The last straw: Moving away from Abbey National Business Banking
I've written about Abbey National Business before and tonight all the little drops of discontent added up and the glass finally spilled. I'm moving away from these people ASAP.
Why? Because they can't even manage to change my address without having me write them an old-fashioned letter on letterhead or fax one to them. And then apparently they have a back-log and it takes them "a couple of days" to get to them.
The Co-operative Bank had no trouble doing the exact same thing in two minutes over the phone but not Abbey. Apparently, it's for "added security". You see, you can answer all your security questions on the phone and do any manner of phone banking but you can't change your address because of "additional security." So I can log into my online account and clean out my account but I cannot change my address online. This is not "additional security". In fact, it's less security -- the letter I fax them doesn't have answers to any of my security questions and someone could easily have forged my signature on it. It really riles me up how security is used as the excuse for every manner of deficiency these days. How about at least owning up to call it an outdated procedure that needs to be changed. But that would require them to acknowledge that there is a problem. Quite the contrary, their position is to defend the policy.
So, Aral, why can't you write them a letter and wait a week for your address to be changed? The only reason, really, is because I can't use my card online until they change the address as many places will only ship items to the billing address and I've just moved. And I'm buying stuff for the new place. Well, I'd *like* to be buying stuff for the new place but, thanks to Abbey National Business, I can't.
I called them tonight about this and the guy on the phone basically told me that he could care less. When I asked if I could talk to a manager, I was told that there were none and that no one could help me anyway and that they wouldn't change their rules and procedures just because their customers didn't like them and that if I didn't like it, I could leave. Well, that was really all I needed to hear. If Abbey National doesn't care what its customers think, they don't deserve customers.
I'm leaving this sorry excuse for a bank and I'd strongly encourage you to stay away from Abbey National Business.
The The last straw: Moving away from Abbey National Business Banking article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.
Thom Shannon
oh crap, I just opened a business account with them!
Did the guy really say if you didn’t like it you can leave? That’s just ridiculous! F***ing banks!!
November 28th, 2006 at 10:34 amaral
Yep, he was quite blunt about it. What really gets me is that he didn’t even provide me with a way to complain about the policy — it was basically, “love it or leave it!”
November 29th, 2006 at 2:10 amFrank Parry
I had the same trouble and much more (a litany of ineptitude and unprofessionalism I can’t be bothered to go into). The most shambolic joke of a bank I’ve ever had the misery to experience. They are free, however, which explains why I’ve stuck with the shower, but I’ve recently had enough when I was advsied they’re website doesn’t work I was told when trying for a third time to order stationery (payinhg in envelopes), then requested half a dozen times by phone, had enough, C&G are free but only have a face-to-face debit card, but RBS are free and have a credit card (not debit VISA like abbey). I’ve heard of many issues with Abbey and since hearing about RBS I’m gone, they don’t deserve customers…
February 4th, 2007 at 7:50 pmEd Moreton
I am glad to hear I am not the only person having problems with Abbey Business Banking. I set up my account with them in November 06. It is now Feb 07 and I am still not able to access my account online. I have sent in my security details three times and each time, they claim they have not arrived (despite being faxed from an Abbey Branch as well as posted). When I tried to complain about this, I was told to phone Royal Mail as it was obviously their fault.
Abbey have failed to respond to any of my requests and I was told by customer services that they will read a complaint and then decide whether it is worthy of response!! Clearly, my complaint is not worthy as they have ignored it (or perhaps that is “lost in the post” too).
If you are reading this because you are thinking of banking with Abbey business, I would thoroughly recommend you NOT to. I don’t know which business banks are better, but I will switch as soon as I have found that out. Any suggestions for who to switch to?
February 19th, 2007 at 2:55 pmdominic morris
I’ve been using Abbey for last two years for several companies.
Yes, they’re rubbish — they “lost” many of my letters. Until I started sending them recorded delivery, then strangely enough, they started receiving them.
You get what you pay for: and I pay them ZERO.
Their online banking is down pretty much 50% of mondays. God knows what they do over the w/end to bugger it up quite so much, but there you go.
I would still use them for new business, because I know the game now. All correspondence to go recorded to them, chase them daily on new accounts (get a new account ref# ASAP from them, then quote this on all further calls).
February 19th, 2007 at 4:37 pmnick
On a positive note, I switched from Alliance and lecester- because of the problems that are posted above. my point being that all banks are pretty much the same now.. So vote with your feet.
