Topic: my experience of brick and mortar banking (Read 99 times)

it was not superiority complex..
its more like imagine going physically into a walmart store and being told by the greeter they dont sell food instore (even though you can see it there displayed over their shoulder). they are telling you to turn around and go home and order food online simply because online ordering is an option.

when walmart stops being a physical supermarket and just has a greeter turning people away. do you think walmart would last long or would they start closing stores and sacking staff

Interesting story, I had a similar experience (also after a long break). But I was outraged mostly by the fees: my card expired so I had to order a replacement card and they told me the only way to collect it was at a bank branch. I had to spend like 40 minutes there waiting and they charged me a double-digit fee for that! And later it turned out it was possible to order a card mailed to your home adress for free! 

Your story comes across that because the bank was not begging you for business they were not worthy of your money? Sounds like you might have a superiority complex. Banks have been downsizing for decades now and their physical footprint has dropped a lot in the 15 years since you last entered a branch. You can do most of what you wanted to do online, so they were absolutely right and had no need to pander to you, like you were some kind of royalty in your own mind. Most people find it super convenient being able to do almost every single banking service from the comfort of their own home these days, but you seem to find that to be an inconvenience? How bizarre.

The main reason they're sending you online is because online you won't have anybody to ask so many questions. They just show you what to do and you do it if you want to with the usual "agree to our term" box you'll thick.
The worst part is, that they have very horrible customer service reps that'll frustrate the hell out of you if you have inquiries online.

Well, in my country bank personnel still work, even though it's not as effectively as they should be. I haven't heard of a case where they had to send somebody online for stuff like this. I guess it all depends on how digital the country is.
What they do in my country is turn you around without giving you a definite answer. They'll just send you from one desk to the other for a simple problem. They'll ask for one document at a time, and by the time you look for a way to get that document, they'll ask for another one, instead of just stating all the things they need at once so you'll know what to do. A little issue that can be fixed within 5-10 minutes turns into days or even weeks of back and forth.

You can see how they already wanted to cheat when you told them the 5%.

It's all website so that when everything is messed up, there would be no one to blame but the website.
When your bank account gets closed and you open it through the website, all you can do is just keep sending emails to the support while they just ignore them.

Yes, we now have less workers in the bank and i have this feeling that the main reason of all these physical banks still existing is because of they still need to keep their reputation and attend to customers who will come to the bank any day just as the OP has done. Now these banks gets more money from granting loans, exchanging foreign currencies and other few things. Without all this they wont be getting much money to contnue the progress of the bank. 

Lol! I know understand why you are so surprised as you have not visited a bank branch in last 15 years. Bank branches for sales, they are not service based business anymore. In my country if I want to visit Citi Bank to do any banking work, they charge a Bank branch visit fee every single time I walk in. Same with HSBC Bank branches.

Every Bank in my country, has a solid online foundation. Majority of the banking services are now available online. So when they are investing so much money into building on online platform, they do not expect people to visit branches anymore.

I am surprised that you were not bombarded with insurance or loan offers during your visit!

Well Brick and mortar banks have different customer services all around the world. Some of their services in some places were technology has not yet grown to the extent where majority have an understanding of doing things online, are still performed in the banks, The brick and Mortar banks and their services are not always terrible, it is likely just the one you experienced.

But generally, banks since they have a large customer base already and there is already the awareness about them that almost everyone needs a bank account can afford to act as they like now unlike before where people still kept their money at home in save boxes and through other means. The banks struggled for customers, and were even more friendly, not anymore where their services are poorer, and they can deduct money as they like from your account for silly reasons.

apparently they can open accounts but only if its obvious you have a disability that prevents you from doing it online.
EG blind. EG wearing some silly lanyard that makes invisible disabilities (mental issues) visible
if you can show a disability, they suddenly remember how they were trained to press buttons on their corporate device to help customers

and yea first world problem, but a sign of how the fiat economy/industry is changing

i walked out. felt like i wasted my time even saying any more to them

i might return with the special lanyard to see if it changes their mantra. just for prank purposes of making them realise that they actually are trained to open accounts, and should actually try to help customers instead of trying to make themselves unemployed by turning customers away and making their job useless to requirements

the bank branch at the time had no other customer in it. so if i go in again when its quiet, but get the mantra about "make an appointment" i will make them notice they are not serving any other customers so they already have a free slot/time to just serve me while my feet are infront of them.. if they still refuse. im changing banks

First world problems eh? They streamlined almost everything that customers don't need much human interaction anymore and they can just talk to some bot for online assistance hehe.
I've heard of banks not keeping a lot of cash due to security reasons but this is my first time about banks refusing to open an account for a customer on site.

