Help me become a Londoner!

[James Laver]

On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 1:04 PM, Mike Woods <mike at geofront.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Be careful if you go the barclays route, there have been a few horror
> stories in recent years about employee's tacking on premium services to new
> accounts without your prior consent.

By no means unique to Barclays. I've got much worse horror stories
about Natwest. Including the time I tried to close my account (oh,
they *really* don't want to let you go).

FWIW, I'm finding Lloyds to provide an acceptable level of service for
personal banking and HSBC to provide acceptable business banking (but
I detest their personal banking). Telephone banking is usually quite
easy to get along with unless you're making international payments,
which becomes a major headfuck.

It's worth noting that both Lloyds and HSBC have furnished me with a
chip and signature card. Other banks are very reluctant to give them
out (my flatmate is struggling to get Barclays to give him one, in the
end they sent him a chip and pin premier card without billing him for
premier, but still no chip and sig). It can be a useful consideration
for the technically minded who know the flaws of the systems (oh
$deity, shoulder surfing exists?!) and want liability shifted to the
bank.

--James