So before I moved to the UK I read up on the differences in banking and what I would need to open an account in the UK. Since I read that you need references etc, I had my now husband go down to his bank and talk to them personally about my situation. He told them I would be new to the UK and I would have checks in US currency as my initial deposit. He asked not only if that was feasible but what the cost would be and what kinds of references would I need. He was prepared to ask for exact wording of references needed from my current bank, etc. Halifax said that since he is a customer all we would have to do was have him fill out a referral form and I would be allowed to open an account. They said the US check were no problem but I would be assessed a conversion fee and wrote down the figure based on the amount I was bringing in. So I didn't worry about the banking stuff from then on out.
When I arrived in the UK in late August I went to Halifax with my now husband to open my account. The kid that opened the account (he was so young he seemed like a kid to me) said he didn't even need my husband's referral that he could do it with just my passport. Okay then. He then took my misc US cash and deposited it and my US checks and made me fill out all the paperwork for US checks. He stamped everything and said if there was going to be a charge for doing it he would let me know but indicated that their probably wouldn't be. However there would be a 21 day hold on the checks, made perfect sense to me.
Then I go back after getting my invoice from my horrible shipper to see if the money was cleared early by any chance and if not my husband would pay my shipping charges. the cashier at the window hemmed and hawed for a while and then ask if that kid called me. Nope. I thought a fee was assess, no worries my us cash deposited would have taken care of that. Then she disappears and comes back with my checks. They never deposited them.
The cashier says they refuse to deposit my checks because I am a new customer. What?
I said if they don't allow for deposits why isn't that on their website. She says Oh no they do deposit checks. I said clearly they don't. She then said it was because I was new. We went back and forth with me saying how i was told it was no problem how come I wasn't told before trying to open an account, etc. She just keeps saying the same lame thing. new customer, no deposit. But apparently I didn't have to worry because I already had an account with them. Yes like my birthday money from relatives would be enough to cover me for the next 3 years. When i declared it was bullcrap she said she would refuse to help me. i told her she wasn't helping me anyways and that she needed to accept responsibility for her company for not even notifying me of this. How long were they going to sit on my checks and not tell me? I stormed out.
I went to the next bank down the road and proceeded to tell my story and see if I could get an account there. Took two banks before I could open an account. I have a very basic account at HSBC that doesn't allow me a debit card nor checks but they will deposit my checks. However it took until last week before I could deposit them because the account needed to be set up off site and I had to wait for confirmation of that first. And now I have to wait another 3 weeks for the checks to clear. And with shipping nightmares it has become a HUGE problem as my husband is disabled and can't work so we were going to live off MY money. My money was suppose to pay for everything. Now we have virtually NO money and possibly my husband going into over draft. It is a horrible pain.
Santander bank which wouldn't allow me to open an account because I needed to live in the UK for 3 years although were really nice to me said Halifax wouldn't deposit them because they thought they were fraud checks. One of my check was a bank check. Just goes to show you no matter how hard to try to have everything under control at the last minute everything can fall apart.
Good Luck to all you out there opening a UK bank account.
Sealie in the UK
