Your worst banking experience

[wylie]

I left "which bank" after 20 years of service. I wanted to stay home with my children but it was hard to cut the ties and actually resign.

I decided I'd go for an interview to see the lay of the land in case I resigned and wanted to re-join when the kids were older.

Nice young thing of about 23 years of age told me (with 20 years' experience in senior secretarial positions - in fact only one higher position available to me) that if I resigned and decided to re-join I would have to SIT THE TEST LIKE THE SCHOOL LEAVERS and start at the bottom of the ladder. PFFFFFTTTT!!!!!!

I was a highly valued staff member with excellent records but would be put in the pot with the school leavers if I wanted a job. And companies complain about staff retention..... what a joke.

Wylie

 

[Dazz]

I think everyone knows my opinion on Banks. The CBA has been by far away the best investing partner I've ever had. My father before me also dealt exclusively with the CBA and they treated him pretty good too.

Great service, immaculate paperwork and attention detail. Quick email turnaround. Emails for the high flyers in the Bank is a very new thing indeed. Most on the lower levels still don't have it I'm told, and definitely not internet access. Willing to look at and also follow through with funds for "risky" ventures, with a few provisos to put the responsibility ball back in my court.

The best thing, I have an established and verifiable financial 'history' with the Bank that they can call up and check. I'm not just a number any more, and can discuss property deal histories with people who are familiar with the details. This is worth gold when trying to convince people to back you financially for your next venture. Using the line "similar to what we did with the **** complex".....

What we don't do is walk in off the street and ask for a tiny 250K loan and expect everyone in the Bank's employ to simply drop whatever they were doing and slavishly attend to our request immediately. This expectation - or a variance of it - is where people come unstuck I reckon. They'll be disappointed and dejected with the service levels if they have this expectation.

If the Manager has 17 deals on his plate, ranging from say 300K all the way up to say 15 or 20MM, I can guarantee if you walk in with your big boots on and demand attention for your massive (in your personal opinion) 250K loan then you are going to be treated with the non-chalant disrespect that comes with being at the back of the economic queue. It's not right, it's not nice, it's morally reprehensible, but that's the reality of dealing with lending institutions who are trying to make as much money for their shareholders as possible. Customers and employees, despite the published rhetoric from management, are a secondary consideration.

The personal side of Banking, that the Banks have been so effective over the years in stripping away and reducing it down to mere numbers, is still there for me and that makes all the difference. Perhaps this is where the mortgage brokers streak to the front with their clients....they return that level of personal touch to the finance industry that the clients are so desparately looking for. No-one likes being part of the great unwashed public crowd. Anyone that treats you a bit "special" will always win your favour.

 

[Pablo]

Hi,

My wife once withdrew to much money leaving insufficient funds for a direct debit, when I realised the next day I transferred the money into the account.
I checked the account a few days later and found I had 2 $40 fines for insufficient funds 1 for my wife's mistake and the 2nd for not having enough in the account to pay the first fine.

 

[our obsession]

My Worst Banking Experience.......

....would be NOT banking or using Banks sooner..

Just my personal thought and experience is..*I Love Banks Very Very much*....they help make my investing all possible, they loan me money!

That seriously rocks.

I have foibles, I make mistakes (I know that's hard to believe-but I do) so I find I am rather tolerant and keen to rectify errors and forgive others..

We are spread out over a nice cross section of financial companies, there have been experiences on both sides (them and us) that have required attention, everyone has been more than helpful...hasn't been anything we couldn't sort out over phone or internet...and on a day to day basis, our small town Bank staff are fantastic people...love'em dearly.

We have had (and currently have) business with Commonwealth, ANZ, Vision, Better Choice, Adelaide, Westpac, RAMS, Macquarie, National, and a little embarrassed to say a couple of others, I would have to look up the files...but they were okay too..

It's all fun, would have liked to have been getting up close and personal with them a little sooner than what we eventually did, that's the only point I feel we could have improved upon.

 

[FrankGrimes]

Not just Bankwest- they're all like that.

You can even pay on the due date- after 5PM- and you will be fined.

Or, in one case, the due date was a holiday Monday in my state- so the Monday payment was not credited until Tuesday, and I was charged.

I have accidently keyed the wrong amount in, like a zero instead of 9.. So I was every so slightly under the "minimum payment"

Slugged with $40 fee by Westpac.. Owch

Other than that Westpac have been pretty good, other than some low Bank Valuations at times (despite evidence proving otherwise)

 

[turk]

I am in the middle of a settlement/refinance with ANZ, described by 1 of their own managers as a mess.

The lack of service, the broken promises etc just continue to roll on.

They have already offered to pay the penalties I am incurring without me even requesting this in writing.

 

[sue78]

.
Just my personal thought and experience is..*I Love Banks Very Very much*....they help make my investing all possible, they loan me money!

That seriously rocks.

I agree!

There are loads of nagging points though such as fees and charges for the slightest mistake but I find if you call them and explain the situation, they normally reverse the fees.

Worst banking experience would have to be Suncorp. We had our day to day banking with them and a car loan. We applied for a land and building loan. The land was approved and settled but even with a pre-approval, they denied the building loan! It was ridiculous since the land loan took into account the anticipated rental income. They then came up with alls orts of excuses like not accepting foreign income eventhough they had just accepted it a mth ago for the land loan...circumstances had not changed. Oh...yes this is also coming from the Head of Credit! idiot.

Put us in such a dificult situation coz we couldn't just borrow for building from another bank. So in the end we change dto Westpac, paid out the Suncorp loan so we could borrow for construction. It was such a hassle. When Suncorp found out we were paying out the loan, they did everything to keep our business!

With Westpac, the thing I hate is that they ask too many identification questions on phone banking. I have 10+ accounts and they always asks loan balances etc If I get one answer wrong then I'm blocked and had to go into a branch to get unblocked.

But I doubt any bank in perfect. Wetpac so far has approved every loan application so that's a pretty good track record. Not to mention their brilliant AMEX platinum credit card! I have clocked up 70,000+ points in just 3 mths.

 

[letiha]

Sue

it's reassuring to see that i'm not alone in my bank drama's. my future rule is going to be 1 deal at a time!!!

 

[Lyne]

With Westpac, the thing I hate is that they ask too many identification questions on phone banking. I have 10+ accounts and they always asks loan balances etc If I get one answer wrong then I'm blocked and had to go into a branch to get unblocked.

Sue, I'm with Westpac and do use the phone banking quite alot. At the beginning of the call I punch in my customer number then my three digit pin number. The only things I am asked when they take my call is my name, address and date of birth.

 

[sue78]

I didn't have my 3 digit pin previously and I also found out later than they got my dob wrong!

 

[yo yo ma]

As expected, it looks like "which Bank" is taking most of the flak, distantly followed by the NAB.

Maybe the prelim. results are an indication of market share for the resi mortgage market....dunno ??

Very true... you have to take into account market share, which would probably make Bank West the highest % of negative experiences.

This really requires some qualitative research, so find out if it is just a negative experience because of an overdraw fee or a major problem such as a loan stuff up.
Steve

 

[steveadl]

I believe CBA is the biggest bank by far in reagrds to amount of customers, which may account for their higher problem rate. I asked my mate a question a while back "Why the hell is the line so much longer at CBA than all the other banks?" (I have 6 banks within 2 min walk from work so can judge as I walk past) - and his reply was that they have the largest amount of customers (at least customer who have to line up anyway )

Cheers
Steve

 

[Peter_Tersteeg]

There really should be two polls here. Worst experience and which lender do you use.

I agree that CBA is awful, but some of the other top 5 also tend to be the top 5 banks used.