The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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2:02pm on Tuesday, 1st June, 2010:
Anecdote
I went to the Halifax today to put in a cheque of my wife's that's been sitting around for over a month. There was a long queue, but (as sometimes happens) one of the specialist advisory staff who has a paying-in machine in his office asked if any of us were just paying in. I was the first person to qualify, so he took me out of the queue and duly paid the cheque into our joint account.
Then, he asked if I knew we were getting a low rate of interest. I explained that I did, but that all interest rates are low at the moment and it's not worth the hassle of changing accounts just yet.
Normally, this would have been enough, but not for this bloke. He explained there were some much better deals, and that we really should have a financial health check done. I told him no thanks, my wife works for a bank and there are all sorts of rules she has to follow in order to ensure she doesn't have a conflict of interests.
This usually puts paid to pushy financial advisors, but not this one... He started asking questions about the kind of job my wife had, the kind of job I had, whether I could set up my own, separate account — he was relentless. He just wouldn't let up. Every time I deflected one question, he came back with another, looking for a chink in my armour. In the end, he only stopped when I told him his desk was shaped like the lid of a toilet seat, which disarmed him sufficiently that I could make my escape.
Desk shaped like the lid of a toilet seat: I'll have to remember that one, it was quite effective.
Yes, this mad-for-new-business Halifax is the same Halifax that turned down my elder daughter's application for a bank account two years ago. I guess being bought up by Lloyds has made a difference, then.
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Copyright © 2010 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).