Farclays
So I'm a student. I'm going for a lovely day out to Ilkley Moore with the g/f. I've just enough wonga to get the scenic route train from Bradford, and when I get there I can't be bothered walking all the way down the road to my bank to get some cash out, so I stick my card in the first machine I come to, which is a Farclay's.

Card goes in. Nothing appears on the screen. There's a pause. I press cancel. Card comes out - 1mm of it. It sits there for a moment, tantalisingly, then it goes back in, and the screen goes back to it's usual "Hello, how can I help you, unsuspecting member of the public?"

A bit confused, I go into the branch and ask for my card back. They tell me I can't have it. I jump up and down a bit when they tell me I must have typed my PIN in wrong, because I never got the chance to even try that. I further note that I am now 20 miles from home with no money, and they have my only means of paying for anything. Ten minutes of shouting gets me nowhere.

I go down the street to my branch of LLLllllloyds, tell the tale, and the chick behind the counter sympathises, and asks me to sign a scrap of paper. I do so, wondering what she's up to. Two minutes later she comes back and says "How much do you want?". Amazingly, she has, without asking, faxed my signature to my home branch, where they've confirmed it's OK, and authorised her to pay me as much as I need. She's further gone into Barclay's system and confirmed that they have my card because their machine is BROKEN. I am well pleased.

I go back to Farclays and tell them their machine is broken and ask for my card back again. They STILL won't give it to me, fuckers. They promise to mail it to me.

Days later, no card. I ring, and they promise scout's honour they'll post it. Days later, no card. I ring again. "We will post it, honest." Days later, no card. I ring AGAIN. "We've posted it." Days later, no card. I ring AGAIN.

At this point it's hard to convey how angry I got... when the person on the end of the phone said "We destroyed your card on the day it was put in the machine. You need to ask your bank for another."

BASTARDS! As a student, the cash card was a daily lifeline, and I'd been without it for weeks because these CNUTS had barefaced LIED to me about what they were doing, not just once but over and over again.

I told my own bank what they'd done, and I had a new card LATER THE SAME DAY. Small wonder I'm still with that bank 20 years later, and Barclays for some reason kept finding superglue in the slots of their cash machines.
(SonofRojBlake, Fri 17 Jul 2009, 10:07, Reply)