March 12th, 2007 at 6:00 pmI was also with lloyds - good service - but not free any more - Vote with your feet.
however Abbey I have had no problems with yet. Thier web site is rubbish. incorrect styles, missing buttons and rubbish formating. But it allows me to do what I want for free - pays a bit of interested. But then I dont use it as a normal business bank.
Effectively you take your pick and take a chance. But you can always move the bank. Takes a couple of weeks but if you keep doing it maybe the banks will think more about customer service - but I dont think so..
dB
Well they are indeed a joke. 25 minutes plus a time to get thru on their phone system.. To talk to incompetants, then if you try and complain they just shrug it off.
Fill in the contact us by email form and you get an ‘out of the office’ reply…
Thats just the beginning of it
Bank with these guys at your peril..!!!
May 15th, 2007 at 4:55 pmLMA
I have to say that I have never had a serious problem with Abbey. Yes, they can be a bit naff on occasion but they’ve yet to incur my wrath. I don’t whether it’s becuase I’ve been a personal customer for 10 years before opening my business account that helps. For the cost of running the account, it’s not a bad service overall. I am generally sceptical of all banks and would very much vote with my feet if I felt I was getting bad service.
May 21st, 2007 at 3:29 pmHitMan
Well, the problem with Abbey is that a few years back there were going to merge with Bank of Scotland who were renowned for their Business Banking Accounts and supporting systems. In anticipation of this merger Abbey went fall steam ahead and launched its Business Banking Account neither having the systems to support it or the knowledege or the experienced staff. Running it ‘on the back of a fag packet’ is a term that springs to mind. Of course Abbey then had serious financial problems on the back of its association with Enron and other dodgy USA loan markets which almost caused its collapse. So the Halifax jumped on the opportunity to tie up with BoS and Abbey was left to fester until Santander came along. Abbey is still running its Business Banking accounts on it’s original ’system’ . They would dearly love to off load it hence why you really will not and cannot expect any sort of service from them. Their systems are woeful in terms of security anyway (remember the got fined several million pounds by the FSA as they were unable to comply with anti money laundering legislation in terms of identifying their customers properly when opening accounts)… So what would you expect from this company?
September 11th, 2007 at 10:03 amKen Joy
There’s nothing I can disagree with from what I’ve just read apart from the woman that thinks they’re OK. Only thing stopping me from changing is the inconvenience but it’s only a matter of time. They are unbelievably appallingly BAD. Stay away-you have been warned.
September 19th, 2007 at 2:39 pmKev
I actually work for Abbey an by god i’ve seen some s**t here. The place really is in a state. Please take not from someone who works here avoid Abbey like the plague!
September 27th, 2007 at 10:54 amliz
aarrrrrrggghhhhh! I have been on the phone to them now for nearly 1 hour to try and get my internet banking access sorted out. I have spoken to more than 10 people and despite explaining to each that I have a BUSINESS ACCOUNT each person manages to transfer me to someone in personal banking that surprise surprise cannot help me.
Well after more than 1 hour on the phone I have finally given up. The last guy told me that I should try loggin on again after 6pm as everyday between 4.30 and 6pm their internet systems reboot and update and therefore no online business banking can take place during these times. I did ask him if he was having a laugh and said c’mon you’re not being serious but he said yes I am being very serious. well at least that gave me a laugh!! Obviously this can’t be true but imagine staff telling customers that!
So I have failed to speak to anyone about my problems - well OK I DID get through to one person in support, she put me on hold and a couple of minutes later my call was answered by another guy……from personal banking. I have to admit to swearing to him which wasn’t fair ( I apologised before I ranted ) then he put me on hold.
I am now going to find a new business bank account. Does anyone have any suggestions.
To add insult to injury at some point during this painful process they decided to change my password even though it didn’t need changing. Now I am getting the message that my account has been suspended.
I gave up smoking 2 months ago - I am now off out to buy a pack of fags - either that or I’m going to kill someone!
October 9th, 2007 at 4:30 pmbron
I opened one of their 50 saver accounts. Opened fine -everything ok for a few weeks then I got a second card and second pin number for the same account - spoke to various people all over Abbey Dept! Told to keep both cards just in case! Then this week I get a notification if they don’t get my ID through the post they are going to ‘restrict’ the account. I know they got the ID cos the account was opened with the precise amount I wrote on the form that went with the ID. People kept telling me to send ID. I have been on to them for hours and in the end told them that I wanted the complaints department. They promised to ring back and didn’t. So I rang again and had a shouting match with one man who told me just to ’send some ID. I asked to be put onto the complaints dept. as if they had indeed lost my ID that it was a case for the police as someone may indeed right now be using those details to forge a passport..Finally I was put through to the money laundering people who contacted the ‘opening accounts dept’. and they sorted it out. Lo and behold they found my ID and have now taken the threat of restrictions off my account. INDEED I too would change but like someone else said - it’s the incovenience that causes and what happens if that gets messed up and wages money doesn’t go into the account.
