First Direct & Tesco Bank

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A double cunting for the two fuckers that have wrecked the past week for me.

First Tesco Bank. I’ve been banking through them for the last 9 years but apparently this counts for two thirds of fuck all as they sent me a great big fuck off letter saying they’re closing all their current accounts by 1st November. They’re keeping their savings accounts going and I’ve got one of those too so if they insist on giving me the finger then guess what? You ain’t keeping my savings account you cheeky fuckers.

So now I look for a new current account. Step forward Martin Lewis (ISAC passim) who tells me that First Direct have excellent service credentials and are offering £100 as an incentive to switch to them. So I do. Then the fun starts.

First you have to download the fucking app which is an experience in itself. Then you have to set up telephone banking without which you can’t use the app. Now the security setup for the app and telephone banking are not the same. Different user names, passwords, security questions, the works. Fuck knows why. I can only assume it was written by an illiterate inconcontinet monkey because it’s so full of shit.

So I set up telephone banking and then try to initiate the app. Error code FD999T. I scan Google to find out what this is and why but nobody seems sure. So I have to ring their help line. After 45 minutes in the queue on a chargeable call listening to a repeated message telling me how busy they are – we’re all fucking busy, mate – I get through to a helper. I get the standard answer. Delete the app and redownload it. Funny but after 30 years in the IT business I never thought of that dear. Oh dear. But I do it again anyway while the idiot – sorry. Helper – is still on the line. Oh look I say, error code HK1. Oh says the idiot. That’s not on my list. So they delete my profile and we start again. This time it works. Halle-fucking-luyah!

All is good. Then the app crashes. It won’t work at all. So I delete it and reload it. Guess what? It lost my digital access code that I need to be able to use the app. How do I fix this? You guessed it. Back on the telephone to the help line. 50 minutes later, another somewhat more helpful idiot who manages to salvage my setup for me.

Now I go away to set up the web based banking system. Oh for fuck sake! I have to use the app on my tablet to generate an access code to allow me to log in on my laptop. Apparently the digital key can only reside on a single device, in this case my tablet. Which fucking genius thought that was a good idea?

Then the last straw. I need a savings account in the same bank because of the way my wife and I split our money. Our dosh goes into the savings account and is paid unequally into the current account to pay the everyday bills. Simples. Only it isn’t.

First Direct let you open their products using the app. Except they don’t offer all of them and the one I want is one of them. I have to ring up to do this. But hang on, there’s a chat function on the app, so I try that. The reply? You’ll need to telephone us in order to set that up.

So having lost the will to live at this point, I decide that they can stick their bank where the sun don’t shine. I message them. “I want to close my account” “No problem. Consider it done. Have a nice day”

Interestingly they make no attempt to find out why or persuade me otherwise. The first thing they’ve managed to do effortlessly for me is close my account. I guess they want to keep their £100

Fine by me. The bribe isn’t worth the hassle so I’m off to give Barclays a try because I’m still forced to find another bank.

Watch this space…

Nominated by: Dioclese

 

44 thoughts on “First Direct & Tesco Bank”

  1. There seems to be an unstoppable drive to force everyone to have a mobile phone (de facto Identity Card). I even read that land-lines will be redundant in a few years time. Never mind the fact that a lot of old people will never understand them,there is also the fact that there are still large areas of the Country with poor,or non-existent,mobile-phone coverage.
    Banks are Cunts but so are those in charge who let the banks get away with accepting massive bail-outs and then shitting on those who funded it.

  2. I have had a current account with Barclays for over 40 years. Oddly not had a problem with them. Their online banking is very straightforward, etc. Perhaps it’s different for new customers.

    Also have a joint account with Lloyds. On balance prefer Barclays.

    Whatever you do, don’t go near NatWest. My mother-in-law has an account with them, appalling in every department. The two deserve each other.

    Reminds me of an old Viz comic advert:

    NO JOB?
    NO MONEY?
    THEN FUCK OFF.

    Gnat West – The Frank Bank.

    Good luck Dio.

    • I have banked with Gnat West for over 30 years and never had any problems with them.

      • Perhaps it’s just my mother-in-law and her idiot son then. Would not surprise me.

    • Banks – We’ll lend you an umbrella, then ask for it back when it starts raining. Wish I could say I was glad to be with HSBC, but… You know my feelings on Richard E I Addio.

  3. What a mess.
    I always assume all these security precautions are a result of bleks and p.akis trying to defraud the banks.
    Eastern Europeans as well I dare say.

