Hi blog readers hope you are all well
A few days ago I decided I needed to look at my finances in a grown up way. This was due to necessity rather than desire. I have all the acumen of a dead badger so I have been putting off doing this for a few weeks.
Last year was a very busy year for me what with Unique Dyslexic Get Creative which basically became a monster that took over a lot of my life. It was a very successful project but it just took up some much of my time leaving less time to earn any money with my social enterprise Dyslexia Pathways CIC. I have no idea how many unpaid hours work I did for this.
Then I did the 20 week business incubator course with Acorn Enterprises which I see as an investment in my organisation and my dyslexia work.
Then there was my hear attack which was quite unexpected followed by the little operation on my heart lol. I was told by my doctors to take at least a month off but I was back to work 2 days later doing work on Unique Dyslexic.
It all basically meant that instead of working 5 days a week doing dyslexia support work for most of the latter half of 2014 I was only doing 1 day a week paid work. This basically cut down my income by 80%.
Ohh I am not moaning about it both the Unique thing and the business incubator were my decisions and I stand by my decisions. As for the heart attack well these things happen and I am now feeling 95%.
Anyway any business will have its good times and bad times.....we will work through these difficult times and be back on track very soon.
Anyway that's the background of the problem sorted.
A few days ago I tweeted that I felt Back of Scotland was about a useful as a chocolate as a chocolate watch in hell. I wrote this because unknowingly I had gone £6 overdrawn on an agreed overdraft and the bank charged me £16 for this.
To my surprise I got a tweet back from Back of Scotland asking me to send a DM to AM with my complaints..........Sigh all I wanted was the name of the person who had originally contacted me.
I sent a tweet back "AM?" as in who is this I wanted to know who I was speaking to. I then got another response telling me if I didn't want to discuss this with AM I can discuss it with a colleague RD.
Now I have not used the exact initials here with regard to the people lol. Now I have been with the Bank of Scotland for maybe 10 years and this is about as much contact I have had with the bank all this time.
I did go into the bank about opening up a business account with them but was told to go on line and fill in a form sigh. I told them I was dyslexic and even though I am a dyslexia specialist with a masters degree etc I needed a little help with filling in the form. I was then informed none was available.
Also I had got burned by the Bank of Scotland with regards to PPI. I had taken out insurance on my Bank of Scotland credit card and when I made a claim against it was refused. They referred to the small print. I had informed them at the time I took out the credit card about being dyslexic but no help with unpicking the small print was forth coming. I had to go to the financial ombudsmen and claim my PPI back and I won.
So I decided to go see what other banks had to offer. Made an appointment to see a representative from one bank. One of the first things the representative did was give me a list of questions that I couldn't ask. Then the representative took me through an application with consisted of her talking very fast, showing me videos and handing me a bunch of leaflets. It was like trying to follow a movie in fast forward.........not very dyslexia friendly at all......
Anyway I am still on my, "changing my bank" odyssey lol
On the plus side I managed to save £240 a year on my phone a virgin bill with no reduction in any of the services. In fact I got a far better deal on my mobile phone bill with a much better service.
PS We are currently looking for prospective sponsors who would like to help us develop stage two of Unique Dyslexic. We will also soon be making funding applications for this as well.
I have also set us a goal of opening a Dyslexia Pathways CIC Dyslexia Centre here in Fife.
Anyways I know its a bit of a long blog but I hope others will share their experiences with banks in their comments.
Ta for taking the time to read my blog
regards
Steve
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