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| NatWest : a very annoying bank. |
"Oh!" said the executive committee of an old folks' home where I am the bookkeeper, "Let's do our banking online! It'll make life easier!" Ha.
Enquiries elicited the information that they could not bank online because cheques on the account required multiple signatures. "Fine!" said the dauntless committee, "Let's alter it so that we only need one signature on the cheques."
Such an alteration, the bank told us, meant that the signatories would have to fill in a form - "This form," they said, handing over a fat sheaf of closely typed A4 sheets.
Sighing, the committee took away the form and spent many hours complying with the unnecessary demands for their dates of birth, mothers' maiden names, NI numbers, first schools attended and other irrelevant, impertinent questions. This was required despite the fact that they have all been signatories on this account for the last 20 years.
Triumphantly, they returned the form to the bank and awaited developments.
No developments occurred.
Several weeks later, having heard nothing, they asked the bank when they might expect some news. Blank looks from the bank ladies were followed eventually by the information that the wrong form had been issued to us. "But... but... why didn't you get in touch to tell us we'd filled in the wrong form?" asked the committee. The bank ladies denied all responsibility and said such transactions were dealt with by a separate department who reside in Birmingham or some such distant (conveniently inaccessible, you might say) location.
On prompting, they said they would get the correct form for us to fill in.
When (after repeated requests) the form was at last surrendered to us, the committee again answered all the questions and provided the required proof of eligibility to reside in UK etc.
After this form was given to the bank the committee waited a reasonable length of time before enquiring at the bank why they had not had a reply from them. No-one at the bank had the faintest idea. It was also clear that they did not care 2 hoots.
The House Committee Chairman called in an old favour from a high-up bank employee, who ascertained, eventually, that the second form had been lost. Yet again the committee filled in and signed a wad of A4 papers. These are old, frail folk themselves - some of them are even older than the residents, so it was a lot to ask of them for a third time to fill in the form. No apology was made at this or any other time during the dealings. It was always some unavailable person's fault when things went wrong.
A very long wait / delay followed.
Suddenly! Our cheques began to bounce!
No-one at the bank could tell us what to do to rectify matters. Our account had been frozen and that was that. Bank staff blithely refused to sympathise.
House Committee Chairman again contacted his acquaintance in the bank, and we were told that the freeze on the bank account had been ordered by the 'Compliance Team' but more than that nothing was known. The Compliance Team were uncontactable. So watch out, Everyone! Large sums of your own money, that you are perfectly entitled to have access to, can be impounded at any moment by NatWest without warning or explanation.
After much gnashing of teeth it transpired that the reason for the freeze was that the Compliance Team had discovered that it had not got the DoB of the House Executive Secretary. The House Executive Secretary isn't even a signatory on the account so I would have thought his DoB was none of the Compliance Team's business, but there we are. When we supplied the DoB we were allowed access to our money again.
That crisis being over, we only needed one signature on the cheques and secret codes were sent to enable us to set up online banking.
We got online banking! It said "you may need a card reader to make payments." Card reader? What card? we thought.
Sure enough, we did need a card reader to do online payments, so we clicked the online button to order a card reader.
When I went in to bank to ask why the new only-one-signature-required cheque book we had been assured had been ordered, had not arrived, they said there was no record of the cheque book having been ordered, BUT they gave us a card reader! But only because we promised them we had ordered one online; else it will not work. Now since we had actually ordered a cheque book but they thought we hadn't, it is unlikely that merely pressing a online button will really constitute ordering a card reader, so I have my doubts that it will work.
On fairly severe questioning, the bank lady admitted that we were going to need a debit card as well as the card reader. She gave us another extensive, many-paged form to fill in for application for a debit card. Luckily I had been talking to my IT-literate brother who had warned me that a debit card was going to be required. Otherwise this would have been the next surprise on our long path to online banking freedom.
Facts: to get online banking there are an unspecified number of stages you must complete. You are only told of the next stage once you have completed the previous stage, like a computer game. We don't want to play a computer game, NatWest. We are a bunch of old biddies who are not tech savvy. No information is proffered at any time and you have to prise it out of the reluctant employees like drawing teeth, all the way through the process. There is no indication, ever, of how many stages there are going to be.
And you can't use one set of answers already submitted, to assume during the next stage that Nat West now know your DoB, MMN, FSA, NI number etc. No, you must tell them time and time again. This is because i) they have lost the last lot of answers you gave, or ii) this stage is being dealt with by a different department. Different departments of NatWest do not communicate with one another under any circumstances whatsoever, unless for their own convenience. Customers' convenience has a negative effect on their ability to communicate.
During the wait for a debit card, one of the poor signatories died, poor fellow, and who can blame him really. This meant the bank then cancelled the secret codes for online banking, because those codes had been issued to him specifically. New codes have to be applied for, so at present we still haven't got online banking. We have got another fat form to complete instead.
This is all correct apparently because despite being a group of kindly volunteers trying to run an old folks' home for the good of the general public, dear old Audrey and her aged friends might in fact be running weaponry out to drugs cartels in S America or something. I mean LOOK at them, NatWest. They can hardly see or hear or walk, most of them, and would not know one end of an AK47 from the other.
Capt. Mainwaring would have sorted this out in 5 mins flat.
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| "Now look here, Fanshawe. I command you to give Audrey any banking facilities she asks for. That woman is a pillar of the community and I personally vouch for her good standing." |
