Martin Vander Weyer
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When it comes to observing how banks treat customers, you may think I’m a bit of a trainspotter — the obsessional type who bangs on about a lost golden age of steam-driven banking. But I do so because readers so often send me case studies of crass mistreatment; this week brought one from an expat in the United States, who I’ll call Frank and who had been stung by my recent reference to NatWest as ‘a solid name in the high street’. Oh no it isn’t, says Frank, having sent instructions last November to NatWest’s South Croydon branch to make a payment to a charitable fund in the US.
Nothing happened until February, when he received a handwritten note from one ‘Mark Smith, Branch Manager’ asking him to make contact about the payment request. On ringing the number provided, Frank found himself speaking to a call centre in Manchester whose operator said he was not permitted to put the call through to Mr Smith, but would arrange for him to call back. No call ever came, while attempts to cut out the human factor and complete the delayed payment online met a succession of ‘please try later’ messages.
Frank then wrote to Stephen Hester, chief executive of NatWest’s parent RBS, and received a long explanation from what is presumably a large team in Hester’s office devoted to assuaging furious customers. Dated 29 March, it contains such gems as ‘Having spoken to the team responsible for the Online International Payment System, they have informed me that this system has been offline since 22 February.’ The writer also claimed to have spoken to Mark Smith at South Croydon — but if Mr Smith wishes to prove definitively that he exists, he should present himself at The Spectator’s offices with his passport and a utility bill. He should not expect to speak to me personally, however, because the receptionist has standing instructions to pretend I’m not here.
Meanwhile, other readers are welcome to send their own experiences of this crazy world of customer disservice to martin@spectator.co.uk. And I take consolation in the thought that if the European crisis culminates in a continent-wide ‘run on the banks’, as panicking depositors scramble to withdraw savings in cash, it will be halted in this country not by massive state intervention but by the banks’ own procedural idiocies and incompetence. Defeated by security questions, technical breakdowns and claims that ‘we have no record of your account’, the queues will just lose heart and drift away.
In last week’s issue, Charles Moore and Toby Young both took a swipe at the vulgarity of corporate Olympic sponsorship. They were well in tune with Lord Salisbury, chairman of Sunday’s Jubilee extravaganza on the Thames, who declared that he did not want a ‘Tesco pageant’ and would not allow the flotilla to be festooned with company logos — but then found he was struggling to raise his £10.5 million target, itself a fraction of the cost indicated by commercial event organisers for such an elaborate spectacle.
Salisbury did himself no favours by threatening to ‘name and shame’ companies that will host riverside parties to watch the show but have failed to contribute to his fund. So what we’ll see, splendidly British though it will no doubt be, is a lesser version of what might have been if sponsors had been offered the name-checks they expect in return for seven-figure donations. But if this ‘austerity’ outcome seems appropriate for the times, it should not encourage us to sneer at all corporate cash. Does it diminish the Chelsea Flower Show to be badged up by M&G, the fund management group, and to give its gold medal to a garden funded by stockbrokers Brewin Dolphin? I suggest not, and companies cannot be expected to give shareholders’ money to feel-good causes like these without due recognition in return. So let’s not be too snooty about it.
Meanwhile, you’ll be wondering how I’ve got on in my role as Jubilee co-ordinator for Helmsley, my Yorkshire home town. Funding being so scarce, we are — I hope — an example of how much fun can be generated on the thinnest of shoestrings. As for me, I won’t be entering the ‘Best Queen (Male or Female)’ fancy dress competition but I might turn up costumed as George III, on the basis that if it all goes pear-shaped or pours with rain, I can pretend to be mad. Lord Salisbury might want to do likewise.
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