Bradford & Bingley Building Society Review

“We opened a Bradford and Bingley eSavings account to...”

Written on: 28/08/2008 by walkerm (10 reviews written)

Good Points
Savings account interest rate on par with others.

Bad Points
Customer Service Appaling.
Willing to do VERY risky things with your lifes savings.
Play games on the phone.
No interest whatsoever in keeping customers.

General Comments
We opened a Bradford and Bingley eSavings account to put money in following our house sale. Which we did.
We then subsequently emigrated to Australia and I dutifully phoned them to change address. I was told that in the Terms and Conditions (small unreadable print) for the account I had to be resident in the UK to operate it. Fair enough (daft, but fair enough if they want it that way). So I phoned them to ask what I should do. I was advised that I should open a 'Offshore' B&B eSavings account and put the money in that; again, fair enough and good advice.
So, I took further advice from my Financial Advisor here in Oz who said the money should be in my Wife ' s name for Tax Purposes. I phoned B&B and asked if I would be able to transfer the money to my wife's B&B 'Offshore' eSavings account. I was told yes, that would not be a problem. Great - all very helpful (except it turns out to be wholly inaccurate!)
We opened the B&B offshore eSavings account in my wife ' s name and the fun started. In my eSavings account I couldn ' t set the offshore account as the 'designated' account to transfer the money to.
For 6 months I kept telling Bradford & Bingley what our situation was and what we wanted to do. For 6 months I received 'Customer Services' emails with solutions that were not an option. I tried phoning and explaining the situation but each time the (very pleasant & helpful) operator would explain what I needed to do. Each time I would receive emails telling me I was unable to do that. Finally I was told they would send me a cheque! I explained to them that sending a very large quantity of money, internationally, by cheque was both very insecure and pointless as there is nothing I can do with the cheque (they use $ here, not £) - the only two sterling accounts we have are my one with B&B eSaving and my Wifes with B&B Offshore eSaving.
I phoned them to ask why it was practical sending a cheque for hundreds of thousands of pounds, by post, internationally.
After more calls, I finally managed to speak to someone who said they were on the management team.
Now, for whatever reason I had got into this pickle you would have thought someone with a Business mind would have thought 'we are in danger of losing this customer', what can we do to keep him.