Unwanted phone calls from my bank -- is this normal?

I used to receive unwanted sales calls from my bank until I told them to remove my phone number.  They actually said, "Well, how can we contact you then?".  I guess they didn't know about letters through the post.

The calls stopped, but recently, I accidentally re-gave them my telephone number.  Two weeks later, the calls start.  Today, some guy wants to know how I feel about my account.

It was a sales call.  He wanted me to upgrade my account or take out loans or apply for credit cards.  Whatever he could manage to get out of me.  It's completely outrageous that my own bank (HSBC, by the way) does this.  I'm in good standing with them so I can't imagine how much harassment would go on if I owed them money.

So are all banks in this country like this?  I lived in the US 27 years and never once got a phone call from my bank.  All correspondance was through the mail as it should be.  This is a bank, after all.  Everything should be done in writing.

I've been in the UK four years and have had to put up with this idiocy.  So is it just HSBC or do all the banks do this?  If it's the latter, I'm going to change banks.

We used to get a bit of that with RBS but never with my other bank, Abbey. They never try and sell me anything. RBS used to do it by phone and every time we went into the branch.

My husband gets them occasionally from Barclay's usually doing a customer service survey and they also go through his direct debits and make sure they're all current. Which was nice because there were a couple that were still authorized that had been cancelled and not removed. So sometimes it can be a good thing.

My husband works for Barclays and he says there are contact exclusions you can set up with Barclays.  I have NEVER had one sales phone call from Barclays in 11 years.

We've got NatWest and don't receive calls, but anytime I am in the branch they try to pitch endless crap.  It really makes me uncomfortable that the person is sitting there looking at my bank balance and pushing stuff on me. 

I worked for a building society and it was part of our performance record to make those pitches. Trust me, it sucked. We wanted to do it as much as you wanted to hear it.

I'm currently with the "world's local bank" myself (been with them for nearly 5 years) and I don't get calls from them unless I open or request to open up a new segment to my account... but that's just a call to confirm details to ensure it was me that initiated the transaction.  Have you contacted your phone provider to ensure you're not getting unsolicited calls?

**If you have online banking you can go into your "My Details" and select "Contact Preferences" make sure you untick telephone if you don't want them to contact you more than strictly necessary.  If you've recently changed something on your account its possible that it automatically defaulted to reselecting that you wanted them to contact you by phone.   **

I would hate to be doing your UK tax returns next year with all those multiple remittances and currency gains or losses to figure on every transaction.  This may be practical now but may come back to bite you later on...

If the bank calls you again, tell them to put you on their "Do Not Solicit" List. I worked for a Financial Company in the UK and we had to adhere to the customer's request.

Note: I am not sure of the exact rules (I was in IT) but there are definitely rules against calling to "market" to people in the UK if the person that they are calling tells them to stop. They can still keep your phone number on record to contact you about other things.

I used to work telemarketing for Barclays/ AIG insurance.  You have to tick the tiniest box when opening an account that states your number is not to be used.  It's really unfortunate, because these lists of number get passed on to 3rd party marketing, and having worked it, it's annoying.  Even when you ask to remove the number it can take 6-8 weeks to come into effect, as the list your number is in needs to be exhausted first.

I'm with Jules - next time they call just tell them that you want to be taken off of their sales and marketing list. I did that with my bank and with my mobile phone provider and it worked a treat.

Yeah, I told the guy not to call.  Indeed, he woke me up from a nap on a day I had off from work, so he got a rather animated request never to call again or else I'll find another bank. 

I don't expect the calls anymore (and according to my online preferences, only "post" is selected for "contact options"), but it boggles the mind that your own bank would make nuisance phone calls like this.  After some research, it seems Barclays was fined tens of thousands of pounds over this not too long ago, so they're clearly doing it too.  Why on earth would you harass your own customers?

I have thousands of pounds in my account that theyre making use of and regularly make deposits and theyre giving me ZERO percent interest on this.  And then on top of this, theyre making these calls.  Its completely outrageous.

The "do not call" thing doesn't apply to companies that you have business with, by the way.  So that's not even a solution.

Why on earth would you harass your own customers?

It's called cross-selling and many companies, not just banks, do it.

The idea is that if you are already happy with one of the company's products, there is a good chance that you might be willing to purchase another one of their products.

When you go to a shop and buy mascara, and you get a coupon for face cream along with it, the cosmetics company is doing the same thing.

Haven't had phone calls yet, but have been transferred to someone trying to push products on me when I have called the bank about something else.

What annoys me is it seems that they are forcing the tellers at the bank to engage in this as well. There will be a long queue of people trying to pay in cheques, or do whatever they have to do, and you've got the tellers trying to get them to schedule a 'financial check-up' or ask about other services at the end of the transaction. I'm quite sure that they are forced to do this, and probably have targets about how many people they have to get to come in a month. It's such a waste of time for everyone standing in the queue.

The worst place I've encountered for this is G.E. Consumer Credit/Santander cards.  They issue a number of different cards for various stores, including the Asda MasterCard which I took out a couple of years ago.  Their marketing calls are incessant at times - As many as five in a single day.   Fortunately, they have only a "junk" number that I use for such things, so I just ignore it if I'm busy or if I recognize one of the calling numbers. 

For general banking I'm with Lloyds-TSB, and I don't recall ever receiving a single solicitation call from them, but it's reached the point where it's difficult to go into the branch just to deposit a check now without the tellers trying to push this or that service as well.   Unless I really need a transaction to be processed immediately, I just drop everything into their "DepositPoint" in an envelope to be dealt with at the end of the day.