Advice on mistakes made by Smile and shoddy service.
I Hope this is the right part of the forum to post this but I'm looking for some advice.
I bank with Smile.co.uk having move from NatWest due to their poor service and punishing bank charges. I had heard good things about Smile but almost a year on I'm sorry to say my experience has not been a happy one.
Anyway, to skip to the most recent jape the bank has pulled on me.
Last night I went online to check my balance and make a payment only to find I couldn't log on and see my account. Thinking I might have forgotten a password I followed the website's advice and called the helpline to speak to a puzzled girl who explained that my account had a "customer excluded" notice on it and could not be lifted.
She beleived this to be a technical issue and not something to worry about and directed me to cotact the techincal department tomorrow to rectify this. I then enquired as to the general status of my account and my outstanding balance to which she duly complied and left me satisfied that it was a technical issue and nothing financially wrong with my account.
I call up today to sort this out and am directed to the "Collections" department, a little suprising as last night everything was fine with my account.
After a while i speak to an operative who informs me that it is not a techincal issue at all and their is an outstanding loan payment to be dealt with and that is why I can access my account.
(Lets ignore for moment that for me to receive the secure message from the bank warning me of this or to log on to my account to go through my statements and see what has gone wrong I would actually have to be able to see my account)
Apparently and without warning my account has been suspended because of an outstanding loan payment dating back to last June, when i first came to Smile. An issue with a standing order not being set up was hinted at even though all subsequent loan payments have been through standing order with no problems.
Obviously this was a serious issue so the lady on the phone offered to get a manager to call me back.
Receiving a phone call back the manager explained to me that when my account was set up last may, due to all the chaos of the transfer of account (I noticed no blame was put on me for this which was reassuring) the first loan payment never came out.
It has taken some minion in a back room almost a year to figure this out (or "The Systemas it's enigmatically called) where upon buttons were pressed and my online services were suspended. My card and phone banking are unaffected however which seems a curious punishment for "missing" a payment.
From the tone of the manager's voice i could clearly tell the bank was at fault here (I worked in a credit card call centre once and know the routine) and he offered a £25 gesture of goodwill which increased to £50 later.
Great, you might think. Sadly there was still the matter of the outstanding payment.
A repayment plan was offered (wonder how that effects my credit rating), an extra £25 a month for three months to bring things back into order. I mentioned that the £50 gesture of goodwill will actually go straight on the repayment plan so what goodwill has been soured.
I have still to find £25 extra on top of the loan repayments over the next three months. Perphaps not a lot to most but despite all those years at uni and years of experience at work I find myself trapped by repayments, bank charges etc so i can barely afford rent and the petrol to drive me to work every month
Anyway, whinging about this has been quite cathartic but I would still like to hear any advice on where to go from here because i've had it with Smile and want to take things as far as my rights allow.[/quote]
Advice on mistakes made by Smile and shoddy service. 