What happened next?

yep
branch employees, definitely a dying breed

i do remember many years ago walking upto the cashier counter and asking for cash from my account and being told i queued up at the wrong place and i should go use the ATM
(i know ATM's exist and use them no problems,  but for the purpose of having bank branches, id expect face to face service, else why have them)

i think its time to change bank brands to one that actually services people branch..
.. imagine a scenario where their website is offline for maintenance or their ATM network is hacked(it happens) where people then want to actually touch paper cash by going to a bank branch (or extreme do a bank run).

im starting to recognise more benefits of hoarding my wealth in bitcoin now.

your experience is as annoying as mine.

last month i visited one of my banks to block my lost card and intended to replace it with a new card. in my heart, this shouldn't be a problem, right? they should have been able to block the card easily by just showing my identity and proof of account ownership at the bank, but i was wrong, it was much more difficult.

when i arrived at the bank, the security guard didn't ask any questions at all and was busy with the cellphone in his hand, in my heart i said "wtf dude, are you playing with your cellphone casually and not paying attention to your customers?" then i asked him how to close the card then he answered so curtly that he directed me to the waiting bench lol.

and after 30 minutes of waiting in annoyance, finally my queue number was called and i went straight to the customer service desk. i immediately said i wanted to block my card and ask for a new card, and i immediately showed my identity and proof of ownership of the bank account. the funny thing is this woman asked me where i lost my card, i immediately answered "if i knew where the card was i wouldn't have to come to this office wasting almost 40 minutes of my time meeting people like you" she asked me to be polite and i just kept quiet. she started asking unimportant things for 15 minutes until finally she said "we need a loss letter from the police to make a new card", there i was quite angry and said "i want to withdraw my money as soon as possible now and don't plan to be at this bank again " and they said "no way, you need a card for that and 1 month for disbursement" and that was the most unlucky day for me.

even though it was my money, they didn't give it to me even though i had shown proof of identity, proof of bank account ownership, and my face which had not changed for 5 years using their services lol. i plan to take care of all these complicated things and plan not to use that bank again.

so i can conclude that banking is the stupidest sector in the modern era like now because their rules are too complicated, traditional and disgusting.

LMAO.

I don't know if they realise that they are in the business of promoting what will get them fired. There are fewer and fewer physical banks and fewer people working in banking because more and more people are self-employed and we can do banking with an app on our mobile. If we add to that the use of bitcoin or the upcoming implementation of CBDCs, there is even less need.

In my opinion, the job of banker as we knew it until recently is going to have the same fate as the job of night watchman or typist.

by me saying not been in a bank branch for 15 years. i mean my home town bank branch of the bank i have accounts with. because for the last decade i have mainly been busy travelling and enjoying life to not need to go into my bank branch (thanks to bitcoin life)
i have been to other banks over the years, just not the hometown one

i have no issues doing things online i just found it pathetic to have bank branches now designed to waste your time to tell you to turn around and leave the branch and go home and do it online.. dont they understand that by seeing anyone walking in the branch shows people made the extra effort to leave the house and travel to them and walk into their branch, that person must have put the effort in for a reason so they should put in the effort to service the person in response.

it must be good for some people, getting employed to tell people to go away.

imagine it like walking into walmart knowing they have a website that does deliveries. but you walk in wanting to do a physical grocery shop and a greeter tells you to leave and go do it online. would you want to shop at walmart again?


anyway
so i read the website that still says you can do all banking services in branch
i read deeper.
and found that their 'specially trained in branch advisers' respond better if people wear sunflower lanyards.. let me explain

(lanyards invented during covid to recognise people with disabilities that cant cope with face masks, to avoid awkward discussions of having to explain disabilitities)

so now the bank admits they can open accounts in branch, but only for disabled people that cant cope with doing things online.
and suggesting using the covid lanyard wrapped around your neck as a disability signal to in branch advisers to act more courteously to even bother to take extra steps just to serve people in branch

i started looking at supermarket training to.. and surprise surprise they too have been trained to recognise these covid sunflower lanyards as a disability indicator to not shuffle customers to self checkout, but instead give extra courteous aid to ensure they get served properly by actual human cashiers

i am not disabled, have no issues doing things online (my actual accounts are now organised and money shuffled to where i wanted it by doing it online) but i think just for a test/prank. i might buy one of these lanyards and visit the branch again and see the difference

and ofcourse if they suddenly act like branch account advisers that can open accounts. i will inform them of my prank, and inform them of the lies they told me last time about their incompetence/lack of ability previously

You have not visited the bank branch for over 15 years, and you probably can't tell when they stopped opening accounts in their branch, which could have been a long time, and they must have also made an announcement regarding that long time ago, which other customers might have been aware of the new development, apart from those that have also stayed up to a decade without visiting any branch. Since everything is to be done online, maybe these employees are just there for guidance.


