In response to an e-mail from Smart Money People requesting an update, I confirm that we are still with Barclays - BUT only because events have overtaken us and prevented us from switching. Shortly after my initial review in April, I was rushed to hospital for a very serious emergency operation, which took over three hours, but which was suuccessful and apparently saved my life. However, it is a very slow recovery process and so we have soldiered on with Barclays for the ime being - even though things have actually gone from bad to worse.
I have a personal Barclaycard predating our business accounts and, from day one, this seems to have confused your system as it muddles up my personal ID details with my son's ID details. My son is sole Director and both of us have debit cards on the business account, but when I have to contact the Helpline, they sometimes reject my answers -e.g. if MY mother's maiden name is rejected, I now know to gve them my own maiden name (i.e. the answer which my son would give). The same thing has happened with date of birth, home address etc. Here are some of the other problems we are still experiencing:
I am still unable to access the mobile banking ap as every time I try, it rejects my log in details. I have made countless visits to Barclays branches, who take my phone away and return it, assuring me that it will be fine now as there was a ''mix up'' with my ID details which is now sorted. Indeed it IS fine for a couple of days and then it locks me out again (I suspect after my son has accesserd the ap from his phone). So I return to the branch and the saga is repeated again - and again.
I have no idea why you seem obsessed with revamping your on line system - if it's not broken, why try to fix it?? It is very irritating to get used to a new layout only to find that it changes again - usually for something far more confusing and unreliable! But in my case, every time you revamp your on line system, I find myself locked out again and I have to call the help line. Again, the problem is invariably a ''mix up'' over my ID details and usually the help line are able to resolve it, although sometimes I am still unable to log in using my passcode and am forced to use PINsentry - and either way the solution only lasts until the next ''revamp''!
Bank reconciliation is a total nightmare with Barclays. I like to reconcile at least monthly, but our statement option is set to yearly and although I have made numerous attemps to amend this to monthly, each time I just get a message saying that something has gone wrong and you're working to fix it. So I use the search facility to ask for a list of all transactions for the complete month, but your system ALWAYS misses off transactions for the start and/or end of the period. Furthermore, the balances are not only totally inconsistent, but the running balances often make no sense at all. I have a transaction listing in front of me now which begins with a balance of £11,949.14 on 10/05/2019, the next entry is a withdrawal of £100 on 13/05/2019 and, miraculously, Barclays calculate a new running balance of £13,730.47!! Please send me one of your wonderful calculators as I would love to have a bank account where the balance increases tenfold when you wihdraw money! I almost sent myself insane trying to reconcile to your running balances before I realised that they were an absolutely unreliable load of rubbish (to put it politely). I have several similar statements also showing nonsense balances and would be happy to send them to you if you're interested.
There is no way that any business can operate efficiently with Barclays and you are, by far, THE worst Bank we have ever dealt with. Unless you can make some dramatic improvements, we shall be switching to another Bank as soon as I am well enough.
Reviewed on: 29th June 2019
We decided to move to Barclays because our local Lloyds branch had closed, but having applied in September 2018, it was months before our account was open - and it's been problems all the way! We have been in business since 2012 and have a first class credit history, with no defaults and all loans now repaid over 12 months ago. We had a working overdraft of £3,000 with Lloyds, used on only two or three occasions for a very small amount and for just a few days, but Barclays refused to provide any overdraft facility at all and issued us with a Barclaycard instead - and the online system for that is even worse than the on line system for our current account!
Barclays don't understand the fundamental requirements of bank account administration. For example, their on line statements don't even show the type of transaction - so when I am trying to reconcile our account I have no idea whether the ''money out'' has been paid by card, DD, standing order, BACS or on line payment! Also I can reconcile to a balance at the end of the week, but when I try to reconcile at the end of the following week, I often find that Barclays have retrospectively juggled the previous week's transactions and the balance which I previously reconciled to has disappeared completely! ASK ANY ACCOUNT AND THEY WILL CONFIRM THAT BARCLAYS ARE FLOUTING THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL ACCOUNTING RULES - and they are making a simple job of reconciliation into an impossible nightmare.
To cap it all, Barclays have already closed the local branch on Thursdays and rumour has it that, like Lloyds, Barclays will soon be closing their local branch. What a costly and frustrating waste of time this has been for our small business.
I totally agree with the other comments on here about useless customer service, ''help line'' representatives whose responses are incomprehensible, let alone useless and feedback which is totally ignored.
Reviewed on: 1st April 2019
