Whatever happened to the retail banks in which the manager was available to the customer, and in which staff knew the rules and were able to advise people about their accounts? For some years now, my local branch has resembled a shop selling a variety of financial ‘products’. Staff are called advisers or counsellors, but haven’t a clue beyond the blurb in their package.
This weekend, I found the remains of a ten euro note that my young dog had somehow got his teeth on. The serial number was clear, so my wife telephoned the bank, not our branch, we don’t have the telephone number for that, but the regional offices. She explained the situation and asked if the damaged note could be exchanged for one that had not been chewed. ‘I don’t think so.’ came the reply. My wife is not one to be fobbed off. ‘Is that what you think so, or what you know?’ she asked. The ‘counsellor’ then asked my wife to hold on while she consulted a colleague. After several minutes of waiting she was told to consult the branch.
Oh, for the old bank manager.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Hi Tom. It might have been if she’d gone into the bank personally and asked “would you just change this note please, the dog had a go at this one”. I may be wrong but, I think if the serial number is clear, no one can refuse it anyway; I could be wrong of course.
Tom I have had so many rows in our local banks that I have lost count.
On the business side 2 years ago I had to pay in a cheque for £35k to pay our contractors, the words and figures were different by about 37 pence (figures £35,000.37 and words £35k only
As a week long post strike was aboput to start I called the client and their bank to ensure payment would be accepted despite the differing amounts. Barclays still refused saying it was up to them. I then wrote on the check “We accept the lesser amount” and stamped it with the company stamp. The stupid woman said I was not allowed to do this.
I mentioned the Bill of Exchange act (the root and law behind all banking in the UK ansd the acceptance of paper and notes) She asked me what the bill of exchange act was. At this point I exploded and told her she was an incompetnent moron who had no right to be clllaed a manager.
We closed the account and went to Llloyds. (I did banking law and the Bill of exchange act has been drilled into my brain)
Next I bank with Nat West in the City, but sometimes use the Orpington Branch the loonies in there have lowered all the counters to below waste hight, so I cannot bend down to collect stuff from the counter bin they drop it into as it hurts my back. When I complained I was told this had been done for disabled people. Fine one counter but not every damn counter.
Once again no one with any sense or who knows banking. All done by tick boxes and computer programmes. No wonder it all went tits up
Hello Tom,
My wife had a wee problem last month concerning banking. We are from Glasgow and she was heading down South with some friends for a few days. She likes to exchange her Scottish money into English; she gets so worried about these things, and waited in the queue with a handful of twenty pound notes. On reaching the teller she was informed that unless she was a member of the bank (Santander of all names) they wouldn’t change the money. She wasn’t so they didn’t.
With fury she marched over to her own bank; she wasn’t the owner but you know what I mean. In there, after queuing again, this other teller said it was common banking policy not to change notes if the customer is not a member. However, it is not a straight swap, the money had to be put into the account before being taken out again. Talk about bureaucracy and red tape. A neighbouring teller told her to go over to business banking and they would exchange it once she showed them her card. A lot of time lost over silly rules and not a manager in sight.
Tom you never mentioned were you are for this. No UK bank would accept it as it is not our currency and our rules are laid down on this.
If one number and a third of the other number are present they will exchange the note, providing one number is whole. If the note is in less than (I think) 6 pieces they will change the note.
Otherwise it gets sent to the BoE to decide a free service.
As for Euros? who knows. They wont be worth a light soon with Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Belgium all up the creek.
I have rarely been more proud of the now octogenerian Great Wolf than when, after he was driven to distraction by time and money wasted on fruitless calls to the Karachi call centre, I accompanied him on a rare visit to the bricks-and-mortar branch of (name withheld) Bank where he had held an account for nearly sixty years.
“Good morning, Sir, can I help you?”, quoth the beardless, spotty youth behind the armour plated glass.
I groaned inwardly and retreated a couple of steps while Dad fixed his still beady eye on this sudden target.
“Thank you, young man”, he replied evenly and ever the gentleman, “May I speak to your father, please?”
