A Pink Public Service Announcement (HBOS)

Never, ever work for HBOS (bank of scotland). If you do already work for them, i pity you.

Reason for this?
I applied for a job with them, and got offered it, end of July. Then they said the "credit checks" would take a while, so offered me a start date of 30th Aug. I was a little annoyed, as it was quite far in the distance, but i thought, might as well wait.
Luckily i got a temping job for 2 weeks in August to get me some money to pay for essencials such as Play, rent, etc...
I got sent out the contract, signed it and posted it back to them, along with the ID they required (my original birth certificate and bank statement)
Anyway, on the Thursday before i was due to start they phoned me and said, "we're having a little problem with your references, also we haven't recieved your contract, we're having to push the start date back a week"
I was annoyed - they had lost my birth cert & bank statement, but i re-signed a contract and re-wrote the application form and waited.
Then yesterday (thursday before my new start date) they phoned me up again saying, "we have a couple of queries about your application form"
me: "ok,"
HBOS: "Right, when did you start with Red Cross"
(I was volunteering for them for a while whilsti was unemployed)
me: Um i don't know the exact date, because i was just volunteering, you don't get any contracts or anything saying the date, but i think it was either blah blah month of blah blah
HBOS: Well (in a snappy voice) when did you exactly end?
Me; I don't know EXACTLY that either, when i moved. Sometime around blah blah
HBOS: Well, there appears to be a discrepancy (she emphasised this) between your accounts. On your form you put blah blah, and they say blah blah.
me: Oh, well sorry i put down when i thought i started and finished.
HBOS: Hmm..
Me: So am i still starting on Monday?
HBOS: well i don't know, we have to check out about this discrepancy.

What the ? They're worried because i got a start date wrong when i was volunteering?!?!?

Anwyay, hour later they called again
HBOS: We need to go through some things again on your application form.
Me; Ok.
HBOS: What year did you finish college
Me; Oh right, um... *me thinking* well, i finished school in blah blah, then went to college so... um blah blah?
(lots of blah blah's isn't there?)
HBOS: That's another discrepancy on your application form, you said here blah blah
Me: oh sorry , i must have got confused!

(they asked a couple more questions... asking my why i hadn't included my primary school dates on my application form and such, because i was so supposed to know they needed to know what dates and where i went to nursary and such!)

Another hour later i got a voicemail from HBOS
"due to discrepancies in your application form we are withdrawing our offer of employment"

What the ??
Because i got when i left college wrong, after the third time of filling in the same damn form, and because i was a month out when i started volunteering?
It wasn't even a big well paid, important job. I was just applying to be a clerk on a measly £10,500pa!
So after wasting 7 weeks of my life I have to go and look for another job!!

Luckily, I have some temping to help pay bills in the meantime, but still...!
So NEVER go for a job with them, unless you can accurately account every second of your life since you were born and have referees to back it all up.

what utter t**ts they are.

Hun, pay no mind to these people. Pick yourself up and go out there and offer your considerable talents to another company.

Banks are notorious for running check after check on people they plan to employ due to some very publicly seen cock-ups with poeple that have employed in the past. Funds being "relocated" where they shouldn't and such.

Don't worry about it. It wasn't the job for you. I have no doubt that something perfect is out there for you and you will find it

that is mightily crap
i read this after i sent your pm so igore the penultimate question!

oh my god that's terrible, i'm sure you should be able to sue them or something like that,

you could come work for me distibuting pinky goodness to us poor norphen souls

*cuddle* Im sure you'll get a job quickley enough!
Will they be sending back your birth certificate? xxx

Aw bummer, the cosmos obviously requires that you put your talents to better use elswhere.

Theyre still a bunch of w**kers though.

Banks all suck. HBOS charged me 3 months of overdraft fees when I wasn't overdrawn and then refused to give the money back until I went to the manager and basically said that I wanted to close my acount and have it all in cash (about £5k in cash).

But having to acount for every single move you've ever made is a bit much.

Loads of for ya Pink. Good luck job hunting hon.

y'know in ireland until quite recently we had the pund. in irish it was called the punt. another reason for this name was so it would rhyme with bank manager

forgetthem pink, you will find the right place for you and you will love it

sounds like your much better off not working for them.

goodluck job hunting! (i know youve had a hell of a time with this. remember; when doors shut, the window usually gives you a nicer view anyway!)

some people are so nit picky

mind you - they're probably needing it to be accurate to make sure you're not a terrorist. and i'm not kidding either! everyone's upping the security stakes these days.

hahaha, omg I have the same problems...

them: When did you leav college?

me: Oh crap ok erm...well it was the date this happend...oh hang on...crap...MUM! WHEN DID I LEAVE COLLEGE? ....I better make something up...

a......few months before christmas maybie...

them:....so what? November

me: ...erm yeah sure! I'll go with that

I am just as useless trying to get jobs. What a silly thing to ask tho, when did you leave primery school, who gives a crap about primery school!

I can empathise, I've filled out thousands of bloody forms recently... Luckily I keep a record of dates like that (computer file, started by good old mum, easy to update), but it's stupid that I should have to. It really does help though. Also, next time something like this happens, blame the discrepancy on paperwork... 'Oh, I am sorry, I did leave on such-and-such a date, but it must not have gone through their system/paperwork/been made official until that date' Sneaky

Did you not tell that you're Alice and therefore different rules apply?


Ring them up and tell them that several thousand fire spinners across the world all think that they smell

I pulled some strings to make that happen.

Your fate does not include Bank of Scotland.

You're back on track now.

Does this now mean you dont exist by law not having a birth cert? we can't be having that.

gutted hun what a bunch of c*cks!

in fairness to the bank they have to be totally sure about who theyre employing. if you cant get the dates to when you left school/college right then how can you be trusted to correctly deal with the hundreds of thousands of pounds that youll be dealing with every day.
sorry to sound like a w*nker but im sure someone can see my point

alice - tell your next job that if they dont employ you will they will find a LOT of angry firespinners outside...