Barclays complaints email?

[robato]

So I want to complain to Barclays about the many problems I had opening the premier account, the time wasted and the fact they haven’t confirmed that I qualified for the 100k Avios even though I believe I have since 5 weeks ago.

According to https://www.barclays.co.uk/complaints I’m meant to use the chat feature in the app but I’ve just wasted 2 hours going round in circles with an adviser who has contradicted the T&Cs and said “You may not have received a confirmation about the 100,000 Avios Points, due to the fact you are an existing customer as you have done a product transfer to a Avios Plus Card”.

I don’t want to call because it takes ages and difficult to raise each point so I’d much rather have everything in writing to fully express my frustration with the service that is far from “premier”.

Is “Freepost Barclays Customer Relations” the only way to write a proper letter or is there an email address? Even their complaints process is not easy as if they are trying as hard as possible to not listen to the customer.

[NorthernLass]

During the teething problems when they launched the avios card I emailed and they replied to the effect that they don’t deal with complaints this way due to security issues. I then wrote them a letter and they phoned us about a week later and did actually sort everything out fairly quickly after that.

[robato]

I see, thanks. I’m sure they (banks in general) used to support email complaints but that must have been some time ago. I just surveyed the main high street banks now and indeed, none of the ones I checked take complaints by email. Some have a secure online form.

After 2.5 hours in Barclays chat, I finally got the complaint logged and a reference number. The number of times they said “rest assured” that they understood my issue, made me less assured! So I will wait to see what the outcome is otherwise I will write a letter.

[jj]

If you really had to use the chat feature in an app to raise a complaint, Barclays would be in pretty flagrant breach of its obligations.

DISP 1.3.2 requires banks to allow complaints to be made by any reasonable means. A complaint is defined as, “…any oral or written expression of dissatisfaction, whether justified or not, from, or on behalf of, a person about the provision of, or failure to provide, a financial service…”

If you wish, you can simply phone the premier bank line and demand that a complaint be logged. If they refuse to log it, complain also about that refusal. Email, phone calls, and in-person complaints are all ‘reasonable means’ in my view.