Barclays: I know Americans are all fat but you are utterly useless

Comments

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   Jason

   8 February 2016, 09:52

   I know how you feel… I’ve had a personal account with them since 1984 (never a problem) and a business account since 2003 on which Barclays have waived through fraudulent transactions. The highlight was someone purchasing a white van (£8500) which Barclays waived through on a variable direct debit (the £8500 was the first payment!)… the excuse was that they don’t check mandates for authority sub £10k. No wonder the banks lose money & customers. There used to be a day when bank staff had to take their bankers exams ~ I have mine (FCIB) ~ now they just have to demonstrate they have no scruples flogging shit products and an ability, natural or otherwise, to act dense when something inevitably goes wrong.

2. ---

   M33investor

   8 February 2016, 10:32

   Do wonder why you bank off shore – surely not to avoid tax that normal punters pay?

   Serves you right for not using a UK based bank

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   Tom Winnifrith

   8 February 2016, 10:43

   M33investor.

   I bank with what was my local branch when I lived in the IOM. Have never got around to changing back. As with all IOM accounts we get a yearly cert of interest on the account which we declare on our tax return. With an average balance of £1000 (remember I have no assets) the number is not very great. HMRC has full access to a/c in IOM.

   So why do I bank in Douglas? laziness in not being bothered to change

   T

4. ---

   Duck and Dive

   8 February 2016, 11:07

   Shirley this can’t be the same bank that paid a complete stranger’s mortgage out of my account for, er, eight years?

5. ---

   Duck and Dive

   8 February 2016, 13:44

   By the way, speaking of utterly useless, the ghastly new video + even more ghastly forced audio ads are wayyyyyy overloading Flash with the result that they never load properly, the page hangs frequently and all other audio, including bearcasts, drops out. Please ask Darren to fix urgently – this mess should never have gone live in the first place.

6. ---

   Daz

   8 February 2016, 14:26

   Duck and dive are you that much of a muppet you did not realise?

   I think when the bank customer obviously does not bother checking their statements for eight years I would like to see them say tough sh@t son no refund.

7. ---

   MrMoto

   8 February 2016, 15:02

   Some major shit going down at these bank shares, with little coverage so far in the press. Deutche Bank going to be the biggy.

   I remember the Zero hedge derivative coverage of Deutche probably a year + ago. Huge trouble ahead for Deutche me thinks.

8. ---

   J P Spaghetti

   8 February 2016, 17:47

   Speaking of things Greek, the first of a two-part documentary titled (I think) Greece with Simon Reeve was on telly an hour or so ago. Probably on catch up. Not sure when the concluding instalment will air but thought it would be of interest.

   And as for Premier accounts, I had one a few years back with HSBC – more or less a complete waste of wonga (ooh – your spellchecker just automatically capitalised that…other payday, high street loan bars are available!). This was before I was sent an official-looking letter purportedly from them requesting the answer to a security question – for purposes I can’t remember – only for there to apparently be no trace later of said correspondence after I reported this to them in person and (foolishly) handed it over before making a copy for myself (or handing over a copy). Internal identity fraud anyone (as occurred at what I think was NatWest)?

   And they reneged on an offer that read more like a guarantee of a credit card after I’d banked on being given it. Gits. And their branches seem to resemble more the concourse of the Starship Enterprise than banks these days, which seems a wee bit pretentious. Gits again.

9. ---

   Tom Winnifrith

   9 February 2016, 01:17

   JP

   We watched part one of the Greece series and it was superb. suggest everyone watches on catch up

   T

10. ---

    Jason

    9 February 2016, 02:33

    Greece with Simon Reeve was an excellent promotional video by the vote leave campaign.

    Was I the only person thinking “high fives for the Cretans, they’re not taking any shit”? :)

11. ---

    Duck and Dive

    9 February 2016, 06:10

    The removal of those toxic auto-play video ads has restored this site to working order.

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    Czech Mate (AKA Janos)

    9 February 2016, 07:05

    The value of Barclays premier banking is that you get to speak to a native English speaker on the phone and be shown advertisements they wouldn’t bother showing to proles.

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    Duck and Dive

    9 February 2016, 07:07

    Actually, I see that they are still there but just spinning around and taking forever to load. And they are still putting a ridiculous load on Flash which commands up to 100% of my CPU processing time when these ads are trying to load. Actually, one of the videos has just partially loaded and caused the site to hang as my cursor morphs into a pizza wheel. If I time it right, I can force the Flash process to quit – as I have just done to allow me to finish this message.

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    Tom Winnifrith

    9 February 2016, 07:15

    D&D

    we are running no vid ads on this site. Darren says your OPC must have picked up some bad viruses. Perhaps on some of the more adult websites out there?

    t

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    Duck and Dive

    9 February 2016, 11:08

    I realise I’m the only one complaining about these obnoxiously intrusive and poorly coded video ads but there are no viruses on my Mac and these ads don’t appear on any of the other websites I visit (nor are they currently showing on Shareprophets – but on earlier form they will be back). Given that Shareprophets has many enemies, it seems more likely that some third party is hijacking your site.

16. ---

    Duck and Dive

    10 February 2016, 06:38

    “we are running no vid ads on this site”

    Well, I get video ads – in two places in the right sidebar: immediately below the Stock Market News and immediately below Recent Comments (and before the static ad for UK Investor). Sometimes these are ads for Tesco.com flogging Vanish (which are fairly well behaved) but other times for a video ad which seems to be promoting a website called t2vnews.com with a loud American soundtrack informing me that London is one of the world’s leading capital cities (highly disruptive to the proper working of your website and my computer due to excessive use of Flash).

    The code written into your page at these points is:

    <script async src=”//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js”></script>
    <!— ShareProphets Large Rectangle —>
    <ins class=“adsbygoogle” style=“display:inline-block;width:336px;height:280px” data-ad-client=“ca-pub-5897698763785122” data-ad-slot=“5006067692”></ins>
    <script>
    (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
    </script>

    I have no idea why Tesco.com considers your site, and me in particular, as a suitable target since I have never visited their website nor even any of their revolting stores. As for the t2vnews.com ad, it is obviously coded by a total fuckwit who I assume is hijacking your Google ad feed.