In the last week I had two rather irate banks telephoning me to say that my agreement with them had been cancelled because I was in default, having missed a payment.

Oh dear! It seems their systems couldn’t cope with the Easter weekend.

Apart from the fact that both their IT systems, as well as the staff who then had the task of telephoning me, were unable to recognise a situation which occurs every year, and respond appropriately. One of the calls started out with a highly accusatory tone, before swiftly abating in the face of the obvious – my payments by Standing Order were merely delayed by the long weekend.

A few days after these telephone calls, which had clarified the matter and during which I was assured that everything was now in order, I received a solicitor’s letter threatening legal proceedings. Apart from the obvious error, the letter claimed it was responding to an unanswered letter from their client dated 7 June 2010. Nearly two years ago. Oh dear, dear, dear. Not very competent at all...

Given that I have seen reports many times in the past about this behaviour by some banks, it seems that the expense and inconvenience of telephoning customers, and presumably for some banks, sending out letters, is preferable to rectifying the flaw in both their IT systems and staff procedures.

I think it is stupid behaviour by some of the banks, and actually also rather annoying.

The trouble is, we put up with it as we don’t expect decent customer service from our banks, do we?