From: "AMO" 
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: Rip off Barclays
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 00:07:00 +0100

"Shane Cook"  wrote in message
news:civj97$5su$1@hercules.btinternet.com...
> I just want everyone to know what a rip off deal Barclays are offering on
> their current account. My wife happened to accidentally go overdrawn on
her
> account, the first time ever, and Barclays charged her £25 per
transactions,
> yes per transaction! They didn't reject any transactions. They didn't warn
> her she was over drawn when she took money out of the cash machine. They
> didn't phone her up and tell her she was overdrawn, no they claim to have
> sent her two letters, which we're still waiting to receive and no doubt
will
> arrive tomorrow, to say she was overdrawn and that they had charged her
£25
> for each letter they sent her.
>
> She's never done this before, and did it by mistake. At first they refused
> to refund her any of these, but then after I spoke with them, they agreed
to
> refund one of the charges. I'll be writing to Barclays to complain in a
few
> minutes. We've just finished completing the cahoot application form for
her,
> so that's the last Barclays will see of this customer.
>
> Kind Regards,
> Shane Cook.


Get used to it.  Unfortunately, they're all like that.  The worst ones are
actually the internet banking services.  First Direct / Smile etc.  Whilst
High Street banks will ultimately send you snail mail, online accounts will
send you emails.  Whilst thats all very well and good for those that check
their emails daily, it becomes equally problematic if you don't.

Getting a refund from an online bank is much harder than with a High Street
bank where you probably have established years of custom with.  Just tell
them that they are not giving you any reason to stay with them and they will
reimburse you.  You'll have a lot more problems if you try to do this with
Cahoot.

Whilst High Street banks are the worse for charges, when it comes to
compassion for unauthorised charges, whilst their unauthorised charges are
higher, they are far more inclined to reimburse.  Online banks are fairly
robotic with standard responses.

By all means complain, but what you should be doing is getting an authorised
overdraft and getting that set as high as possible.

AMO