My 93-year-old husband and I have separate bank accounts, and neither of us uses online banking. All the banks in our town have closed, and the nearest branch is in Penzance, 10 miles away. My husband, a painter, became suddenly housebound over the summer and therefore needed to cancel the standing order for payments for the studio he rented. I had to go to Lloyds in Penzance with a signed letter authorising me to cancel the standing order and inviting staff to call him to verify it.
Staff then told me that because my husband had banked with Lloyds for so long, there was no record of his signature on its system and they could not, therefore, cancel the standing order. I was told to do it over the phone and was given the number for a department that deals with vulnerable customers.
When I called, a recorded voice announced that this facility had now closed. It didn’t provide an alternative. I therefore had to return to Penzance the following day and another member of staff got permission from the manager to cancel the standing order. It was obvious that she was making a special exception in my case. It has left me feeling very frightened at the way banks are dealing with customers who can no longer travel to one of their branches.
JA, St Ives, Cornwall
Your story illustrates the human cost of branch closures. And that cost is rising. Your local Lloyds shut up shop three years ago, and Lloyds will close another 23 premises over the next year. Barclays plans to axe 146, a third of its entire UK network. The rationale is to cut costs and coax customers online. But millions of older, poorer and vulnerable people are unable to use the internet.
A recent survey by campaign group Which? found that 52% of respondents with disabilities struggled to access banking facilities since their local branch vanished. Banks have a legal duty to perform rigorous security checks to protect customers from fraud, but without a physical presence on the high street, they must find flexible ways of accommodating customers who can’t travel.
Some are failing to do so. Last month, a bed-bound Santander customer faced having to hire a private ambulance to attend his nearest branch on a stretcher after staff insisted he present in person to complete an online payment.
Lloyds tells me that before a branch closes, it informs customers of alternative options and employs a specialist call centre team, community bankers based in local community hubs and “consumer treatment officers” to provide local support. Except, of course, the number for the specialist team had been withdrawn, there is only one Lloyds community bank in Cornwall, 16 miles from you, and the obliging but invisible treatment officers were not mentioned.
Lloyds says it would give you a call to discuss options when I made contact. In the meantime, you and your husband have opened a joint account with another bank, also, sadly, requiring that same 20-mile round trip.
SM from Doncaster is not a vulnerable customer; she just happens to be on sabbatical in Europe. That was of no consequence to Barclays when it questioned a money transfer that she had attempted. It blocked her card and insisted she visit a branch in the UK for extra security checks. “I have no access to my money and will have to spend large sums and several days travelling to the UK and back,” she writes.
It was right and proper of Barclays to question an unusual transaction and intervene when a telephone security check failed. However, it was entirely unreasonable to expect SM to cross a continent to unfreeze her account. Under the new Consumer Duty introduced by the regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, banks must respond flexibly to individual circumstances.
When I put this to Barclays, it called SM, ran through extra security questions and unblocked the account. Which is what it should have done in the first place.
The bank blames a “slight miscommunication” during the initial security questions for locking SM out of her account for seven days. It says an alternative solution, such as video banking, should then have been offered and has paid £50 in goodwill for the inconvenience. It says: “If a customer fails our security checks and we have concerns of account take over, we may ask them to come into one of our branches or Barclays local community sites to verify their identity. We recognise that, on this occasion, we could have provided a better service to our customer.”
John Lewis service on the right wavelength
I wanted to share an outstanding experience with John Lewis. A radio I’d bought 15 months ago stopped working. The receipt gave a number to ring with any problems and the call was answered immediately by a knowledgable lady, who quickly agreed a replacement. It arrived the next day. Moreover, as the price had been reduced I was refunded the £40 difference.
JT, Tunbridge Wells, Kent
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