OZ
Tom, in answer to your plea for the “old bank manager”, I suspect strongly that they have all retired many years ago now…
I had the novel experience some years ago of receiving a call from the Jersey branch of the organization on whose dizzy heights of management I had teetered, following some quarter of a century or so of service all over the world, asking me to provide evidence of who I was!
I suggested they look up the Bank’s Authorised Signature Book, Page 2, under General Management, and see if they could find my signature. That wasn’t good enough – they wanted a copy of my passport, a copy of a recent Utilities Bill, and a whole pile of other total BS.
I tell you all this to comfort you that they are not simply discriminating against their finest clientele, but all the riff-raff who comprised their senior staff before our successors drove the whole charabanc over the edge of the cliff!
How behind the times you guys in the old world are!
Australian banks have reintroduced local bank managers and are, indeed, making a feature out of it in their advertisements. Our banks don’t have armoured glass teller enclosures, either, just ordinary desks or counters.
Strange place, the EUSSR. Strange citizens, that you accept all this nonsense. 😀
Not much response from your MyT posting, is there, Tom?
No we are not behind the times, Bearsy.
I went into my bank just the other day and they have taken all the glass down and it is quite delightful. I was given the mobile phone number of my branch manager, some two years ago and I phone him whenever I feel the need. He responds almost immediately, but I must confess, having met him, he doesn’t look much older that sixteen, but maybe I’m just getting old.
Then why Tom’s post, Araminta?
PS: He also amazingly will come to the house to discuss banking issues or bring forms to sign. I think the service has improved, or rather it has gone back to how it should be.
Does Tom not live in France, Bearsy?
Well, if that’s the case my comments are valid, are they not?
If the post had described a banking system equivalent to ours, I would not have made my comment. But it didn’t, so I did.
Yes, quite right, Bearsy, my mistake.
I was remiss in interpreting ” Old world” and EUSSR as including the UK.
You clearly have no idea how appalling the EUSSR appears from a distance, from the perspective of a free, independent sovereign nation. A load of faded, has-been countries supporting an “upper-class mafia” which they can no longer afford, passing regulations that even the citizens of pre-war Germany would have never accepted, apparently believing that their posturing has some relevance to world affairs. Together with weak, ineffectual citizenry, afraid to say boo to a goose in case they are hauled up in front of some kangaroo court accused of thought crime. You’re all bonkers!!
Whether you include the country previously known as Great Britain is up to you; it’s hard to tell the difference from a distance, but at least you lot have your own currency (or a pale shadow of your own currency), unlike the Irish losers, hoist with their own blarney.
😀
I’m sure you are right, from a distance, but I do distinguish between countries included in the EUSSR, but I can understand why you do not.
I supported and still do the concept of the original Common Market but agree that the loss of sovereignty is regrettable. I have to say, that I regret the severing of trading relationships with the Commonwealth but thank goodness we did not join Euroland; that would have been a fatal mistake.
Bearsy
Thanks for the patronage. Are you a native Aussie or an import?
Bearsy
In case you think I was a bit short. You’re right I was. I don’t think you realise how fucking angry most of us are about the EU and our useless politicians. I would be grateful if you would desist from dancing on our graves.
Oh for God’s sake, Jazz – 25% of all Australians are imports. Can none of you get that simple fact into your skulls? Stupid sniping comments like that just show how petty, unrealistic and introverted you Europeans have become. 😀
Even our Prime Minister is an “import”.
Araminta – I voted for Ted Heath’s EFTA when I was still British. But none of us at the time knew that we were voting for political union, in fact we were assured that we weren’t. Lies, lies and still more lies.
Indeed, Bearsy, we were deceived but we have to live with it.
Appreciate that Jazz – but none of you do anything about it. In fact many of you criticise those like Farage (if that’s his name) who do try. You’re a load of wimps!! 😀
You don’t have to live with it, Araminta, you choose to live with it. 👿
Farage’s stance against the EU sounds fine but realistically it is a bit like the BNP’s stance against immigration.
All hot air and unworkable. Apologies to Jazz.
