Business banking complaints

[Mrs A]

Hi

I am thinking of making an official complaint against my bank. I was wondering if anyone had some advice or views on the issue:

A slimed down version of what happened is as follows:

We requested an overdraft facility in November 2005.
The client relationship manager did not give us an answer until April 2006, despite numerous calls and emails.
In the mean time the bank have slapped horrendous charges on us which have made the situation a lot worse. The answer was that they will not provide us with an overdraft facility because the business has yet to make a profit. (We are 14 months old).

The bank has however offered us a loan to cover the overdraft! The rate offered is ridiculous as is the repayment period.

What really aggravates me is that the bank are offering us a loan to pay for the overdraft that wouldn't exist if they hadn't charged us and had given us at the least a short term overdraft facility.

Am I the only one who thinks Barclays bank have been completely out of order here? ...I think I have a case of negligence, does anyone have any similar experiences? Maybe you could tell me how you dealt with it?

[tariffconnect]

Hi
You should be able to claim back the charges from your bank. I recently did this on my personal account and they were refunded in full from the last 6 years. You can claim for unauthorised overdraft fees and bounced direct debit fee'sas the OFT has ruled they are too expensive.
Check out this site, and check the forums to see if business bank accounts are covered... http://www.moneysavingexpert.com
Hope this helps!
Sean

[Mrs A]

Thanks Sean.
6 years rebate...well done!

I'll let you know how I get on...to even get half the charges back would be a huge help to the business.

[EquusTrade]

Good Luck with Barclays - I've personally had no end of problems with them - both with my personal accounts and business ones. I should change and will do soon - but at the moment I haven't got the time to transfer

[cgers43]

Hello

Before I start ranting I would like to apologise for the fact that I have no practical advise to give, but am really glad of the chance to have a good moan about Barclays.

I started up last year as a sole trader, In February i involved a business partner which I realised very quickly was a bad move. When the other party became involved we opened a Partnership account, and the bank allowed the business an overdraft facility which was to be in place for 2 years. When my business partner left I returned to using the sole trader account I set up originally. I have kept the bank in the picture the whole time, and yet in their wisdom after 8 weeks of giving me the facility, they recalled the overdraft, that I paid to have for two years.

The bank claimed that by returning to the sole trader account I was in fact ending one business and starting another and there were insufficient accounts to justify the overdraft. With each conversation I was told that the bank is very careful because so many new business' fail. I'm not surprised when this is the kind of "help" they give out.

The second repeated comment that I heard was "In the banks interests". I don't really care much for the banks interests, but I do care about my own, so i have moved to Natwest. They seem alot more approachable so far.

[Soup Dragon]

I can concur with this. Barclays were a nighmare of heavy handed decisions. Natwest were pretty good and Bank of Scotland have been superb. Our account with BoS is postal, free and we have a good relationship with the staff up in Glasgow even though we are hundreds of miles away.

My advice, do your homework, go see other banks, see what they can do for you as regards loans, transfering accounts etc and have a good business plan on offer for them to show them how your next 12 months trading should pan out. Then leave Barclays, it will be one of the best and cost effective business decisions you will ever make.

[paddy]

Hi there,
I really don't have much helpful advice for you on this particular problem but thought I would share with you what happened to me today.
In June 2005 a cheque was paid into my bus. acc.. In August 2005 I was phoned by Barclays to say that the cheque had been credited twice and they wanted the money back (quite right), they sent me a letter dated 16/08/05 saying they were taking the money that day. I thought no more about it and carried on as normal. I don't take a great deal of notice of statements all I look at is if cheques in and out clear.
Anyway in early Sept. this year I decided to move to a bank with free bus. banking and set the ball in motion. I filled in all the relevant forms for my new bank to take over dealing with Barclays for the transfer. On Sept 16th this year Barclays phoned and asked for the overpaid money back, they hadn't taken it last year, I was too busy to deal with the call and told them I would need to check my old s/ments to verify this, these were with my accountant and I asked him to get them back to me which takes time. Then I was called out of town. Because I wasn't available and Barclays didn't put anything in the post I assumed that they would deal with my new bank who had approached them for settlement figures because I was closing my bus. acc. Anyway to get to the end of this tale the bus. account was closed on 13/10/06, today I received a letter from Barclays saying that they were taking the money immediately from the acc. I knew they couldn't do this as the acc. was closed so I looked at the balance in my personal Barclays acc. and that's where they took the money from. How dare they, my business finance is totally separate from my personal account and I have issued cheques from my personal account that will probably bounce.
Beware of Barclays