    Barclays are OK.
    Pretty much all the others are total cunts.
    Good hunting!

    • Barclays are the biggest cunts of the lot. I closed an account and it took me 6 months and a shitload of hassle to get a cheque for 3 fucking grand out of them. I was treated like a fucking criminal by the bastards. I’m also a shareholder with them (don’t ask) and i’ve lost a cuntload of dough thanks to their share price going through the floor. They are cunts of the first order.

      • Sorry to hear that.
        I should have made it clear I was referring to their banking app.
        Not their overall level of cuntishness haha

      • My ex and I had a mortgage with Barclays. Back in late 80s, the year they posted maximum profits, and they fucked up over doing the telegraphic transfer of funds for buying. Apokey little one bed flat, our first marital home.
        Cunts.
        I may try the bleck oss bank, at least stable girls give me the horn.

  4. All banks are cunts, that goes without saying. Despite constant pressure I won’t do on line banking…..not today, not tomorrow, not ever. I understand it’s convenient for them but it doesn’t suit me so fuck you. I like cheques too and I understand why the banks don’t like them but tough shit.
    The digital ID is what these cunts are after and once we fall into that trap we are never getting out, trust me.

  5. All banks are cunts. They pretend to be your best friend – “how are you today sir, did you have a nice weekend, what did you have for breakfast, it’s a nice day here, are you keeping regular and going to the toilet at least twice a day, don’t forget to put on a jumper if you go outside…etc, etc”. Who are you, my mother?

    But when it comes to actually providing a service instead of enquiring about your health and well-being, then they are totally useless.

  6. I fondly recall telling a Barclays teller to fuck right off when i was about 19. She went and got the manager who wrote me a cheque for my remaining balance and closed my account hahaha cunts. Luckily there was a Nat West next door who welcomed me with open arms.

  8. I expect First Direct will soon open a “George Floyd Gold Plus Account”. Only for our “approved Ethnic customers who need a flexible account with huge capacity to store the proceeds of race discrimination claims and reparations for thousands of years of white persecution and genocide”. Free Chiggin with every account.

    You can get that will be an easy account to open for the right customers.

    • Good nom Dio👍

      I knew online banking would be a absolute nightmare and despite every time I go to the bank some grinning patronising bank employee trying to get me to do it,
      I’ve resisted.
      All tech had a nervous breakdown around me,
      Any if they want it?
      It benefits them and not me.
      So I’ll continue to stand in line with the old fuckers and when they say for the thousandth time
      “Have you considered the online banking its much faster?”
      I can stubbornly have the pleasure of telling them
      “No. I enjoy queueing”.
      They can tell the taxman the same as well,
      Mind your own business you nosey cunt

  9. Oi vey, who really run the banks ? Oh and by 2025 you won’t have a landline telephone. Isn’t life great. Keep the public where we want them. I’ll probably be banking with the taliban by then as they seem honest and friendly.

  11. Back in 2015 I was part of an IT logistics team sent out by the company I worked for at the time, on a 6 month contract to install a new integrated database and associated hardware to a popular high Street bank (beginning with the letter “T”)

    I was more responsible for installing the hardware rather than the SQL database. However, during QA beta testing I was asked to be a tester, which involved having access (read only) to live personal and corporate data of all their customers.

    What was quite shocking was the live metadata that ranked a customer in terms of all the usual stuff such as salary, credit rating, employment etc. But more crucially metadata based on “market value”, “social liability”, “ethnic ranking”, and finally “NWAS”, which as it turns out is an acronym for “Not Worth a Shit!”

    These metadata values were purposely hidden from frontline bank staff. Only Sales and Marketing had access, along with the management suits.

    I never really had the time to interrogate some of that data, especially who was flagged as “NWAS”, but it really opened my eyes into the way banks regard their customers – especially the low-value ones!

      • Has the bank’s procedure changed that much since? Given the banks’ general willingness to skate round legislation, I mean.

  12. It’s probably the same the whole world over.
    There was a time here when you could buy whatever you wanted in cash and there were no questions asked.
    It was Russians and Germans mainly that used to drive down to Spain with a boot full of cash and simply pay it into their banks.
    Carrier bags full of the stuff were happily excepted.

    The rules have changed and only last month I was told that the amount of cash that I could accept from any customer and pay into my company account has been further reduced to 1.000 euros.

    I have had both a personal account and a business account with the same bank for over 20 years.

    If ever I were to open an account in the UK then I would definitely choose Nationwide.
    I think that the poems read in their adverts and the diversity of the people that read them are an inspiration.

