Newsflash: Lloyds TSB unveils HBOS takeover

[Idea15]

Disgusting. Not surprising at all, but disgusting all the same.

After the third time they refused to upgrade me from the teenagers' cash account to a basic regular current account, I demanded an explanation. A supervisor came out from the hidden room in the back to inform me that that I should have been grateful to have the teenagers' cash account, because as a (spit spit) foreigner, normally all I would be given is a basic savings account with no debit card, no cheques, and several rounds of mandatory postal-only paperwork.

Can you imagine what it's like to have lived in a country for several years while constantly trying to build up a proper credit record with only a teenagers' cash account? Try getting a loan, a store card, or even joining a book club without a current account. You expect and tolerate it when you're just off the plane. Literally years later, when some snob is dishing out her own form of legal institutionalised discrimination to someone who probably made twice her income - well, let's just say I cheered the guy on the news who was arrested for punching a BoS teller.

[andrewburnett]

As a Scotsman I am embarrassed to have them using the word Scotland in their name.

As a Swissman (I'm dual national) I know what banks are supposed to do for you.

I wouldn't trust the Bank of Scotland to sit the right way round on the toilet.

Utter incompetence from staff training via internal procedures are passed directly, with charges, to the customer.

If any of us were to act like them we'd go out of business overnight, a fact I've shared with each and every one of their telemarketers who have tried to convince me to take a loan from them... (evidently they hadn't looked at my savings accounts prior to calling, further proof of them not being fit to run a coffee morning let alone a bank)

[Idea15]

What really got to me during my whole experience with BoS was at the time, I was working in a public sector organisation which bandied about the term "social exclusion", which experience has taught me is a mentality by which people are encouraged to blame society and not themselves for the stupid decisions they've made in life. Anyhoo. One of the services the organisation offered was a credit union which was open to anyone within certain postcodes who had never had bank accounts and had no consistent sources of income other than benefits.

One day I finally said to myself - wait a minute, what about my social exclusion? I work full time, I pay taxes, I'm responsible with my finances, and therefore I am not allowed to have a current account; but if I'd never worked a day in my life, the very company I work for would be bending over backwards to set me up with one.