The Un-Cooperative Bank redux

Well, I know you are all out there on the edge of your seats waiting for the scintillating conclusion to the saga of my non-banking with the Un-Cooperative Bank. Even though I am exhausted and have my usual thousand things to do, the guilt has overtaken my better judgement and I am compelled to pen (or rather key) the rest of the story. Also I want to get it out of my head (there's hardly room for anything else).

So, as we left off, I had asked the Un-Cooperative Bank (which I will henceforth refer to as the Un-Coop) to cease and desist with opening the account and return all original documents, making the request both by email and by post (I gave up on the phone as it was costing me too much money).

2 weeks and 2 days after I asked them to cancel my application, I received a big fat packet in the mail. I thought, 'At least they've returned my documents'. Ha ha, guess what? They had opened an account for me, oh joy. Now I had a liability on my hands. Worse yet, as they didn't seem to pay attention to any communication I sent them, I had no idea how I was going to close the account!

I just ignored the whole thing for awhile, while various documents arrived in the mail for my new unwanted business account. On their Web site (as if I should trust anything else written there, but I was desperate), there was the address of an arbitrator for banking called the Financial Ombudsman. I took the time to assemble all the information concerning my dealings with the Un-Coop, organized them by date, put them into a letter, and sent it to this Financial Ombudsman, along with a couple of printouts of the 2 emails I sent to the Un-Coop. I then took my original cancellation email, forwarded it to the email address on the Un-Coop's Web site with "IS ANYBODY THERE???????????" prepended to the subject line and some extra lines at the beginning of the email about the appallingly bad service.

4 days after I sent that email to Un-Coop, I finally got a response (never got a response to the other 2 emails I sent). This response rendered a brief apology, and said I needed to fax a signed letter to a certain number to close the account. Frustrated beyond belief by the Un-Coop and waiting for the Financial Ombudsman to act, I replied via email to Un-Coop as follows:

You have offered no explanation as to the lack of
response.  Why on Earth would I bother to fax?  Email,
telephone, and written letters all went unanswered. I
wouldn't expect a fax to produce a different result.

Faxes cost me money.  Phone calls to your customer service
center cost me money.  Letters cost me money.  Why should
I pay for your mistakes?  I have written to the Financial
Ombudsman in case they can help me close my account and
get all of my documents back, because no-one at Coop ever
seems to respond.

1 week after I sent the letter to the Financial Ombudsman (henceforth the FO), I get a reply from them. Get this: they say they are currently receiving very high volumes of enquiries and will provide me with a full response as soon as they can. Am I surprised? No. They give me a contact reference number in the meantime in case I want to contact them about my case.

I wait for the FO to respond. In the meantime I get a statement from Un-Coop showing a £3 service charge (the account is supposed to be fee free for the first 2 years). I laugh.

9 days after I sent the email quoted above, I get the following response:

Hello

I can advise that this account was opened in May 2007,
however, as this is not a secure website, I cannot give
out any further account detail.

Regards
{I am far too kind to name this useless individual whose
initials are JL}

Note the personalization, the relevancy, the knowledge of Web vs. email. Such professionalism as I have never known in a banking service center(centre). (In case it's not blatantly obvious, I write with sardony.)

About 2 weeks after I received acknowledgment of my complaint by the FO, I sent an email with my case reference, asking how it was going. Guess what? Yup. No reply to this day to the email.

Somewhere in here I received another account invoice from Un-Coop for a £3 service charge. I'm beyond a response.

After awhile, I figure the FO isn't going to do anything, so I went back to trying to contact Un-Coop without spending too much time nor money. First I emailed a response to JL's magnificent example of customer service quoted above. It went like this:

Wow, a 10 day response time.  It boggles the mind to
think that Coop thinks that's OK.

A few days after that, I thought, 'What the heck' and I emailed a copy of the letter I sent to the FO to the black Un-Coop-business-banking-email hole:

Just in case anyone at Coop Bank cares, I've attached
a letter I sent to the Financial Ombudsman several
weeks ago.  I received a reply from them dated June
18th, saying that they have high volumes of enquiries
and will provide me with a full response as soon as
they can.

In the meantime I've received some fee charge on the
Coop Bank account I never wanted to open and which was
advertised as fee free.  Wow.  You have outdone
yourselves.

Ain't life grand! Still not having heard anything from the FO (having emailed them twice with no response ever), I decided to try faxing the Un-Coop. Not only did I fax a request to close the account, but I also faxed a copy of the letter to the FO.

One week later I get a letter from Un-Coop which basically says, hey, thanks for contacting us about your unhappiness, and gee, we're sorry. And quoted directly from the letter: "One of my colleagues from our Customer Relations Team will be in touch with you by telephone or letter within the next 10 working days." And blah blah blah. The date on the letter is July 24.

On the 28th of July I get a letter from the FO. To summarize, they can't help me until the business has a chance to put things right (something like 90 days, or I could be confusing it with the broadband arbitrator, but that's another blog). They had written Un-Coop, and also sent me an address to write to Un-Coop, along with a name (though it looks fictitious to me).

