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Oh, the systems went down. That's okay then.

14/11/2013

Final (?) closing (ha ha) update on the previous two posts. Called in at New Building Society today, to ask whether there might be any progress on my ongoing current-account switch. I'm told that "systems went down" at more than one of the high-street banks recently, to the extent that switches were automatically cancelled and details lost.
    So my details have been re-entered and I've given a new authorisation and I have another email confirming that the switch will happen quickly and easily and, this time, be complete by the 22nd November. I'll put it on the virtual mantelpiece next to the one confirming that the switch will be complete by the 1st November. This whole process began on 24th October.
    One big attraction of this quick, easy switching process is that payments in and out (standing orders, etc.) are guaranteed to flow seamlessly from Old Bank to New Building Society for a year-plus while I get round to redirecting them. It hasn't occurred to me yet to worry about what might happen if those "systems go down" on a day when I'm expecting a payment - go down so badly that there's no evidence of the payment's existence let alone of the guarantee. But that kind of worry is not really a reason to keep a bank account open, is it?
    I do wonder, though, whether those "systems went down" due to mass take-up of the opportunity to close bank accounts without hassle (sic). Crazy idea I know, totally silly, but...

Could I have my umbrella back; it's raining?

7/11/2013

Got a second, identical, letter from Old Bank yesterday; identical except that this new one is dated 30th October. So I have two. I wonder if I'll get a third, dated five days later.
    I want to do a very simple thing. I want to close this account. I've been offered the Current Account Switch Guarantee, which promises to make it easy. I don't have to notify the source of every incoming/outgoing payment individually by hand; New Bank (or in this case New Building Society) will do it for me.
    These letters exist because Old Bank has found a problem with the switch. Fair enough. So far, what happens is: I get the letter; somebody calls me from New Building Society to tell me what the problem is; I fix the problem; Old Bank finds another problem.
    What interests me is the contrast. I've liked Old Bank over the years. But these letters - no explanation, no way forward, shutting the conversation down - really don't play well in comparison to the phonecalls I've been getting to explain the problem. Some person from New, etc., will call shortly to tell me that Old Bank has found a discrepancy with...
    I wonder if all banks behave like this, when it's switching from rather than switching to. I didn't really intend, or expect, to blog about this more than once, but I'm becoming increasingly determined to close this convenient, attractive, once useful but now redundant current account.
    Even if I have to do it myself.

Old Bank plays hard to leave

4/11/2013

Maybe I should just post this letter without comment. It's dated 25th October and I received it on Saturday, 2nd November. I have - and am finding it difficult to stop having - accounts with more than one high-street bank, and the Old Bank in this ongoing attempt to close an account is not necessarily the same bank as I mentioned recently here in another context. I have had good times with Old Bank, and I'm leaving - trying to leave - because I don't need the account any more. No other reason. Nice bank. Still love you.
    Once upon a time, I believed that opening a bank account was difficult, and that it made sense never to close a bank account once opened. I might even have written something about that, in an opinion piece about a century ago. Then - I'm still not quite sure where the impulse came from - I closed a Singer & Friedlander Isle of Man account (useful for US dollar earnings, couple of other uses) about a month before Iceland turned up on the financial-news agenda. Luck, not judgement.
    Somebody used the word "sinister" to describe the finance industry recently. Might even have been in a news broadcast. Not that I'd go that far, but as a retail customer, I am "significantly over-banked" (another phrase I heard somewhere) and not happy about it. My New Bank (to stick with the language of the Current Account Switch Guarantee, although I've had accounts there long enough to quality for some kind of loyalty bonus) is a building society. It has a slogan about not needing banks.
    And it called me a week ago. Old Bank has never quite had my address right in its records, and (New Bank told me) this is holding up the switch (and, I suppose, the letters).
    I like the idea of holding my current account with a financial institution that calls me up and tells me what the problem is.
    And, I suppose, knows where I live.

Face it, Old Bank, you've lost me.

1/11/2013

Here's an entertaining picture of the small print relating to my ongoing effort to close the redundant bank account I don't need under the terms of the UK's exciting new Current Account Switch Guarantee. Nothing wrong with this small print. It's perfectly legible small print. Maybe eight point.
    There are four pages of it in the leaflet I was given when I went in to my building society to arrange the switch. That was seven days ago. The woman handed me the leaflet, we did the filling-in-boxes thing on her screen, then she invited me to read the small print.
    Four pages. Just saying. The assumption that customers will stop in mid-meeting for as long as it takes to read four pages of small type. I wonder if people do. Size of the type isn't an issue; it's the amount. Just saying.
    Anyway. I've got a letter confirming that the switch from my "Old Bank", as the small print calls it, will be completed on 1st November. I've got a letter confirming that my Old Bank has resolved its problems with the switch, and that the switch will be completed on 7th November.
    Less easy to scan into a future blog post is the call I've just had asking me to drop in at my Old Bank with my passport and a utility bill to confirm my identity.
    If you don't know who I am, Old Bank, why are you so reluctant to let me go?

Oh, the systems went down. That's okay then.

Could I have my umbrella back; it's raining?

Old Bank plays hard to leave

Face it, Old Bank, you've lost me.

Dear Diary: The Archive