written by capie on 13/04/2022
out of the blue I am advised that I must keep GBP100 000.00 in my account earning no interest or pay GBP 40 per month. Heartless sharks stay away from them
written by on 05/04/2017
After submitting all the necessary documentation required to open an International Account, and having spent almost one hundred pounds to get said documentation certified by a solicitor and DHL'd to the UK, I am still waiting over six weeks later for the account to be opened. Not being one for continuous e-mail Ping-Pong and endless time spent on hold on the phone, I have now given up on this useless shower of incompetents and have decided to deposit my funds elsewhere. DO NOT waste your time with this outfit.
written by 278Sullivan on 15/02/2016
My husband and I are international wealth clients. We requested new pins for our debit card at least 3 times before they were delivered to our overseas address. The first day we arrive in London, my husband tried his debit card at a Barclays branch with the new pin and the card was immediately retained. Beacause it was a Sunday and the branch was closed, we waited until the next day to go to the same branch to retrieve the card only to learn that it has been destroyed. We asked for a replacement card only to be told that it will be sent to our overseas address. How frustrating! You can't access YOUR MONEY when you need it! It's only after we insisted that we need to get a replacement card in the UK that we were told that this service is possible at the Picadiily branch because their own printing machine is out of service. We went straightaway to Picadilly branch and waited for 2 Hours before seeing a customer officer. By that time we were so fed up with the whole procedure that we took the decision to move all our money to another bank. We have been faithful Barclays customers for over 25 years but recently service at this bank has been going down the drain. Absolutely appalling attitude!
written by on 03/10/2013
I am an expat and was looking to return to the UK, so having been a customer of Barclays for around 20 years with a large sum of cash in my accounts, a mortgage held with them for 9 years and never missed a payment, I thought I'll contact Barclays International to apply for a mortgage. Initial conversations with the customer relations manager were promising so we went ahead and put an offer in for a new build. We then spoke to their mortgage adviser over the phone and it started going down hill from there. The adviser sounded he was in a rush and wanted to end the conversation, what was worst is as soon as we told him it was a new build and the house wouldn't be ready for another 6 months he wasn't interested. When the conversation finished we were left confused as to what happens next. The following day we sent an email to the customer relations manager asking her to call back. She didn't call back so we called her but she was busy so we left a message. Its now been over 2 weeks and we still have not had the call back so I guess thats the end of that relationship! We are now left with a situation where we have put an offer in for a house but cannot secure a mortgage due to the poor service they have provided us. I find this treatment totally unacceptable and will now look into moving all my business with Barclays to another bank. Thanks for wasting my time Barclays!
written by ciinte on 03/04/2013
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.
written by Angela1234 on 24/03/2013
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.
written by on 27/01/2013
They have randomly cancelled my Debit card while I am abroad with no warning. More than three weeks and they cannot get a replacement card from the UK to Switzerland. As a result, I have no access to the substantial cash sums in my current account. They have no expedited service to send a replacement cards and have been completely incompetent. Their answers always involve having a third party western union me money and me borrowing money from friends. Are they crazy. I want access to MY money in MY account. The people in the call centre range from nice and helpful to clueless. At any rate they all seem to be helpless to do anything. Jesus, if you are systematically cancelling everyone's card for a 'platform upgrade'; wouldn't you be prepared/ have team allocated to get people in your INTERNATIONAL clientele cards while they are abroad? Ever heard of federal express?
written by reillyse on 19/02/2012
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
written by on 20/04/2011
I have been with Barclays Wealth offshore for a number of year, my RM is very attentive & I have not had any cause for complaint. Especially during the rough period with low rates, he was able to suggest a number of high yeilding bonds. all togeather a great service, I would recomend it.
written by on 04/09/2010
I've held an an account with Barclays Offshore Premier Banking for many years now. I was initially satisfied with their service but over the past few years it really has slipped. Firstly I suddenly discovered I was getting charged 10pound monthly for just holding an account. They had changed the account details without informing me. In spotting that I also discovered my name was spelled incorrectly, so I politely asked for it to be corrected. They responded by requesting I fill in a new customer information form....which required me to get things witnessed etc which ended up costing me a lot of money and time. That was two years ago and my name was still not spelled correctly. I brought the subject up with them again, while discussing why the interest rates have dropped. They require me to do the whole application again! Basically I'm here seeking a new bank. Oh, and their phone service is appalling. Waited for more than 30 minutes then couldn't understand the guy I was speaking to as his 'non-English' accent was just so heavy.
written by Barclayedout on 07/07/2009
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?
written by wit28 on 02/09/2008
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.
written by perkjellqvist on 24/12/2007
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.
written by LeTerrible on 14/06/2006
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.
written by vagostino on 16/01/2006
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.
written by Horoliger on 08/12/2005
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.
Do you have a question about this product or company? Simply type it in the box below and one of our community will give you an answer
Once we've checked over your question we will put it live on the site and our strong community of experts will hopefully give you some great answers that you find useful.
We will email you when the question is on the site
As rated by our community of reviewers
Reillyse's Comment
Written on: 19/02/2012
This is absolute rubbish. Every other review here for Barclays is giving them the lowest stars possible and this is 5 stars and the featured review at the top ? Clearly a bank employee decided to attempt to fix the results but couldn't even do that properly. Next time if you are going to attempt to boost your results do it in a believable way, stick in a couple of 3 star reviews first so your 5 star review doesn't stick out like the lame duck it is.