Oh that is a good feeling

Just sent a reply back to the bank that ends with:

"I am grateful for your offer and yes I will accept it but with the
understanding that it I consider it a partial payment and in no way
implies my satisfaction or that this matter is yet ended.

The story in a nutshell:

I had this bloke phone me up and half an hour later, after literally
begging him to shut up and stop interrupting, he hung up on me. Before
that he said far too many things that were most definitely not in his
manual.


I honest think he had been into the bog and done a too big line of coke
before he phoned me, nothing else except a very severe mental breakdown
that just happened to occur during the phone call could explain his
actions. It was outrageous by any standards.

My pot is filled a bit closer to the brim. Good it is.

 

Nice.

 

You don't think the two are related, by any chance?
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

Two working days after I had sent a routine complaint, covering 4 items,
and one compliment to the bank regarding their actions or lack of them
with respect to my account and my ability to deal with it, this bloke
phones up from The Central Collections and Customer Frightening Centre
in Nottingham.

He came on strong, as they do, from the start but from the little
information I was able to get out of him he was most definitely *not*
responding to my original complaint.

I quite properly took the line that our discussions could not proceed
any further until, in part at least, my previous complaint had been
addressed and I had got some of the information that it would yield. He
then went utterly ballistic and I lost complete control of him.[1].
Without any prompting from me[2] he said things he really shouldn't have
done, some of which it transpires are possibly untrue.


After the call I complained about him and the organisation in which he
operates in the strongest possible terms.


Next day I get a phone call from Complaints Handling and Processing
Head Office Branch in Edinburgh. Nice lady, kin good at her job. I am
better though and currently occupy the moral high ground and after
talking to me about what happened she changed from "sorry but there is
no way they would let me listen to the tape"[3] type of reply to "It
just happens to be one of the ones that have gone for immediate archive
rather than being held and getting it back normally takes /us/ 9 days
but I'll have that tape on my desk tomorrow at the latest regardless of
who I have to upset to get it." And later, after she had made a call or
two internally, "< Implied: I know you won't but I am obliged to say it
anyway> don't take the piss but your overdraft and charges you might
normally expect from abusing it, from here on in and for the duration,
it isn't an issue for you and it is exactly one pound and one pound only
more than the bottom line you suggested might be a nice gesture on our
part."[5] and "yes I will personally make sure that your compliments
regarding Ashley at your local branch and the manner in which he dealt
with your initial enquiries will be added to his file and be taken into
account during his normal review process."


I didn't ask for it but today, following on from my original complaint,
I got an email from them to say that it had arrived they would be
looking into it next week and as a gesture of goodwill I am getting a
refund of some other, unspecified, charges while they do.

Money and banks is one thing, we will not argue about this but as I see
it I am possibly due a real live genuine 100% solid gold plated apology
and just maybe an admission of a mistake, maybe. If I get it I will
hang up on the wall as a trophy, especially as I didn't start out
looking for it but basically wanted a query dealt with and was going in
grovelling. It would look nice in me sig I think, "I get written
apologies from banks"




[1] Given that it is usually a deliberate manipulation on my part of the
other end of the call in order that I can wheedle more out of them than
they are prepared to give I am used to having total control of the
conversation until I decide it is ended. In this case though I wasn't
even trying, all I was doing was attempting to put the point that we
were already in dispute and this dispute included this matter we were
discussing and by insisting that I be discussing it with him at that
time and not whoever was supposed to be dealing with it was improper to
the extent that if he continued it was going well beyond bordering on
infringing my consumer rights and was really only giving me more fuel
with regard to other aspects of my previous complaint including but not
limited to the bit about their internal communication procedures and how
it impacts on the paying customer.


[2] I was trying my hardest to calm him down, "look mate take a deep
breath eh, count to 10 or something, call me back in a minute, go for a
walk, get one of your mates to handle this one" that sort of thing. It
didn't help. Somewhere on the tape is stuff where my side of things
goes on lines of "For your own sake ok, no listen, really listen, please
listen, please. Get your manager, ok your supervisor, listen please,
just for a second, please listen to what I have to say, please listen,
please, please, get your supervisor, really? no one at all? ok one of
your colleagues then, please listen and stop interrupting for just a
second, please let me finish it is really for your benefit, get one of
your mates, no please listen, get *anybody* to listen into this
conversation, please listen to what I have to say. Really, can you
actually do that? Oh and that as well? <down an octave and up 3dB>
Sonny, don't even think about it, please listen, please, pretty please,
ok if, please listen and stop interrupting me, please let me finish,
please, and please allow me to answer the question you put 5 minutes
ago, ok sobeit, do *please* carry on.




[3] Her not me. I had previously offered to send her a copy of the one
the law allows me to ask for but on the understanding that if I had to
then a bill for my time and effort would accompany it and pointed out
that in addition this action would take more time than the nature my
complaint allowed them and it really would be best all round if she
found ways of doing it internally but if she had any problems to call me
and I would deal with it.


[5] This is interesting information and something you should all take
note of. It is possible to negotiate with the banks and get a score
draw. Ok it helps a bit if someone sacrifices their job to allow it to
happen but I have now have proof that they will be flexible on the basis
of an agreement between Gentleman, if you can present a good enough
argument. Damage limitation on their part obviously being a good enough
argument.

 

It is possible. I have spent time in Nottingham some years ago and I
wasn't always a born again virgin.

 

I don't think so. She lacks knowledge of what the bloke said or did,
that much is obvious from the conversation we had. If she had already
listened to it her manner would have been different. From the way she
talked, I am fairly confident she would have to ask through formal
channels. She hasn't said so but she has spoken with the guy's manager
and been told that Stevie is probably well in the right on this one, I
am confident of that. Timing and statements and stuff, it all adds up.


If though it turns out she had in fact listened to it then this would be
a lie and even if I had the merest hint of suspicion she was lying to me
I would be obliged to take the matter further and they know it and I
have enough already to spend an awful lot of their time if I so choose
and they know that too. Her job now is to trade that for minimal
concessions, she doesn't need to be telling me porkies.

I dunno, I do have to take what they say at face value though and give
them the benefit of the doubt until things are proven otherwise.

Not really, if it has gone for archive and it takes time for them to
pull it then it actually works to my benefit as it stops all action
being taken where they are really quite within their rights to do so.
The fact that this guy has made his resignation speech to me over the
phone is a complication they have to find ways to shut me up about
before it costs them money in the shape of their wasted time. They know
it and they know I know it.

I couldn't say and I am in no tearing hurry to find out. It is being
dealt with is all I really know and during the process they appear to be
laying little foundations here and there in the belief that they can
just **** me off when they decide the matter is ended. We shall see
what transpires, time is really my friend in this one.

 

Interesting development. I got an email from the bird doing the
investigation in which she says it wasn't recorded. The reason is that
they don't do record outgoing calls and the resignee initiated the call.

So, it seems I can be abused, bullied, threatened, shouted at and lied
to as long as they start the call??


Oh dear. They have no idea what is in store for them, really they don't.

 

I would have thought so, they are a UK registered bank after all, with
all it implies for the way they are obliged to do business.

Enquiries will be made and complaints, where necessary, will be
escalated or fresh ones put.