Kafka has taken over HSBC.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Exactly. If you don't fit into whatever profile their software says is 'normal' you are in shit.

[The Natural Philosopher]

cheapest 3 option that includes wifi direct - handy when you have wifi but no 2g/3g/4g/5g signal - is this

£100 and that's it

[Martin Brown]

Most of the questions I have seen were relatively easy to answer for a personal account but much more difficult for a community account where you no longer have access to the memory of some deceased individual.

Our VH turned out to have an official postcode which was miles away in the middle of a field where the secretary had lived when postcodes were invented. This proved incredibly difficult to fix.

I had been signing cheques for about 2 years on our VH account with no problems at all. It was only when I went into the branch in person to sort something else out that the clerk compared my signature with their list of "authorised signature" on the account and then kept me talking while the police arrived. They were sorely disappointed.

Fortunately the chairman who was waiting in a his car outside (but had severe mobility problems) was an authorised signatory eventually got fed up with waiting and came into the branch to see what was taking me so long. It turned out that they had lost the by now two year old mandate making me a signatory (and someone else as well). Their official list of signatories included two people who had been dead for more than a year!

After that we kept scans of all documents submitted to banks and I would advise you all to do the same. We changed banks very soon after citing this as the reason why we no longer had confidence in them as a bank.

They will honour cheques on such accounts with two signatures on - even if one of them is Mickey Mouse provided that the amounts are not high enough to trigger a deeper check. That limit was around £1k in 2015.

I don't know where it is now.

[John Rumm]

Giffgaff do...

[Chris Bacon]

Utter, utter shitposting incontinent wankers are all that's left of Usenet. No more for me. Good luck with your dribbling into newsgroups. Over and out.

[Chris J Dixon]

At least get that right. :-(

Chris

[Chris Green]

... and idMobile

[Tim Streater]

In our case we may perhaps have needed to read their Ts & Cs a bit more carefully (or perhaps we did, and they subsequently changed them as they are all prone to do and no one noticed). On their form to change the person with online access from the recalcitrant one to me, it insisted that the two signatories had to be the "secretary" and another. The outfit doesn't have a "secretary" and I see no reason why we should invent a non-existant post just to suit them, or that alternatively I should lie on the form and pretend it was me. Even if we had been willing to do that, it would involve a special meeting just to do that (and even then I'm not sure it would have been within the rules). Our rules, I mean.

Another area where most of these banks seem to be a screw-up is online access. They insist of at least two sigs for cheques, but then are happy to assign online access to one person who then has full sole control of the account.

[Peter James]

HSBC are useless. I am a reciipient of a HSBC administered Trust Fund. Needing to contact the Trust Manager whose address was not shown on the Trust Statement I called in to my local HSBC. It took them over an hour to tell me they couldn't find the address of an HSBC Department on their computer listings and they had no idea how to find it. Absolutely blxxxy useless.

Peter

[Tim Streater]

Not quite PAYG. I'm already paying them £6/mo for their cheapest deal. But my usage of the smart phone is so low that £6/mo is already much more than actual PAYG would be.

[Adrian Caspersz]

Hmmm... First time I've killfilled someone for being on-topic.

[Chris Green]

Yes, as I said idMobile still do real PAYGO, if you refuse all their top up deals then you get the 3-2-1 rate like Three used to have.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Eh? recently decided to reactivate my old phone and got PAYG with GiffGaff.

How would criminals exist without burners?

[Max Demian]

You can refuse the "goodybags" and just add credit (by voucher or PayPal) after activating the SIM. That's true PAYG.

[Andrew]

I have the same gripe. It seems that ASDA still do 'old-fashioned' PAYG tariffs though.

[John Rumm]

They still do full PAYG. However they do heavily tout their "goodybag" deals of fixed payments for bundles of stuff, which might lead you to think that is the only option.

If you don't setup a goodybag, then they just charge their PAYG rates from your credit:

Unless you are a very low user (emergency phone etc), then the deals are usually better value.

So login to your account, go to "Orders and payments", and untick "Recur your selected goodybag". That will then run out and not be re-purchased, and you will be back to vanilla PAYG.

[Andrew]

But can you buy top up credit on-demand or do you still have to entrust them with your card details ?.

[Scott]

I had an experience with a different bank where the Treasurer of the Residents' Association got two years for mortgage fraud. The bank's starting point was that they wanted all existing signatories to agree to removing him. Eventually, I think we had to have a meeting to remove him from office then supply a certified copy of the minutes. A bank needs authority to act.

[Tim Streater]

Well, at the rates they are charging, yes.

[Tim Streater]

Such authority normally comes via bank mandate. Usually downloadable form you fill in and the required number of signatories sign, then hand in at the bank. Assuming they don't lose it (a not unusual occurrence), it will be acted on.