Borked Banks

Learn about enshittification

Recently I went into my local branch of Royal Bank of Scotland, to do a basic procedure (changing a signatory on a business account).

When I eventually spoke to a member of staff things rapidly became surreal, because instead of helping me, they told me to go home and do it on a website.

The bank seemed to be paying someone just to tell customers to work it out themselves!

“But you are stood here, doing nothing, and I have all the paperwork!” I said.

“Sorry, you have to go home, go to the website, do it that way.”

“I’ve got ID with me, so you can confirm my identity. There’s no way for the bank to do that if I try and do this from home.”

“Sorry, you have to do it on your own computer.”

What a waste of time.

I got home and couldn’t see any easy option to make the change. I don't have an RBS website account and didn’t want one.

I had a contact email address for RBS business banking from previous paperwork, so emailed them to complain about this: that the bank doesn’t allow basic procedures such as doing this in a branch.

I also complained that RBS doesn’t even have an email address to contact someone on their website. It’s not 1980 any more.

The reply from the bank?

“Thank you for your email. This email address is not monitored.”

How utterly useless and unhelpful.

I then had to go through their full complaints procedure just to get someone to contact me by email.

A few days later they sent me an email, though addressed me as “Dear Mr Beattie” - which isn’t even me.

They said:

Thanks for taking the time to let us know what happened. We’re really sorry that you've had to complain and we promise to do everything we can to put things right.

Your complaint has been logged and one of our specialist team will give you a call soon.

Wait … what? I asked them to contact me by email, and specifically said NOT by phone. I like a record of what is said, and never give out my phone number to companies.

I replied and said:

Why would you phone me when I specifically said I don’t want to give out my phone number or use it? The number I put in the mandatory field was made up, because phone numbers should be optional.

That’s not even my name, either.

It’s as if every time you look into this, you purposefully choose more ways to mess things up.

Then their reply came:

They seem to be doing everything they can to block any communication from customers.

There’s a name for this. Enshittification. A word invented in 2022.

Royal Bank of Scotland has enshitted itself.

It’s a common phenomenon. Services getting worse. Harder and harder to contact someone, and when you do, they won’t help you anyway. “Download the app!” they tell you, even if you don’t use apps. “This is the future! We make more money for rich shareholders this way!” The bank pays staff bonuses even when they are losing money and being bailed out by the taxpayer.

In my experience, having “Royal” in the name is a warning sign.

Here’s a useful guide to Ethical Bank Accounts, by Ethical Consumer.