Sometimes the customer has more sence
Many moons ago, I got a mortgage with Halifux. As I had an account with Barstardlys at the time and the company I worked for paid my on the last working day of the month. I had a bit of trouble with having enough cleared funds in my account for the transfer of money to Halifux on time.

So I then get some nasty letters from Halifux about my late payments. Obviously I did not want this to continue and figured that the best way to deal with it was to open an account with Halifux to reduce the time it took to clear the funds.

After making an appointment to see someone with enough brain cells to authorise an application for an account. I get ushered into one of those odd little cubicles where I explain that I have been getting late payment letters and would it bee a good idea to open an account with Halifux and get my wages paid into the account, avoiding the fucking three day wait for two banks to sort out a transfer that should take minutes with all the computing power they have. She said that was an excellent idea and would be a solution to the problem. I fill out all the forms and she sends them off to head office. All I wanted was a current account with a cheque book and a debit card.

About a week later, I get a letter saying my application has been refused. Eh? I phone up, only to be told I’ll have to make another appointment. So I do.

At the appointment, I ask why they refused the application. You have a bad credit rating they responded. Why? I ask. The lady had to phone up head office. But she came back with “you’ve been late on some mortgage payments”. I know says I, that’s why I want the account the account in the first place and that’s what I explained when I applied for it.

I also politely pointed out that Halifux had thought it was fine to loan me many tens of thousands of pounds in a mortgage but thought I could not be trusted with a current account with a poxy debit card. I have to say that the lady telling me this did blush and say that she could not argue with my logic and that personally it made no sense. To her credit, she did appeal on my behalf but it was defiantly a case of ‘The computer says NO’.

Arse holes and elbows sprang to mind. But I was able to fire off a nice letter to them the next time I got a snotty letter. Funnily enough, I stopped getting them after that.

I suppose the moral of this story is not to loose your cool, the people you have to deal with don’t have a say in policy. Be polite and most people will respond in kind. Those that don’t, first explain the error of their ways and fucking deck them if they don’t respond.

Length? Boasting is crass.
(shadders, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 21:34, 3 replies)

HSBC are no better....
I applied for a loan there to consolidate a load of other bills. Total monthly repayment of the loan was less than I was paying doing it all seperately.

I got refused cos I could't afford the repayments - passed the credit check etc etc! When I pointed out that I would actually be paying less (and I'd willingly close all my other accounts as part of the loan agreement 80% of which were with HSBC anyway!) I was told that there was no human who could override the computer.

So, don't bother transferring your mortgage there then.
(NoveltyCondomHead Clanks Wams., Sat 6 Sep 2008, 2:09, closed)

Exactly the same
conversation with Abbey national a few years back. They'd happily lent me 50K to buy my first house but said no to a current account. I was working with people with learning difficulties and 'challenging behaviour' at the time and they rang me at work just as it all kick off in the room I was in and a chair whistled past my ear. I think I might have said a rude word at that point. I explained that NOW was probably not the best time to discuss the matter.

"I can hear you're busy Mr. MadBD. I'll get it sorted." My new cards and chequebook arrived a week later. I then proceeded to piss it all up the wall and ramp up a huge unauthorised overdraft.
(MadBouncyDog Barking at the moon since, Sun 7 Sep 2008, 21:20, closed)

Accounts
If you consolidate the accounts with the same bank you will probably find out that the current account section and the mortgage section are separate departments and it will take five days to transfer the money between them.
(Benzyl, Tue 9 Sep 2008, 19:00, closed)