Three weeks ago I received a letter offering me a fully approved loan for nearly £10,000. I haven’t asked for one and didn’t need one.
The only time I actually ever needed one – they turned me down.
The odd thing is that I simply have no debt to speak of and apparently this is a bad thing.
So the other day my wreck of a car starts the road to permanent failure so when I’m next on my internet banking site I look at all the pre-approved things available to me.
They would extend my unused free over draft facility a further £750 and there was another fully pre-approved loan available – this time I could have from £1000 to £25000… and at a far more reasonable APR than before.
I went away and just laughed at it. But I looked at replacing my car for a model of the right age to verify the kind of price I would be looking at and when I realise all the things I wished and need to do this year, I came to the conclusion that I could and possibly should make the move and at least consider the loan. Not the full amount but somewhere in the middle would be easily affordable and just right.
Now while I thought it odd that the bank had been changing their offers around quickly I decided to opt for a bit of a test.
I would take the extra free overdraft of £750 and see if that had any kind of impact of the so called pre approved loan value.
Here’s what happened;
Click a couple of boxes and the overdraft is approved – great
Right lets look to see if there is still £25000 available to me…. Nope! There was just £5000 available.
At this point I started laughing hysterically in disbelief – a £750 overdraft removes £20000 from your loan eligibility??!! No way!!! Who makes this rubbish up?
Only disappointed for not buying a Land Rover, 5 mins later I felt relieved because if that’s how they do business, would I really want to be indebted to these people?
This morning while paying bills online the £5000 has all but disappeared and there is NO available loan…
Barclays Bank – you’re terrible, laughingly hilarious and quite obviously know little about money, and more importantly – your customers!!!
Stop telling us what you can’t do because of new banking rule and tell us what you can do – AND STICK TO IT!!!
Sounds like most banks these days, offer you the world & then remove that option soon as you’ve made a decision.
I get it with credit cards & loans all the time, it’s like it’s a bad thing not to be in debt? (I’ve always thought of it to be the other way round? lol)
I’m rambling again!! lol
Cheers
I left barclays some years ago now. I came back from working abroad there had been a cock up in the travelex place at the airport, decimal point in the wrong place, wont go into detail but I check every thing twice now. Anyway arrived home with £6 in the bank, asked Barclays for an overdraft they said as I was not working this was not possible (I had not got a job lined up for my return and it was just before Christmas) In the post the following day I received a letter telling me there was a £15000 loan waiting for me, all I asked for was a £500 overdraft. I did get my money back and a job later that day but it was pretty strange.
I here you…. They also lost £5000 of mine while it was going through their New York clearing house… They can see it going in and nothing coming out. This apparently not their fault.
But really, all banks are thieves these days!
I’ve banked with Midland/HSBC since I was 17. In all that time, they’ve made two mistakes on my account. Only once was money involved and they sorted it out and refunded any interest I had to pay as soon as I noticed it.