Worst Company Ever

Yup, even worse than the Post Office (at least it’s free to ring or write them to complain). Yes, folks, it’s Barclays again.

In our last exciting installment, we left our hero stranded in New Zealand with virtually **** all cash. He had been requested to send a letter to get his address changed and to have money transferred to another account, which he duly did.

Lo and ******* behold… they bolloxed it up again.

Over two weeks on and no money in my Lloyds account, where it should have been transferred to. Thankfully, I’ve just installed Skype, so calling them this evening didn’t cost so much. This is a good thing.

I rang the credit card loss line as it’s the only number with a proper dialling code (I know, this isn’t a problem with Skype – force of habit). I explained to the girl I didn’t have a card or anything and I needed to speak to someone about my current account. She put me through to telephone banking that asks me to key in my card number or telephone banking passcode.

I hung up and retried.

The second muppet put me through to customer services after 7 minutes of hold music. There I found out that my address details had been changed (yay). But that the money hadn’t been moved. So they definitely got the request as it was on the same side of the same sheet of paper, and then they utterly failed to action it.

This has left me up **** Creek without the money for a paddle. Or more precisely, I’ve got a camper van to hire in 2 days and not enough money in my bank to pay for it.

Useless Bird put me through to the Customer Relations department (15 minutes on the phone and counting), where another girl proved to be as useless as everyone else. After explaining everything to the vacious tart, it took two requests for an address to write a complaint to for her to give me one. She also asked what number she could call me back on. Hello?

I told her to call my mother who has Power of Attorney. But she’s not linked to the account. Of course not. She’s my mother, not my spouse, and I don’t live in Hicksville, South Carolina (or Invercargill, south NZ to be topical) so she wouldn’t be. ****’s sake.

I got the number of her department off her and was told to call back. OK, so she apologised umpteen times for my situatoin and how much it was costing me to call but – really – you could tell she didn’t give a ****.

Of course, there’ll be a letter heading their way shortly (I’ll copy it up here) but it won’t do any good as it’s obvious I’m moving my money away to close my account down.

Barclays. *****. Stupid, useless, thumb-up-arse *****. All of them. *****. Avoid, avoid, avoid. I’d be grateful if as many people as possible could link to this article using the word “Barclays” so it rockets up Google.

More religious tomfoolery

Some Spanish “green” MPs have had a decent idea – give apes rights. Now, I don’t think they’re talking about the vote or anything, but protection from slavery and torture. Basically, a right to live where they do in a manner in which they’re happy without the threat of people kidnapping them and using them as playthings or whatever.

All well and good.

Then along come the god-botherers:

Archbishop of Pamplona and Tudela Fernando Sebastian said he could not believe it was even being proposed.

“We don’t give rights to some people – such as unborn children, human embryos, and we are going to give them to apes,” he said.

Whatever happened to all creatures being equal in god’s eyes, Mr Sebastian? So what if there’s still arguments raging over the whole abortion thing? Is it always the case that we should finish one discussion completely and utterly (and in your favour, most likely) before moving on to something utterly unrelated?

Let’s all take a leaf out of his book, people. Stop worrying about the poor state of the NHS, and that silly scuffle in the Middle East. Take your mind off the last major earthquake and what we can do to help. There are still people out there who think the earth is flat – we really have to sort that out first before we move on to anything else.

Bush to destroy family life to cover up his ****-ups

George Bush does it again. Targetting a minority in a bid to take people’s attentions away from the atrocities being commited in his name in other parts of the world. This time he’s calling for a gay marriage ban, most likely to stir up some support from the Bible-bashers across the southern states.

As the article says, the amendment is highly unlikely to go through but is simply a smokescreen to gain some support – suppot which has been sliding rapidly over recent months.

And who thought the manipulative, self-serving, pathetic little man couldn’t sink any lower?

He states that “Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and a wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society.”

This is **** on so many levels. The reason we’ve had ages of experience is that it’s been the only relationship accepted by society for thousands of years – at least here and in the US.

Does anyone have the divorce/separation rates for gay couples as compared to hetero ones? Divorce must rate as one of the largest upsets possible in a child’s life. Many kids get through it, but it can be hugely traumatic. Gay couples rarely get kids except through adoption. It’s bloody hard for them to have a family otherwise. Whereas hetero ones can pop them out like peas from a pod without being means-tested or having their backgrounds probed to make sure they’re “suitable”.

I’m no expert and I’ll be utterly honest. I’m a little unsure about kids being raised by same-sex couples. I just don’t know how well-adjusted the children will be and I can assure you they’ll be bullied mercilessly at school. However, I don’t think they’ll catch “gay” from mum and mum or dad and dad. That’d just ludicrous.

