This is going to be a public complaint about Barclays.

As mentioned previously, I have now my NIN. I also have my passport and two nice letters from my company, proving that (1) I work there, (2) I live where I live. I thought this would be sufficient to establish and prove all the necessary information, and would finally allow me to have a bank account in the UK.

(Yes, I still do not have it. My company is furious, because they want to pay me for my work but paying people cash is difficult. I also had to send the first rent from my Czech account. My landlady was very surprised, and at first did not even know what information I needed, what IBAN was, what BIC/SWIFT was good for. Well, we all learn, now she knows...)

I therefore went to Barclays . It was a bad choice.

I entered the branch where there were, like, 150 people inside, chaotically moving around and waiting in various lines. Usually, there is a guy who tells people what to do and where to go to get what they want, but this guy was nowhere. So I chose one line randomly and waited.

After considerable time, I was able to speak to someone. The lady told me that it was necessary to fill in some application on some iPads downstairs. She asked me about my ID and my proof of address. I showed her my passport, she approved. I showed her my letter, she again approved. I asked explicitly whether the proof of address would be a problem, because after all it was not a utilities bill, but something else. She assured me that it would be fine, that my docs would be sufficient.

So I went downstairs to find the iPads. There were four of them - but only three of them were operational, the fourth one was just frozen, showing a blank screen with tiny 'error' appearing in upper left corner. The other three were occupied by some desperate people (obviously foreigners) who did not know exactly what to do with them, what information was required etc. There was supposed to be someone supporting people having difficulties with the iPads, but no, there was no one. Consequence: I had to wait ca 15 min before one of the iPads became available.

Once I acquired an iPad and activated the application, it almost immediately (step 3/1000) displayed an error message and assured me that staff were on their way to fix it. After another 10 min, no one appeared. In the meantime, one of the two people occupying the other two operational iPads finally figured it out and finished their application, so I could use their iPad instead.

So I filled in the form, which was very long and detailed and therefore a pain in the ** itself. But fine, I did that, expecting that all the ordeal would result in me having an account. After filling, like, one million boxes, I was given reference no. and assured by the machine that someone would come very soon to verify my details and finish the application with me.

So I sat down and waited. I was lucky enough to have a book with me, because it took another 30 min before someone started paying attention to me again. During that time, I was observing the members of staff. Some of them were running around desperately, because there were really many customers, everyone wanted something, everyone had questions, many people had bored kids with them, etc. etc., and obviously the staff could not lose a single second. In contrast, some of them were obviously absolutely incompetent, walking around for no reason, leaving clients for 20 min alone, taking unbelievable amount of time for most trivial actions like printing few papers, etc.

After ca 30 min, a lady from the info booth asked me something like 'and what are you waiting for'? (Politeness at its best!) I explained that I just applied for an account over there, and I was waiting for someone to come. Her first reaction - in a rather patronizing tone - was 'and do you have a proof of address'? So I explained her that yes, I did have proof of address. She wanted to see it. Fine, I showed her. She looked me like I was crazy, and I told her that this has been approved by someone upstairs. She innocently asked, 'and who told you this'? Well, how should I know? One of the ladies at the counter! They do not have names written on their forehead!

The info lady did not like this, so she asked another member of staff about my papers. And this second lady disapproved my documents very categorically, explaining me (again in patronizing tone) that there are specific requirements on the papers and that my papers did not have it, period.

(The only accepted docs are either UK-specific papers such as driving licence or mortgage statement (which you have when you live here since ever, and which I obviously do not have after 3 weeks in the UK), utilities bills or council tenancy agreement (I have neither because I only have a private tenancy agreement (bills incl.) which is not accepted by the bank), or NIN letter (but again my NIN letter is not accepted because it came to the company, not my current address (which I obviously did not have at that time)). Isn't it nice?)

Summarized, 1.5 hr lost, with no bank account at the end, all due to the absolute incompetence of the bank staff. Well, I am not going to recommend this bank to anybody, never.

I tried to file a complaint through the bank website, asking them to remove my data from their systems (they obviously do have all my data, and I no longer want to open an account there, and at this moment I hate them so much that I just want them to remove me from their databases). I wonder what's gonna happen next...

I find all this unacceptable. I have a job here. I make money (not huge money, but not little money either). I want to give my money to the bank so that the bank can do their banky things with it and make far more money. And instead of treating me nicely and politely and actually taking my money, they bother me, insult me, embarrass me, make me feel like stupid little kiddo, and finally tell me that I am not good enough for them because I do not have a utilities bill.

Like, seriously?