    • “I would definitely choose Nationwide. I think that the poems read in their adverts and the diversity of the people that read them are an inspiration.”

      Truly inspirational; I’ve never heard warmer words said on this hallowed forum. But there is a problem, a huge problem: the people of the United Kingdom are in fact facing a monumental ethical crisis. How can anyone be expected to make a decision on a banking provider when Lloyds are by your side and the Halifax will help you wherever you are?

      Surely Lloyds and the Halifax should share the Nobel Peace Prize or at least get some formal statement from the Dalai Lama recognising their humanitarian efforts? Perhaps Angelina Jolie should quit her Special Envoy role at the UN Refugee Agency and start representing Lloyds or the Halifax? Unless of course her creative side makes her lean more towards the inspirational and deeply moving emotional poetry of the Nationwide.

  13. I have been with First Direct from the year after they started as the first telephone bank, they are part of HSBC so have always been able to use the branches (back in the ‘old days’)

    I have never used the Mobile banking facility, no need for it, I just use online banking, I have never had any problem with First Direct and they are always very helpful.

    The only niggle recently has been the introduction of MasterCard Debit card in place of the Visa version, the card arrived, a nice sexy looking space age black thing, just one problem, the signature strip is tiny and is impossible to write anything on the fucking thing.

    • MasterCard are absolute cunts in the thick of it with megalomaniacs such as the WEF ( not the wrestling or wildlife saving cunts) and other NWO cunts.

      I will be binning mine and Virgin Money as soon as I return to work and can apply for account & card with alternative cunts.

      I hardly use it anyway and only got when an employer to had decades ago requested I get a card (fees paid by them) to cover business expenses until they reimburse my weekly claims. We would often have to book a flight & hotel on departure day or soonest available flight which were often too pricey to be paying out of my current account. I only use for odd online purchase now.

  14. I was still using the Mattress bank until recently when cash was king died.
    Yes I have a couple of bank accounts but always found cash opened more doors. Nowadays because of money laundering laws it has to go through the banking system.
    I suppose it will be a cashless world soon and that begs the question of how will the pikeeees survive?

  15. Honestly, I’d give Starling Bank ago. It’s very easy to open an account.

  17. I’ve used Barclays bank for 40 years and never had a problem. They’ve been dragged through the courts and received massive fines numerous times over the past few years for fraud. I figure that any bank with that kind of financial resilience is ‘trustworthy’.
    I had an additional account with the co-op before that drugged up cunt nearly brought it crashing down. There should only be one person who takes drugs in this financial relationship. Now pass the crack pipe, cunt!

  18. Another vote for Barclays Internet Banking from me – I’ve been using it since 1999 and never had an issue👍

  19. I worked for the HSBC for 20 years. As soon as I left I closed everything down with them. Don’t get me started on their customer service. Their call centre is in India, say no more.
    My Dad worked in a shit hole branch of TSB many years ago. Full of our ethnic cousins. He had to fill in a chalk board with the FT Share Index prices every morning. None of them who came in could speak English. I suppose if the board gave the latest trade prices of chicken, rice and peas it would have come in handy. One of them who came into the branch was called Christmas Frost. I shit you not.

  20. I was coerced into online banking, as my bank closed most of its local branches, eliminated overheads and cut staff in order to clear even more obscene amounts of profit than it raised from not paying interest to its poor chump depositors (me).

    However, so far the experience has not been wholly negative, as seen from a desktop PC. The authentication procedure relies on a phone, not necessarily a smart one, but one which does texts. Increasingly this means allowing an ISP into your bank account, as traditional non-expiring payment plans become completely unavailable, but at least I’m not supplying my GPS co-ordinates to the bank and anyone else whose nose is giving them trouble.

    Where this will all go horribly wrong is when my bank’s clever little techy nerds decide to follow the industry lead and demand that all transactions are conducted from a smartphone, like every fucking thing else. Authentication will be by some whizzo ‘app’ (or program, before we all started talking cunt) involving retinal patterns, fingerprints, QI codes and/or other such shit.

    At which point freedom will be not only dead but buried. So I wholeheartedly agree with this nom, and ask yet again, and without any hope whatever, how the fuck can the all-destroying progress of the surveillance state machine be stopped? Or even paused?

    • ADDENDUM

      “… in order to clear even more obscene amounts of profit than it raised from not paying interest to its poor chump depositors (me) or being bailed out by the taxpayer the last time it went tits up from speculating irresponsibly….”

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