As I said, though, a gat couple has to prove beyond a doubt that they’d be good parents before they can adopt – moreso than any hetero couple. Of course, there are other routes, especially for lesbian couples, whereby getting pregnant is a lot easier than the adoption route… but we’re off onto another conversation here.

Bush needs to… well. Bush needs to **** off, foremostly. Sadly, this won’t happen until the next election when he can’t stand again (thank ***** for that). In the meantime, he’s going to gain a few points as the religious right ignore the dying troops and chaos in the Middle East for a chance to persecute people in their own country over a lifestyle decision that defines who they, as people, are.

He’ll be appealing to have all Jewish kids gassed and only allowing people with blonde hair and blue eyes to reproduce next.

Barclays = still *****

Following on from this older post, I’ve been having even more “fun” with this crap-awful excuse for a financial organisation. No, not organisation. “Organisation” implies organisation i.e. that they’re organised. And they sure as **** aren’t.

Before I left the UK I rang them up to change my address to that of my folks. Same as everyone else. Only Barclays decided to be different from every other place I got in touch with and ignore my request. Just to be really different they ignored it twice.

Originally, I rang them up to change it. The guy on the phone said he didn’t think it could be done on the telephone without my Phone Banking Passcode. Which I’d not been issued as I’d not signed up for phone banking. But, no, it was OK – it’s only an address change so he can do it (and did – apparently). However, he did tell me to follow this up with a written request as well, which as I didn’t trust him or the bank, I duly did.

To no ******* avail.

I got an inkling after I emailed them regarding another inconsistency in my account about 6 weeks later. A reply came back telling me that, due to the confidential nature of the reply, it had to be sent by mail and to expect a letter in due course. 3 weeks later, and my folks hadn’t received anything. Getting Kim to check I found out why – said letter had gone to Bradford.

Then my internet banking got locked out again. This time I’m 100% positive the details I was entering were correct as I had a flipping record of them that I’d used before.

No worries, thinks I. Get the mother to call them. She has a power of attorney over all my financial dealings.

Tough ****, said Barclays when she called. We don’t care. We need to speak to the man himself who, at that time, was in Hanoi and unable to get a working telephone to ring internationally. Either way, I couldn’t ring the 0845 number required. I needed a genuine, proper, regional phone number.

Currently in New Zealand and I’m in the same boat. I managed to get hold of the “lost and stolen card” number and used that as it’s the only non-08** number they publish. The woman at the end of the phone was nicely useless, but put me though to someone marginally more useful but a **** of a lot less sympathetic.

End result – unless my mother can attend a branch of Barclays to register her Power of Attorney (round trip – 60 miles) and then wait up to a month for it to be accepted and then attend in person again to access my funds and move them elsewhere… the quickest way is to write them a letter. How ******* great is that?

They go on and on about their internet banking. But to fix that I have to ring them on a number I can’t access as I’m abroad – which is when people are quite likely to need internet banking. Even if I could get to them they have to send me a new access code. Which would go to my old address which I can’t access. And I can’t change that address without sending them a letter or having my mother make two trips to a remote branch.

Solution: I wrote them a letter. Both changing my address and asking them to transfer all the funds to another account, then close the account forthwith, retrieving all their records, mulching them with razor blades and shoving the whole lot up their collective ******* arses.

OK, maybe not the last few bits but that’s only as I didn’t have room on the letter to squeeze it into a P.S. Once I have my cash safely into an account I can access, I’ll let them know what they can do with their shoddy account.

******* *******.

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Random gubbins about me

I pinched this one from Damo’s blog.

4 jobs I have had in my life
1 – Implementations Consultant (helpdesk geek)
2 – Technical Account Manager (helpdesk geek)
3 – Support technician (helpdesk geek)
4 – Support consultant (helpdesk geek with a car)

4 films I can watch over and over

1 – Blade
2 – Aliens
3 – Star Wars trilogy (original, un-******-with versions)
4 – Shawshank Redemption

4 places I have lived
1 – Gateshead
2 – Strathaven
3 – Gateshead
4 – Bradford

TV Shows I like to watch
1 – Top Gear
2 – CSI (in all three flavours)
3 – Far too much on the NatGeo or Discovery channels
4 – Blackadder

Four places I have been on holiday
1 – Austin, TX
2 – Andorra
3 – Bangkok
4 – Ostend

4 favourite Foods
1 – Beans on toast
2 – Jaffa Cakes
3 – Roast beef and Yorkshire puds
4 – Beer

4 places I would rather be right now
1 – Somewhere I was earning a living. Like right here in 5 months’ time
2 – Christchurch (be there in 10 days or so)
3 – Kho Pipi or somewhere else in Thailand I’ve not been yet
4 – Antarctica cos I don’t know anyone else who’s been there