After today’s marathon phone fest calling numerous Banks I can really understand why the elderly get very frustrated with modern technology and dealing with the banks.
Today I’ve been helping my mother sort out the last few issues with the banks and insurance companies after my father’s death in March.
Yes, in March and I know it’s November!
HSBC
One of the issues that my mother has is that my mum and dad had a joint bank account with HSBC and despite numerous conversations and even calling into the branch they still haven’t sorted things out and it still shows my dad’s name on mailings sent to the house. This week however has been the icing on the cake, when my mum received a letter to say that the account that they both had would no longer be accessible via a debit card. I believe this account was called a flex account and was predominantly a savings account.
Now today I’ve spent 2 hours and 23 minutes on the phone to them today trying to get this swapped to a different bank account type, just so my mum can get money out of that account with a debit card because HSBC will not allow you to take money out with the supplied debit card.
The letter that she received was dated 2nd of November and it arrived on the 11th of November and the letter states that her debit card will stop working on the 16th of November.
What the fuck HSBC!
Phone up and their telephone system states that they are experiencing heavy call volumes which immediately sends my mum into it a meltdown because she’s been dealing with these clowns since March. Hearing this again and she’s getting upset as she’s heard this time and time again.
I however am a bit more tenacious and will sit and wait and we waited 40 minutes before we speak to an advisor.
The girl on the other end was very apologetic, very helpful, but couldn’t sort the problem out. Her initial suggestion was to use online banking.
“Perhaps you can transfer money to another account”, then what’s the point in having it?
“Well online banking would help!” – and how do we get money out with online banking without transfering it to another account, last time I checked online banking won’t let you print money!
So, use online banking was her suggestion!
When she actually did transfer us to somebody else the first thing they did was asked for my dad’s authorisation which sent my mum into the stratosphere because he died in March and they have been informed numerous times of his death. Hell, our local branch has a scanned copy of his death certificate!
After over 2-hours on the telephone to HSBC the problem still wasn’t resolved but HSBC promised to call my mum on Monday morning to sort this out
I don’t believe them for one minute!
Note: they called her at 11:51, the phone rang three times and then they hung up!
Santander
Second problem, Santander.
One of the reasons I’ve been to see my mother today was so that I can sort out certain issues with her car insurance. The insurance is currently with Volvo car insurance, who my parents have been with for over 25 years.
Despite my mum writing to them, phoning them and even sending them a copy of my dad’s death certificate they would not change the name on the account and the renewal arrived in the name of “executor of Mr N Porter”!!!!
My mum no longer wishes to deal with Volvo car insurance because they won’t change this which brings us back to Santander.
My mum has a debit card with this company and when we try to buy car insurance with it we can not. We are thwarted because the purchasing websites credit card merchant says they need to send us a one time PIN number to “your registered mobile phone”.
My mum doesn’t have a registered mobile phone it’s only since my dad died that she’s actually got a mobile phone. So where are Santander sending this code?
We call Santander and the guy on the other end was very nice and pleasant. We can barely hear him though and I have ok hearing but my mum’s deaf and she has a hearing impaired telephone which has got extra amplification on it and we could still only just hear him using that.
So, to be able to use my mum’s card online we phone Santander and get a new mobile phone number added to her account so that she can do one time phone codes and buy things online.
Now, as this is an online service you would expect as soon as you give them your telephone number it will work, but oh no no!
It takes upto 24-hours! That’s what the gentleman said “up to 24-hours”.
So, having travelled halfway across the country to help my mum I haven’t been able to sort her car insurance out or bank accounts because of either bureaucracy or company policy. Is it any wonder we all think the banks are a bunch of c*nts?
Halifax and Barclays
I’ve also been trying to sort out Halifax and Barclays who also seemed to think that my father is still alive. That’s despite us cancelling his credit cards and they still keep sending him letters asking if my dad would like to increase his credit limit on a card which has already been cancelled!
Halifax, 32 minutes on hold and problem sorted within 10 minutes. They promise to take us off they’re mailing list and close the account in my father’s name down. We’ll see as they’ve said this before.
Barclaycard on the other hand said we will have to write to them again. So, I shall be writing a very strongly worded letter to the chief executive officer of Barclaycard with a copy of the original letter that my mum sent in May and another copy of my dad’s death certificate.
Apparently they have no record of past conversations and they may not have processed the letter because of Covid. I did say to my mum let’s go spend some money on it as they’ll soon start wanting a conversation if you don’t pay them!
What a pain today has been. I need a glass of something alcoholic!
