Lloyds bank #Fail

Major Fail!

A response from my bank. It took an age rod find a contact email on their website to complain. Everything was phone numbers. Secondly when I did complete to online complaint, the form insisted on me putting in a telephone number and a time for them to call me to discuss my complaint. Er no I don’t think so!

“Thank you for letting us know about the problem you have with the services Lloyds Banking Group. We always welcome customer comments as it helps us to put things right for you.

As you mentioned you are not happy that Lloyds Banking Group do not offer any other services other than text relay and text phone for our hearing impaired customers to complete their every day banking queries. You have seen that other banks offer a mobile text service to answer fraud calls where you just need to answer yes or no and you have seen that there has been an online chat service introduced by other high street banks. You would like Lloyds Banking Group to offer these additional services as you do not use text relay as you or text phone. You also feel that Lloyds Banking Group is discriminating against you due to the limited services we offer.

We appreciate how this situation has made you feel, however, our review shows no mistake was made.

Lloyds Banking Group currently offer text relay and text phone to our hearing impaired customers there is also a British sign language video relay calls that our customers are able to use through our website the opening hours for this are Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm but I understand that you do not use sign language as a form of communication. If you need a, lip speaker or palantypist to support a branch meeting, please let our branch colleagues know. They will provide this support for you. You should expect there to be a two or three week wait for interpretation services.

If you wish to provide your own interpreter we will be happy to pay for this. We simply need evidence such as a business card or letter heading to show that the interpreter has been accredited by the Council for the Advancement of Communication with Deaf People.

We did do a pilot last year around a solution called TexBox which uses an application called TexMee. We have some challenges to overcome in respect of implementing this solution and are actively progressing this and looking at potential other ways to implement this. At this stage I am unable to give any timescales although I would say that it definitely won’t be before next year. In addition, we have recently run a group wide accessibility challenge and had a great response. We have collated 514 ideas to improve products and services for customers with a variety of disabilities, which we will be progressing over the coming months. Specific details will not be disclosed and until we know for sure they can be implemented.

Our Disability Services Manager is currently looking into the email contact option as we are aware that other organisations like First Direct offer this contact method. Web chat is also something that we would consider although we are keen to finalise our reviews into texmee service before we look at any further options.

I trust I’ve explained the reasons for our decision. If you wish, you now have the option to contact the Financial Ombudsman Service, so long as you do this within six months of this letter. Please find a copy of their leaflet enclosed. I’ve also enclosed a copy of our complaint information which gives you details of our commitment to how we deal with complaints.

It’s important we’ve resolved your complaint fairly. If you feel we’ve misunderstood your complaint, or you’ve any questions or further information, please contact me.”