I went into Hereford last week, and I had thought I might get some cash out of Lloyds Bank while I was there. The cash machines are inside the branch - and the door was locked.
I went to the main entrance, and that was locked too. Odd, I thought.
So when I was back in Hay, I looked at the bank website to see why the branch was closed. It didn't say.
I tried contacting the bank via the website. There was a list of questions to ask, but why a particular branch was closed was not included. I tried writing in a question, and got back an answer about Covid precautions, which is not what I had asked about at all.
So, how else could I contact the bank?
I remembered that they have a Twitter account, and will answer questions there.
So I asked.
They didn't know.
I found an article in the Hereford Times which told me more than the bank did. Apparently, work was going on to put a new safe in, and to remove some of the customer service counters, and two of the ATMs.
I kept asking the bank when the branch would reopen, once a day.
On the fourth day, I started to wonder about how the bank is organised - surely someone at Head Office would know that a major branch was closed, and why? The manager of the branch wouldn't have just decided to close on their own. I imagined the manager of a branch clearing out the safe and fleeing to the South of France - from the response I was getting, the Head Office wouldn't find out about it for weeks!
On the morning of the sixth day of asking, I finally got an answer!
The bank is due to re-open on Tuesday, December 20th - just in time to close again for Christmas!
All this emailing to and fro could have been avoided if someone at the branch had thought to sellotape a notice to the door.
[Updated to add: whoever is responsible for the Twitter account helpfully sent me a link to find the next nearest branch - of the Halifax! So I assume from this the Twitter account is outsourced to people who are not part of Lloyds Bank. When I queried this, I got the right link]
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