If you have done 6 impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways
Never, ever, ever try what we have just done.
My previous Blog covered the problems with getting my wife’s name on the bank account. Well to that we had to redo the mortgage because the RBS Current Account Mortgage scheme is now dead and they do “OffSet” now which is basically the same but uses two accounts.
The CAM basically ran the mortgage as a huge overdraft with your account balance being negative. Mind you there was something good about going to an ATM and it saying Your Account Balance is £100,000DR. You May withdraw £400 today
Anyway CAM is dead so we have to set up a new joint account (which was fun) and then redo the mortgage.
So then we get a letter from the Offset Mortgage team asking for EXACTLY the same things as we had already provided for the account (Proof of ID, residency etc.). So I tell them – that the bank, their own bank has all of that so why don’t they try to talking to other parts of their company.
In the Middle of all this process we go off to the USA for Christmas. Bank is happy – they will fax us the paperwork that needs to be signed (as long as we sign the originals when we get home). So we sit and wait for a fax.. it “will be there on Monday”, it doesn’t turn up.
We phone them.. its “on its way”, nothing, we phone again, its “on its way”, nothing.
We phone again. The Offset Mortgage team have cancelled the joint application because “the bank told them it was a single application”.
By now we are both pissed off – we now have two bank accounts : our pay checks are going into the new one BUT everything else (bills etc) is still against the old CAM account… you can just see whats coming cant you?
Angry words are exchanged with the bank. They say that they will process it as a single application and then migrate it to a joint application afterwards. OK I guess thats acceptable. So they fax it through to us and I sign it and fax it back.
Now here comes another curve ball. When I moved to the CAM account my old RBS account was never removed from the system for some reason – it sat in Wigan containing no money but with a £1000 overdeaft facility. We never touched it (~more fool us!). The bank in Gloucester said they would delete it for us.
So the Offset Mortgage team settle the outstanding amount on the CAM and then where do they put the rest of the money? Yup thats right – into my OLD account in Wigan, and not the new account in Gloucester.
So we now have my salary in the new account in Gloucester, some Mortgage money in the old account in Wigan, and the CAM account has GONE with all the bills transferred over to the new account
So there we are in the USA doing digital banking shuffling money round from account to account before they decide the close the old Wigan account (which we can only access via Digital Banking).
To be honest – the Royal Bank of Scotland have been useless. It would have been easier to move to a different bank.. it certainly could be any more difficult. It seems that the Offset Mortgage part of RBS is totally disconnected from the rest of the RBS and they deal with them in exactly the same wasy as they would with another bank.
Crazy, Crazy.
Still I did have fun in the US.. Never eaten Deep Fried Turkey before 😉