October 18th, 2007 at 1:29 pmI tell you at one point one person couldn’t even see my accounts - I was beginning to wonder how many people have had their accounts accidentally wiped.
chrishantha
I would like to say not only buisness banking, Abbey is the worst in personel banking also, compared to HSBC, LLoyds and Halifax which I have had acconts with. Only rason I wanted to shift my current account from HSBC was Abbey’s appealing 8% interest rate for one year for a £2500 credit balance.I visited my local branch to open the above account on 29/09/07. After going through all the criteria for eligibility,my application was accepted. About a week later I received a letter, requesting me to call upon to my branch with my HSBC card. No explanation,no apology they just wrote down my card details and said thankyou. I received the debit card but even after one month my account has not been shifted.
November 6th, 2007 at 1:55 pmI have made 2 calls, requesting to talk to the branch manager. Both occasions I was told the manager would speak to me as she was busy at that time.
Since I didn’t hear from the local branch today I spoke to the complaint department, after a long hold Iwas told that I need to go back to the local branch, because my application for the switching service is misplaced. I am telling you, all these talks about “HASSEL FREE” , “DEDICATED SERVICE”, PEACE OF MIND” are rubbish. How can this be a free switching service when alredy I have been spending money to talk to Abbey on a 0845 number?
Above all I felt the way Abbey’s officer treated me on the first day was not good compared to the others. It was like indirectly saying,”this is not the wright place for you”
Matthew
I have been with Abbey for nearly seven years now & I cannot believe just how bad they are, in fact you have to have an account with them to appreciate their incompetence & total disregard for their customers.
No other business would get away with it & the frightening thing is they are a bank, their mission statement must be” Tell em anything”. They use “security” as their excuse for anything that goes wrong & have absolutely no regard, or so much as a care in the world for their customers.
For this reason I today changed banks which is indeed an inconvenience I could do without but at least I’ll be rid of them. As a bank they know most of their customers don’t want the inconvenience of changing banks but if people just took the time to do this maybe Abbey would have had to address their incompetence & appalling service by now. Anyway getting away from Abbey is like escaping stepping in a massive dog turd. . . . . . .
November 15th, 2007 at 10:49 pmStuart
More about the security 1:
If you’re asked a security question that you don’t know the answer to, then just press F5 until you get one that you do know!
2: You’re expected to know your memorable answer without being prompted with your memorable question!
3: Even if you pass the security tests on the phone they can’t tell you your memorable question. You have to have the password reset, login and change it yourself.
I work in IT and if there’s ever a security breach on my account I will be all over them…
December 13th, 2007 at 3:15 pmJon
I am having so many problems with them also - THEY ARE TERRIBLE!
January 1st, 2008 at 2:14 amPlease read here: http://www.jonstarbuck.co.uk/archives/82
Jon.
Lorraine Bell
I am seriously losing the will to live with the ABBEY NATIONAL BUSINESS BANK.
It is bordering on criminal and will be writing to complain - I have such trouble trying to access my business bank account and if I ran my business in the same way i’d be bankrupt.
Accessing the online service is near impossible most days - today it locked me out again and I have been on the phone for nearly an hour trying to get it reset.
I was asked ridiculous security questions about transactions on my account which I couldnt have know the answers to without looking at my most recent statement {what was your last transaction??) - which is online and I couldnt see due to being locked out.
I then called back to get my account unlocked and password reset (although this password has worked for 3 years) and got cut off twice.
Previously we had problems transferring money on the account as they said that as a single user I couldnt do this although full access had been given. On the 3rd call - guess what their systems wet down (again) and someone is supposed to be calling me back but cant say when - so I cant get access to our money online or on the phone.
We have opened a new account with co-op and all I wanted to do today was transfer the money across and close the account and I cant even do that!
I cant begin to describe how angry this bank makes me - absolutely bloody useless and the customer service along with the useless service makes you want to smash the phone and cry.
I strongely erge people not to bank with these people and move your account as it really disrupts your business.
Lorraine Bell
April 7th, 2008 at 11:54 amEast Communications
Paul
Abbey, The worst crappiest bank i have ever known
August 7th, 2008 at 3:00 pmtracey roberts
can i set up online banking
October 10th, 2008 at 5:54 pm