If you want the joined up farce of private banking.....
I work for a company in the US for five years.
We do an IPO and go public.
I Leave the company and sell my shares (tax deducted at source etc) and have a lump of US$'s to accept from the share trading company.
The £:$ sucks at that moment so I figure I will leave it in US$ until the rate improves before converting it.
I have had a Barclays account with the same branch since around 1981, Clearly given my job I do 99.5% on line.
I read on the BB site that I need various documentation to open the account. I collect all of it.
I try and find the local branch (thank god it remains open) telephone number to make an appointment as it tells me I should.
I can only find an 0345 call centre. Fair enough
They tell me they can accept the payment directly and exchange it to GBP. I explain this is not the goal. They try again.
I ask to make an appointment in the branch to setup a US$ account and they schedule it for me.
I arrive at the branch and no appointment can be found. The person for this skill is not in the building on Mondays.
I am told I should have called the branch directly or they can ease my pain by just accepting the money into the GBP for me. Growl.
I ask them to open their Droid/iBone and show me how to find their number as they hide it. They say "easy" then fail. Awks.
He gives me his business card saying "it is on all our cards to help" to which I reply you direct us to on-line, call centres and close most of your branches, figure it out for yourself numbnuts.
So I make an appointment for next tuesday as this tuesday is already full. They help me by offering to exchange the money into GBP for me. Growl.
Next Tuesday the person first introduces themselves by trying to fill in a form to convert the money into GBP as he was told that was what I wanted..........
I explain that only a THICK person would choose to do/recommend that given the exchange rate, they are thick and do not get the irony but agree that would be daft.
I present all of the information from their own web site to allow me to open a US$ bank account.
They tell me this is a non-interest bearing account.
I tell them to work out what a simple access savings account would provide over 12 months and to compare this to the difference in exchange rate needed to make it equal.
They are unable to work to out even using two calculators.
In the embarrassment of not being able to work it out he decides to see if I am interested in converting it to GBP.
I tell him to leave the room and find a grown up who can interact with someone before I adjust his understanding.
Assistant Manager walks in, I advise him not to offer to convert the money to GBP unless he wants to suffer a formal complaint.
He Understands and apologies then takes me through the paperwork. Advises me I do not have all the paperwork I need.
I show him his website and tell him to work it out for himself as I am not making another appointment.
Awk's as he realises they are in the usual poor web site updates.
I get the good lady to find the extra I need over the phone so we complete the paperwork (20 mins)
He then tells me that the number involved will result in a money laundering enquiry to which I hand him the paperwork our company had prepared very kindly.
So six weeks later I have a US$ account and they have a formal complaint which I am invited to.
Guess the first comment made in the enquiry.
"It would have been much easier if you had just converted the money into GBP and you could be earning interest on it then"
Pick a window, you're leaving.
Perfect example of walking outside of the painted white lines in retail banking.
