After the Daily Mail contacted Barclays the bank telephoned Mr Sparks, apologised for closing the account and offered to reopen it, according to the businessman.
He said: ‘An exec told me the decision to close the account was automated but they couldn’t tell me why that was. I declined the offer to reopen the account.’
Why couldn't you tell him? Because 'Computer says no'..? Who programmed it?
Mr Sparks and his sister have now been forced to set up an online business account with Monzo.
When I had a similar issue trying to navigate Barclays' bizarre complaints system to get my mother's account closed down and the balance transferred to her online First Direct account (who were superb, and I'd recommend them to anyone) to pay for her care home costs, I ran into similar issues.
It seems banks are no longer running things. The government and/or 'the systems' are...
A spokesperson for Barclays said: 'As part of our ongoing responsibility to help prevent financial crime, and to meet our regulatory obligations, we are required to keep up to date information regarding our customers’ accounts.
'In this case, after 18 months of repeated attempts to contact the customer, including through online banking, email and post, we did not receive all of the necessary information relating to their Barclays Business account, leaving us no alternative but to close the account.
'We fully understand the issues this can cause customers and we worked hard to avoid the last resort of account closure. As a gesture of goodwill we have offered to re-open their account to allow more time for the information to be shared, which has been declined.'
Can you blame him?
Perhaps their gesture of goodwill should have included a couple of quid put in a new account?
ReplyDeletePenseivat
My bank in France has decided not to lend to any company searching for new fossil fuel depots.
ReplyDeleteI wrote to them and suggested that they concentrated in using our money deposited with them to improve the life of their customers and not indulge in woke aims.
What, you assumed that banks where somehow immune to the depredations of affirmative action and woke hiring?
ReplyDeleteI suspect Mr Sparks will have inadvertently "offended" one of them (or just not acted cowed enough), and thus their fellow travellers are punishing him.
It's not just government and education where they now exclusively hire others just like them, it's every organisation and business that gave in and allowed them through the door.
Ten years ago my local (chain) coffee shop hired a gay area manager, now literally everyone working for the company in the area is ... guess what. My local hospital hired a muslim HR manager, and now every senior post in the hospital is taken by ... you guessed it. My local council 'installed' a muslim mayor (who'd been in the country all of ten years, and the city for less than two) and ... voila, all the local offices are now safe-spaces for the poor Palestinians and most of the staff are now ... guess again.
My local Barclays used to be staffed by a bevy of white upper-middle class pretty young things, then they went woke and most (in a city which is still 99% white British) now wear hijabs and (white) customers are treated like an inconvenience at best, and scum usually (not to mention it went from open 6 days a week to now ... 3, with reduced hours even then).
I hope to live to see the lot of them (from branch to boardroom) bankrupt and destitute (although jumping from the head-office roof would be acceptable).
It's all down to cost savings. You don't need a bank manager because no decisions are made at the bank. It is just a handling system for cash and cheques.
ReplyDeleteThe government legislates uselessly more and more Senior Management dictate more cost savings and the banks IT makes it happen and ensures there is no way around it for employees to actually help the customers.
It isn't just banks though as others are pretty crap as well. As they add layers of DEI and ESG people the costs have to come from somewhere. We don't like paying bank charges so they simply cut back on customer service and ignore the complaints.
"Perhaps their gesture of goodwill should have included a couple of quid put in a new account?"
ReplyDeleteIt's prbably 'not allowed' for them to open one for him without him knowing!
"My bank in France has decided not to lend to any company searching for new fossil fuel depots.
I wrote to them and suggested that they concentrated in using our money deposited with them to improve the life of their customers and not indulge in woke aims."
You vill go on ze list!
"What, you assumed that banks where somehow immune to the depredations of affirmative action and woke hiring?"
I was obviously wrong!
"It's all down to cost savings. You don't need a bank manager because no decisions are made at the bank. It is just a handling system for cash and cheques."
I suppose that's maginally better thab them mnaking the wrong decisions...