I think that depends on the new changes made in the financial banking sector in your country. Five years ago, when I made a 1-year fixed deposit investment at a bank branch in my country, everything was done there in the bank. First was the greeter who attended to me and asked what I was in for, and I explained. He then directed me to the investment department, where the whole procedure was carried out. The API was just 2%, which is very poor considering the fact that the bank makes more profit with the money and only gives peanuts to the investor. Also, devaluation and inflation take place.

I also visited the bank branch in my country just two months ago to fix my banking app that I was unable to log in to (I changed my device and forgot my username and password). I was assisted by the customer service without them asking me to go get help online. In my country, bank employees are still doing the job they were instructed to do and being paid for. I think in your country, the bank employees are also working on the instructions and duty they are paid for.

thats the thing though, they didnt even want to do that.

its been a while since i was a salesman in anything. but even with decades out of practice i would have still heard the hums of neon signs buzzing "upsell opportunity". but no, they just wanted to advertise their website

they fully seen some of my accounts were old low interest . they seen the high value balances. which should have triggered a million different thoughts of how they could have taken advantage of my position. but no, not even a bite of the hook

if i was a bank a manager. i would have sacked them.. but now in hindsight i think they are trained to want to not serve customers.. much like supermarket cashier directing people away from themselves and telling people to use the self checkouts (not realising their training will be the cause of them being let go in later staff downsizing)

They are no longer bank branches, they are sales branches, what they want if you go there physically is to sell you investment funds, pension plans, mortgages, personal loans...

I agree that they have no future, because they themselves send you to do a lot of paperwork online. As soon as a generation of people who are not so digitally savvy dies out, they won't be needed for anything, I too haven't been in a bank branch for about 12 years.

The bad thing is that with the implementation of CBDCs they could take advantage of this and send them all to hell, close all the branches and put everyone out of work, but no, at least in the EU, limits have been imposed so that people don't switch massively to CBDCs and accelerate the process of bank failures.

so i have been starting to plan out some finances ready for the run upto the 2025 ATH and the correction after. so thought its time to rearrange some bank accounts

i have not visited a bank branch in 15 years so my previous experience(though great) is outdated
i decided id actually step inside a bank branch and see what advice they give(seeing if they will pitch me some investment plans that are better than standard bank interest(you know up-selling their product range))

i was expecting a greeter at the entrance asking what service ill need to work out if i need a sit down adviser, or go to the cashiers desk or book a consultation..
..upon entering. no one

i walk around the corner to see what would be the greeter hiding away to the side playing on their personal phone.

i approached and got the greeters attention and got the greeting where they asked how they can help
i told them i want to possibly close some account, open other accounts and shuffle some money around

their first response was "you can do it online"
and my first response was "but my feet are standing right infront of you"

i think they got the hint and asked me to sit down as they walked off to get their corporate tablet.
they accessed my account and i started describing how i was looking for good interest rate accounts.

they with excitement and enthusiasm told me the accounts i was interested in changing were great interest rates (under 2% and under 1%)
i informed them that its 2023 and there are interest rates on offer by their own company of 4-5% which they should be promoting to me

they informed me i could go online and see what best accounts are on offer. and i repeated i am now sitting in a bank branch which i took the effort to visit specifically for the personal service of doing it in branch.

they reluctantly started explaining the accounts. how the 5% AER(annual) was variable. and i said i dont mind about future years as long as its 5% this year. meaning 100k now= 105k this time next year.
they explained no it doesnt work like that, its variable per month. to which i explained. no the A of AER is ANNUAL.., its simple math
5% annual equivalent rate is £100k in = 105k after interest in 12 months.

they didnt want to debate, so instead told me i can go online to find out more, and then moved the conversation to discuss a 4% that was "fixed for 1 year"
i said fine ill take it... set it up for me and then we can move some money into it straight away

and here is the kicker
the bank branch adviser said they do not open accounts in branch i would have to go online..

and so i made a great suggestion. they should resign if they cant do a banking job, they should close their doors and put a sign up in the window that says "go online" as thats really all the advice they want to give/offer.

..
i think the banking sector is ready for a downsize and to go fully online soon anyways.
i couldnt believe it, 2023 and a bank branch cant even open an account for someone standing right infront of them
and in the space of 7 minutes told me to go online 4 times

(i have no problem doing it all online but i wanted to see what the personal face to face experience was)
(i wasnt actually interested in 4-5% interest as most fiat would have been pushed into investments of better interest yield/deflationary assets)