No, as you rightly pointed out, we were sold a pup. Disengaging is like trying to resurrect Grammar Schools; it isn’t feasible, Bearsy.
I think most of us exports (and I use that word deliberately!) do know how angry many people are. What we don’t understand is why so few seem to be prepared to do anything about it.
You might also like to consider that we are not dancing on any graves, but are in mourning about what is happening there – most of us have relatives still living there. I have a daughter, three grand-children and two great-grand-children. I am bloody angry that they will be growing up in a subjugated state where their history, culture and everything that made England a “Good Place to Be” is denigrated. No disrespect to the rest of “Great Britain”, but at least the Scots, Irish and Welsh can boast about their heritage – whereas it seems to me that being proud of being English is severely frowned upon.
I voted for the Common Market. The main reason? Both of the ‘extreme’ sides of the political spectrum were against it… but their words of doom were absolutely right.
Direct action is the only thing and it’s just a matter of time.
Of course it’s feasible, Araminta. Grammar schools and all. It just requires a bit of tenacity and guts, something the British used to possess.
Apologies, but we have to go out for a while. We shall return! 😀
OK, I’ll plumb the depths and find some tenacity and guts in your absence. The next step is to somehow persuade our gutless leaders to do the same.
See you later, Bearsy!
I can now return to the important things in life; namely writing my short story! 🙂
Tom.
I think we have strayed with regard to the original subject of your post, but I blame it all on Bearsy. 🙂
Interesting discussion, nevertheless.
I never get fucked over in my UK bank, they bend over backwards for me.
But then they have known me for far too long.
They will still take directives over the phone from the USA on my voice alone.
But then Wales has long been a far more civilised place where everyone is known to each other in a community.
Jazz, the unkindest cut of all, I fear! You have me sussed. 🙂
Bearsy I can recollect an ANZ MD boasting to me some years ago that there were so many armed bank robberies in Australia that they had installed bullet-proof glass screens, which were normally out of sight, but were operated by a gas-compressed system, which caused them to fly up between the staff member being threatened with a hold-up and the gunman, on the press of a button. Apparently there had been a case or two of the armed robber having leapt up on the counter, straddling the spot when the button was pressed…..ouch! So take care!
CWJ – nonsense.
Whoops – forget the smiley thing, CWJ – 😀
Bearsy, I had the misfortune to work at one stage for a bank purchased by ANZ. I left when I realized they really believed Melbourne was the Centre of the Universe.
The MD’s name was Bailey, and I am referring to a period in the mid 1980s.
The Australian Institute for Criminology (and it looks like they must have a fulltime job!) report indicates the problem has not gone away. 848 armed robberies in a 53 month period is going some, by any country’s standards!
Click to access %7B41E30E6E-B3FD-44CF-AD5E-2F386DA64FED%7Dtandi253.pdf
I assume you were actually aware of this, hence the nonsense with smiley
🙂
Why do they rob banks so prolifically in Australia?
Willie Sutton, the US armed bank robber, was said to have responded, “because that’s where the money is, Stupid!” (but claimed in his memoirs that although he could well have said it, he didn’t!)
CWJ
I like the quote from your link below. It hints that ‘Australian’ bank robbery may not be confined to Australia.
CWJ – I was not attempting to dispute the fact that banks are robbed in Australia, nor to comment on the increasing, or decreasing rate of such malfeasance. I was merely taking light issue with the compressed air plate glass defence, which smacks of Australian or Kiwi leg-pulling of the “drop Bear” genre. The missing smiley was an omission, soon corrected.
Have another – 😀
Bearsy, I assure that they were installed in numerous branches within Australia. Eventually it was realized that what it did was protect the staff, but allowed for the armed robber to turn on customers on his side of the protective screen, and take them hostage, and threaten to kill them, if money wasn’t handed over…
In the ’80s, I was being visited by Board members from Melbourne who couldn’t believe we had cash lying around in open view in a particular Middle East state. They knew as much about Sharia law’s punishment for theft, as the average outback sheep farmer, which one or two of them, were! That particular year I think the number of armed bank robberies on the Australian branches had been 556.
Middle East: Nil!