Harry Shannon
A few years ago, my wife and I spent nine months in the UK. Before we came from Canada, we had to start a bank account to transfer some money to make a deposit ahead of our arrival for our rental house. We tried various banks; the only one that accommodated us was Lloyds.
We set up the sterling (pounds) account (an “International account”) and put some money in. For some reason, Lloyds also started a US dollar account for us. (I don’t know if we checked a box on a form that led to this.)
We never put anything into the dollar account. Yet ever since it was started, we have received monthly statements sent to Canada by “Advanced Mail, First Class.” They faithfully report that the balance brought forward was $0.00, there was no movement on the account, and the balance carried forward was $0.00. The last statement we received was the 90th.
Lloyds have continued to do this even though we closed our account 18 months ago. (We had kept some pounds in it for convenience if we visited the UK.) We wrote a cheque for almost all the remaining balance to deposit in our Canadian bank, and sent Lloyds a jointly-signed letter to close the account. We didn’t get an acknowledgement. Instead, Lloyds sent me a letter telling us the account was overdrawn, and asking how I would sort that out. We had been charged ₤20 for the privilege of keeping the account we had tried to close.
You may have noticed that I wrote ‘Lloyds sent me’ and not ‘Lloyds sent us’. That was not a typo. The letter was addressed to me alone, and my wife didn’t get a similar letter even though it was a joint account.
We ignored the letter, assuming that Lloyds would be closing the account as requested. But they sent me a follow-up letter, so we decided they had not got our message. I wrote asking Lloyds to check that the account had indeed been closed. I also criticised the bank for failing to include my wife in the letters they had sent. (Ironically, a little while earlier, we had sent the obligatory information about our country of residence for tax purposes. Even though we sent our individual forms together, my wife received an acknowledgement but I did not.)
I received a third letter, dated 17 days after I sent mine. It told me the account would be closed if we did not make a deposit or contact Lloyds within 30 days. We decided this was the only way we would be able to close the account, so did not reply.
But as I mentioned earlier, we still get statements for our empty dollar account. I had set a target of 100 statements; since I had already received 90, I was planning to wait for another 10 months to see if we could reach it. But my wife asked how many trees Lloyds had used so far and how many more I expected them to chop down to keep sending the statements. So I sent them a letter asking them to finally close all our accounts.
But that hasn’t worked. Statement #91 crossed in the mail, and we have since received #92.
I also just got a letter on the benefits that come with the account. It sounds exciting – apparently I get ‘Worldwide Travel Insurance’. Whether you can get it with $0.00 in your account is an interesting question – but I won’t be getting it answered. Alas, the first line in the summary of benefits and exclusions says that residents of the USA and Canada don’t get covered. Even though I’ve told Lloyds that my residency for tax purposes is Canada and my address is in Canada, they still sent me the letter.
It is remarkable that at no time over the past seven years has anyone at Lloyds – or the algorithms they use – realised that they are sending these useless documents and stopped the process. I don’t know how much the printing and stuffing envelopes has cost, but Lloyds have spent a considerable amount just on the postage.
What if, instead of Lloyds, it had been a public sector institution involved? Well, we all know that right-wing ideologues would go on the attack, and complain about how governments waste tax money and how we should rely on the private sector who would run things efficiently. I wonder if Lloyds’ shareholders agree.