HSBC premier accounts-Alliance & Leicester beat you to it

HSBC “premier service” for Rich Only- No Alliance & Leicester beat you to it …A& L Basic Bank account holders are not permitted to use counter services unless a transaction is at least £250

Alliance & Leicester jumped on the Government Basic Bank Account bandwagon a couple of years ago when people like me were FORCED to have benefits paid into a bank account.

Alliance & Leicester were one of the few boasting you could make withdrawals at branches and Post Offices, and a local branch was near to me….., I opened two (the Government falsely implied different benefits can be paid to different accounts –mine’s made up of IS plus another bit as I’m long-term sick, written as if it is two different items, but apparently as it’s paid by the same office it’s only one)-the idea was to have part paid to one account and the much smaller amount paid separately as a little bit of savings/safety net in case of theft/mugging -)within months of the Government deadline for all benefits to be paid to banks, I had a letter from A&L saying that only customers PAYING IN OR WITHDRAWING £250 IN A SINGLE TRANSACTION WERE ABLE TO USE THE BRANCH COUNTER.

So being on benefit my only way to ‘save’ now is to collect my coins in bags & pay them in at a post office ….for which I now have to either walk 15mins to a small branch or stand in a queue(no seats) of about thirty people….and have the displeasure of being incompetently ‘served’ Post Office Counter Clerk Eddie the eejit ..who shows the Disability Awareness of a Dalek …more about him soon! Having ME/CFS, for me personally, if I can get out of bed and leave my home & face the stress of a Post Office visit, generally it is easier to walk further & have a shorter queue than have to be stood in a ten minute queue with smells & noises & people coughing all over me, then I have the lottery of staff who WILL NOT FOLLOW A CLEAR LIST that I’ve pre written as ME/CFS brain fog makes even asking for simple things very stressful. So much for Disability Awareness Training….Incidentally, that Post Office branch when I asked for the name & address of their Disability Awareness Training Officer looked at me blankly, and handed me a Guide To Postal Services.

Frankly, with Alliance & Leicester their service has been appalling. I wrote about the security registration saying I didn’t want internet or telephone banking as I don’t have a landline & I can’t cope with using phone calls but I was still forced to set up both. I tried to use a call box as it is more secure than a mobile (I was so stressed about having to do it I was self harming in the months and days before) but they refused. So I went into the branch and they told me I could sit in the foyer & set up my passwords etc over their phone. I complained to the branch employee that there was no privacy & customers all around. So the employee said…”well, when they answer the phone don’t tell them.” Obviously I did…so I was put in an office.

If I wasn’t so frightened about the mental distress of the hassle of trying to get my benefit paid by DWP into a different bank, I would do it tomorrow.

As luck would have it, a few months after this bombshell & appalling A&L ‘customer service’ someone from a market research Polling company knocked on my door to do a financial survey……oh how I enjoyed telling him where I bank, and that yes I would change in a heartbeat if I could cope with it and no, I would NEVER recommend them as a bank to anyone else.