Somewhere around August 11th or 12th, I get a letter from Un-Coop dated August 10th. This is the first time they have contacted me since the letter saying I would be contacted within 10 days. Let's see, July 24 to August 10 is, uh, take off my shoes, and, gosh, 17 days. Perhaps they don't understand the definition of the word within. I'd rather think that than that bankers can't do math.

This letter of August 10 apologizes for the delay in replying (personally I don't accept it, thanks all the same). It mentions that my letter highlighted training issues which would be addressed (training issues? these folks have no clue). No record could be found of me cancelling my application. The account was closed on July 28 following my fax received on July 19 (uh, does anyone see a problem here? 9 days to close the account that had no money in it and no transactions ever?) But the most priceless line was "Any original documentation would have been returned to you." Well, yeah, it would have been, had there been anyone remotely competent working there. But apparently there wasn't. Read on.

The letter finishes up to say "Should you wish to discuss these or any matters, please do not hesitate to contact me on {phone number} between 8am and 4 pm, Monday to Friday." And a signature and printed name.

I received the letter on a Saturday. I called Monday morning. I got someone who was not the person on the letter. I asked for the person on the letter. "She's not in today," I was told, "I think she's on holiday." That was the last straw. I let this person have it. Clearly, no-one at Un-Coop knows what customer service is. Clearly they don't understand that you don't put a customer and member through the wringer, send them a letter saying 'call me,' and not be in the office to receive the call. I told this person who actually was on the other end to GET ME A VERY SENIOR PERSON RIGHT NOW.

I had a long conversation with some woman who actually knew about my case, claiming that the letter writer had asked her to take over while she was away (though failing to put that in the letter). We had a nice conversation, and I reminded her that my documents had not been returned and would she see to it. Oh yes, she would, and they were working on their problems and they wish they had received my letter sooner and I reminded her that I needed a venue for that, and there was none (duh).

Stupidly, or perhaps resignedly, I did not take her name. Why stupidly? Because 2 weeks later I still have not received my original documents.

Moral of this tale: Don't bank with the Cooperative Bank, if you know what's good for you. And don't bank on email!

Coda: On August 29th, after I wrote this blog, I sent one more letter to the Un-Coop Bank in the hopes of getting my docs back. I addressed it to the last person from whom I had received a letter (the one that said I would have received my original docs by now). In it I wrote:

I’d like to give The Co-operative Bank the benefit of the doubt and assume that you just like receiving personal correspondence from me.But the reality is that this is now the 6^th (sixth, that’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) time I have requested that my original documents be returned.

Please return all documents submitted for the application, as they contain sensitive and proprietary information which The Co‑operative Bank no longer has any reason to know.

In case you are wondering what the 6 (six) times are:

1. By email to the unresponsive-but-well-advertised business.banking@co-operativebank.co.uk on May 10, 2007.
2. By post to the address above on May 11, 2007.
3. By fax on July 19, 2007.
4. By a letter forwarded to you from the Financial Ombudsman sometime in July, 2007.
5. By telephone on August 13, 2007.
6. This letter dated August 29, 2007

In this day and age of identity theft, and especially considering the chaos at The Co-operative Bank, it is IMPERATIVE that I receive all copies of these documents. Please bear in mind that I CANCELLED the application for the account long before it was opened. I’m sure a legal entity would bear that in mind as well.

Funnily enough, I received a packet in the mail, with a letter dated September 3rd, 2007, which contained all my original documents.

The Un-Coop has a new ad campaign for its bank and insurance products. The slogan is "good with money".

Don't bank on email

I know it's been awhile since my last post on life here, but believe me it's not for lack of material. First, a little background information: I'm not a telephone person, nor is my husband. Our phone does not ring that much; often when it does and I'm near it, I jump.

This is not the case for English people, apparently. People telephone to conduct their business. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, I realize(realise). But over the past few years, if there is a way to conduct some piece of business online, that's what I prefer. This is because it is then documented, and in such a way as to easily send the information on to others who have an interest. So if a company I am dealing with has an online presence, I will go that route to communicate with them.

Now, in recent weeks it has come to pass that I have had to form a company. I won't go into the whys and wherefores, suffice it to say that it is so. In order for a company to receive payment, there must be a company bank account. Naturally, in the process of forming this company, I endeavored(endeavoured) to open such an account. I used another company to help me form this company because I was in a big hurry, and did not have the time (nor, truth be told, the inclination) to learn about forming companies in the UK. This company offered to help me open an account with one of the big UK banks. However, since I already had a couple of accounts at another large UK bank, and am a member of another group that has a bank, I declined, preferring to keep my dealings with a smaller number of firms.

Instead of going with my personal accounts bank, I thought I'd keep the business separate and go with the organization of which I am a member. This organization touts all sorts of ethics regarding environmental friendliness, standing up for the little guy, fair trade, and so on. All this made me want to give them my business business, in addition to some personal business. So, even though their bank is much less convenient, I figured most of my transactions will be online (or over the telephone, see paragraph 2) anyway, and it wouldn't really matter. I printed out the massive application, where they ask for your life story (including the ending, at least for the next year or so) and that of others involved in the business. I probably spent a couple of pounds sterling in ink alone just printing out the 26 or so pages. Then I spent quite a bit of time filling out all the details, checking them with the company that is helping me, etc. Along with what I wrote in, I also had to provide all sorts of ID. For me that means a photocopy of my passport, my visa, my UK driver's license(licence), a utility bill addressed to me, and similar information for others signing on the account. But the photocopies are not sufficient - I had to get them certified. Fortunately I know a judge here, and he kindly signed and certified all the documents.

