The waiting times at the Cornmarket branch are particularly long, 45 minutes is quite normal. Moreover, the fees of Barclays are diametric to the quality of their service. I have a number of international bank accounts and the fees at Barclays are significantly higher (for instance: My Swiss bank charges me 3 pounds for a transfer to a Euro-account, Barclays charges 15). Paying with my debit card in a currency other than pounds incurs a fee of 2.5% (0%-1.5% at my other banks). The high fees are paired with 0% interest.
Once, Barclays closed my online account because they found one of my transactions suspicious -- without notifying me (the online banking website just showed an "page not found error" instead of a more informative "login failed" message). When I called them, they claimed that everything is fine and tried to convince me to open a savings account instead. After a week, when online banking still didn't work for me, I went to the branch (45 minutes queuing again) where they were finally able to resolve the issue. They said they couldn't contact me because they assumed my email address and my phone (!) were also compromised (They could've at least called me and asked me to show up in person).
As another reviewer said: The staff is usually friendly, but that's little consolation. Barclays will have to do much better before I do more than occasional banking with them. read more
