I have had a number of interactions with the bank. The staff are polite however you never get the same answer from two different people. Every piece of correspondence that I have had from them has contained an error. Having been through the formal complaints procedure, the response was simply "we didn't intend for this to happen"! Not even a suggestion that they might investigate putting it right for other customers. I would steer clear of this lot. They are the worst (by a long way) bank that I have ever dealt with.

This group is a train wreck. You can get better customer service from a free online account. They can't even update an address. I'm finding a new bank.

One of the worst banks I've ever had the misfortune of doing business with. A slew of stupid errors on their part. They lost all my documents when I was trying to sign up, including passport copies etc etc, had to do it all again. I haven't received a statement in months, although when I ring up they tell me they are sending them out. Everything they do is overpriced. They randomly cancel my atm card, for who knows why despite it being an "international current account", which as far as I can se just means they can charge more money. In short, avoid this car crash of a bank. also the one star here is a misnomer, it won't allow me to enter zero stars

I started banking with Barclays, by default as a student when Martins Bank was taken over by them some 40 or so years ago. Since then, natural inertia has kept me with them all this time. In those days, I used to call in on the manager every 6 months or so and we 'd chew the fat as to how we collectively saw the future. When he moved in the early 70 's, that was the start of depersonalisation of banking for me. Centralisation, remote call centres, disembodied voices on the end of the line, it 's gone downhill since the early days. That 's progress I suppose?

Any request no matter how small or large seems to be a BIG problem for Barclays Offshore premier. Too many errors in my experience, money has been taken in error from my account & then it takes months of communications to get it back.

I opened a Premier account with Barclays when we moved to England in 1999. I have since been astonished with the poor quality, high charges, insultingly low interest rates etc.

Here are some examples:

The internet banking is poor. It is not possible to make an international bank transfer, the transaction history is only a few months, and the text details for each transaction is only 15 characters or so.
Alternatives - I have internet banking with UBS in Switzerland and HSBC in Turkey and Egypt. Comparing those with Barclays is like day and night. They all have very smart interfaces, allow me to make any type of transfer (domestic and international), open accounts in different currencies, buy/sell shares, funds and other investment tools. They give transaction histories of over a year with very detailed transaction information.

I travel all year now and the only way for me to transfer is using telephone banking at ... listen to this ... £ 40 a pop. That is such a totally ridiculous price that they may just as well charge £ 60, or why not £ 100 and they will make even more money.
Alternatives - This seems to be very expensive with all UK banks but there are cheaper alternatives down to £13 (as far as I have found).

The interest on a current account is 0.10 while an overdraft is charged at around 18% or so, now that is an astonishing spread.
Alternatives - Check other banks, Smile for example gives 2.75% on a current account.

Back in 2005 I realized that my SAVINGS account was only giving 0.15% interest when the Bank of England base rate was at 4.5%. Needless to say I immediately moved all my savings to CapitalOne and got an interest of 4.75%. Looking at my statements now when the base rate is around 6% I get 0.35% on a 60 day premier savings account.
Alternatives - Many, right now you should get a rate over 6%

While the charges and rates are exuberantly high their branches are being closed and personal service abandoned. I can only conclude that it is a very inefficiently managed company, and I sincerely advise you to look at other banks before making a choice.

I am looking at moving from Barclays Offshore Premier Banking. They transferred money from fixed rate deposit (4%) to normal savings account (0.10%) without instruction from me, and I'm still waiting 2 weeks later from a call for my "relationship" manager or her supervisor. I've called them 4 times. If this is how they approach relationships, I think a divorce is in order.

I opened a Premier account with Barclays Offshore Premier Banking when I moved to the UK simply because I was familiar with the name, and it has been a nightmare. They consistenly overcharge me for wire transfers to other bank accounts, forcing me to call in and get the correct amount refunded.

Their website is perhaps the worst I've ever used (and I've used a lot of banking websites). I stuck around with them because for months they had a statement saying they were 'upgrading' their site, but when they finally did, it was simply a new user interface to their same old, woefully-spartan functionality.

Probably the worst aspect of Barclays, however, is their service. They seem to care nothing for their customers, and consistently try to convince you that their mistakes are your fault. I finally learned a trick that works, however: when you call in and get one of their typically defensive answers or exaplanations, just hang up and call back. You'll get a different answer/explanation the next time from a different rep. Repeat until successful, or until you can switch to another bank, which is what I'm doing.

I opened a Barclays Premier Offshore account a few months ago. The Premier offering gives you access to a 'dedicated account manager'.

I wanted to buy a house in the UK (living here now), and after seeing something I like - tried to contact the bank to get access to my money, and learn about mortgage offerings.

It took MORE THAN ONE WEEK to get to speak to anyone in the Isle of Man (where they are based). They were utterly and completely unresponsive. This led to me losing the house I was trying to buy. When I tried to complain afterwards to the head of their offshore Premier - I got a form letter in response.

I had a significant sum on deposit with them - less than the £1m required for private banking, but still a lot by any standard. This didn't seem to make the slightest difference to them. I would have received better service walking into any High Street bank.

I am now actively looking for a new bank. I STRONGLY suggest banking elsewhere - HSBC, Natwest, or other if you are looking for offshore banking services. Barclays seems to be going through a lot of internal turmoil recently, and this is now seriously affecting service levels.

All the product offerings in the world are meaningless, if you can get any sort of response in more than a week.