I had accounts with HSBC and moved to an area where phone / internet banking was paramount. I had been with HSBC for about 13 years, since they were Midland Bank, but got fed up with constant cock-ups over internet banking and decided to switch banks.

Moved to Coop bank - for ethical reasons and I they have been pretty good with me. I don’t have any branches nearby, but the only thing I need a branch for is stationery, which is a bit slow to arrive and frustrating when you run out of “paying in” slips and have to sit for 2 weeks with a big cheque waiting to go in the bank.

I managed to negotiate a discount in my overdraft charges recently - my fault, but the customer services person was open to me putting my case forward, so I knocked the charge down by 1/2.

So far, I have found Coop’s phone customer service to be pretty good. I never have to wait, the people are always courteous and on nearly all occasions, pretty on the ball, I only remember being slightly frustrated once, but again, this was a difference of opinion, not a cock-up.

Internet banking is another matter, the way data is presented is confusing and inconsistent and after providing some feedback to the website staff, I received a fairly arrogant reply about why it was not possible to show the balance result for each transaction on the screen.

Compared to HSBC’s customer service, where it was often very difficult to communicate with the staff, Coop’s service is a dream, I guess you got unlucky, but I am mostly happy with it.

I agree, the Brighton branch staff are pretty rubbish. On the phone you sometimes get a competent person, but as you say, I’ve regularly been on hold for 20 minutes or so. On a Business account. I thought a preferential customer service was the whole point of having (and paying) for one.

I must get it together and switch banks…

(Great name, btw.)

No, I had (have? huh? a personal account with them. And they were horrible. Maybe it’s just the branch in Brighton, I don’t know, but I had to wait for half-an-hour once without anyone even acknowledging my presence. Finally, when I went down to one of the staff members behind her desk, she made a point of informing me that she was helping someone else. Both the welcome stand and desks were empty in the branch during my various visits. (And they were completely unhelpful whenever I needed anything.)

So, no, I didn’t have a good experience with them at all and this just adds salt to the wound.

I had them double-check and he showed me the screen stating that the account was closed. Next time, I’ll get something in writing. You’re right, it’s a very important precaution.

I did ask them to confirm that their systems had a record of the account closure and they did confirm that it did and they reminded the date (June 19th). Still, from now on, I’m going to get _everything_ in writing from huge corporations.

Anyone who works for Natwest should in my opinion ne rounded up and shipped off to the nearest desert island because the world will be a much better a less stressful environment without them !

I’ve had a business account for 4 years and it has been a painful experience most of the time. Best one was that they wouldn’t give me an overdraft for several months when I opened the account. I was even happy to give them a personal guarantee, but no, apparently they considered an overdraft facility to be a ’start-up loan’! Quite how they reconcile that with the fact that I could have gotten an interest-free credit card from their own bank and spent 3 grand or so without anybody asking questions, I’ll never know…

Did you have a business account with them, or a personal one? Because friends of mine who use the Co-op for their personal current account say that the customer service is second to none, believe it or not!

BTW Aral, how was the stay at the Radisson?