel arrengement fees on mortgages (£500) and credit me with £200 for constant credit card auth problems. Neither came close the the true cost to my disrupted business.

Honestly. I'd take it.

Thanks for your thoughts... It would be good to see what others think too.

I am not someone to accept poor service when people have to pay so many charges for their persona and business accounting though. Barclays let so many people down with last years ISAs and now it seems from various forums they're doing it again!