Great, I thought, all I need to do is mail this packet to the bank processing center(centre) and in 2 weeks I should have an account. Ha ha!

We had to go to the States for some family business in April. Just before we left, the bank mailed a request for more information from me. I didn't receive the request till after we got back. They needed a business plan. I called them to ask them what specifically they wanted, calling a number that charges by the minute, even on our internet phone, and waiting a good 6 minutes before someone finally answered, all the while listening to the most raucous distortion of some horrible jingle music. When someone finally answered, I complained about the music and the amount of time it took for a live person to pick up the line (in the nicest possible way, I assure you) and asked if that amount of wait time was normal. I was assured there was something that had gone wrong that day and the wait times were unusually long. I then asked about the business plan, received instructions on what to send, and finished the call. I dutifully typed up the information and sent it out post haste.

Mail sent first class here usually arrives the next day, or 2 days later max. After 2 days I called again to see if they received the business plan - it was getting near the end of the month and soon I would have money coming in (yea!) and nowhere to put it. Another wait, about 4 minutes this time (remember it's a toll number, and the horrible cacophonous distorted music was still playing). No, they hadn't received the plan, but they could take it over the phone. So I gave them the plan over the phone (trust me, it's very short). I asked how long it would take to open the account - usually 48 hours after receiving the information. Great, because I really need this account opened.

I waited another 2 days, then called again. Another 4 minute wait (and, oh gosh, the noise, the noise!), then, is the account open yet? No. What's the hold-up? I can't tell, let me do some research and call you back this afternoon. OK. Afternoon comes and goes, no call. I call again the next morning, same wait, same music, have practically the identical conversation, with the identical promise to research and call me back that afternoon. No call back.

What the heck, I'll email them. I went to their Web site, read their promises of customer service, and emailed the address on the site. Urgent, please respond, here are the problems I've been having, can someone help me? Nothing in my inbox after a day. I began researching my personal bank for their business account process. I called them on their toll-free number, and someone answered on the FIRST RING. I asked about the process, which sounded simple. I then sent the other bank an ultimatum email. If the account is not open today, cease and desist (as if they were actually doing anything they could cease). Needless to say, no call, no email reply, nothing, nada, bupkus. So I sent one last email - cancel the application, return all documents (still no reply to any of this to this very day, and that was over a week ago).

I then call my personal bank (available till 8PM for telephone enquiries). Once again, immediate answer on their toll-free number. The representative took a small amount of information down, then said I would receive a call within 48 hours to schedule a live appointment in my little town with my business banker. I informed her that even though it was not their fault, I was in a desperate situation and I have a high-end account with them, and perhaps they could expedite things please?

Nearing the 48th business hour, I telephoned them - I MUST HAVE AN APPOINTMENT SOON! Very apologetic they said they would check the schedules and phone me back. I got a phone call back that day, scheduling a tentative time, because they could not get in touch with my banker at that moment. Then I got a call from another banker making sure that I was being helped and giving me his number if there was any problem (also recommending a nice pub in his village). My banker called me the next day to change the time, I met with him the next day (the 5th day after I started the process), very nice chap. Took the information right there and then, typing it into the computer. I didn't have to produce ID (they already had verified that when I got the personal accounts), I didn't have to fill anything out. I only had to sign a couple of things. He gave me an account number right then and there, although it wouldn't be open for another 2-3 days. By this morning, my account was open, local, and I could deposit the check! I could also finish some of the lingering bureaucracy associated with company formation.

Yeesh. I sent a letter to the bad bank, better known as The Cooperative Bank, which was so unhelpful that I now call them The Un-Cooperative Bank, insisting that they return all the documents I sent them, as they contain confidential information which they have no reason nor right to know (privacy issues are much bigger here). I also complained about their appalling lack of service and response, especially in lieu of their espoused philosophy. And I sent a copy of this letter to Which? magazine, the Consumer Reports of the UK. So far, still no word from them (nor Which?). It's like a black hole.

Maybe it's the same black hole to which most of my emails to UK companies and even UK individuals go. I don't know what it is, but my theory is this: Companies feel the need for a Web presence. They go out and hire someone or some firm to create a Web site for them. They go through all the consultations and design iterations and so on. Finally they get their Web site up, complete with customer service information, including an email address. They then breathe a big sigh of relief and think "There, that's done. Moving on to the next thing." and never touch the site again, and don't bother to actually connect the email address with a live person.

As for the individuals who don't respond - I guess it goes back to the telephone thing.

Incidentally, the bank that gave me the customer service I needed, and indeed always has, is Lloyds TSB. If you ever need a bank account in the UK, I suggest you go with them. But whatever you do, make sure you do it over the phone.