The person I had spoken previously to was on the customer services desk, as I recognised her voice. I got to the head of the queue and was fortunately seen by someone else. I insisted on a manager to speak to; after five minutes the deputy manager came out. (Aside: why is it no longer possible to speak to a manager these days? Are they afraid of customers?) I didn't spot her at first; she was on my blind side.
I started by asking about my account. Were there any notes to say it was different? all the contact details are as normal, nothing special marked down? I gently led her to confirming that yes, the statements and correspondence would be sent out as ordinary letters, ordinary size.
I moved on to whether the staff had any disability awareness training, or any training to assist people with impairments. She began quoting the Disability Discrimination Act requires all their staff to be acutely aware, etc. I let her ramble on.
"Okay," I said. "If that's the case, why was I told it would need to be checked to even see if it was allowed?" I outlined the case as I blogged about earlier on in the week. The deputy manager confirmed that no changes had been made to my account; no request for large print had been made.
The advice I had been given was wrong, she conceded. "It is an area where we might need to improve, and I will be bringing this up at the daily training session tomorrow. Do you know who it was?"
I handed over the business card which I had been given by the assistant who had 'served' (or perhaps stalled) me on Monday. I couldn't read the card; I said so, but I presumed the name was on there. She kept the card, and gave me one of her own. She gave me details such as her name and branch telephone number so that I could write on it in large enough letters for my own future reference.
To her credit, she then proceeded to get it sorted for future statements to be in large print. If I so wished, I could also avail their services in Braille or on audio-tape. Large print would be fine, thank you. She looked at her screen. It was black, with feint bits of blue on it which I took to be my details. She pressed a few buttons and it was apparently sorted. It was a matter of pressing a few buttons on a very easy-to-find page on their system, apparently, which the previous assistant should have been able to do within moments of my request.
It might be a bit late to catch the next statement to have that in large print (despite there being quite a few days before the next one is issued), she advised, which I accepted. Banks are never the quickest. That might already be going out normal size. But she then said she'd give a call back to me after the April statement is dispatched just in case the large print request hadn't gone through, still sowing a seed of doubt in my mind about the bank. I guess I'll find out when the April statement comes through if it actually worked or not.
Problem resolved? We'll find out with next month's statement. (Addendum, later: give them their due, it actually did come through all right, in large print)
This problem should not have come up in the first place though.
However, it's not the first time NatWest have had issues with visually impaired people. In 1997, Patricia Parsons alleged discrimination when they told her not to come in their busy period. "She says the Spring Street branch had told her she was too slow." I'm unable to discover what became of this case, but Miss Parsons transferred to being a customer of Barclays Bank.
A similar failing of NatWest bank to provide services to customers comes in how they ended up having to pay £5,000 compensation to a wheelchair user as they forced the customer to do his banking transactions in the streeet. The Disability Rights Commission reported that: "On one occasion, Mr Caulfield was asked to wait in his wheelchair on the pavement outside the bank while staff dealt with customers inside the building who’d arrived before him."
NatWest's parent company, the Royal Bank of Scotland, also has problems in treating its less able customers fairly. In January of this year, the bank lost a court case when they discriminated against a 17-year-old schoolboy. Here's a snippet from the story:
The Royal Bank of Scotland's name is mud following David Allen's landmark legal victory over a lack of disabled access at its Church Street head office in Sheffield.
The 17-year-old schoolboy, who uses a wheelchair, took on the multi-billion pound financial behemoth which used every tactic in the book to try to brush his claim aside – and failed spectacularly.
...
When David complained initially he saw there were signs in the bank and on its website which claimed the premises were accessible to wheelchairs. But the judge found this was wrong.
David was told he could use the staff entrance, but it too was inaccessible, and a claim he could use his cards at NatWest was also wrong.
The bank offered David £250, then £1,000, and then £1,500 to drop the case. On the day it went to court last year he was offered £5,000 to go away, provided he signed a confidentiality clause. But the family refused, his father Paul dubbed the move "a cynical attempt to buy us off".
David launched his claim through the small claims track at Sheffield County Court, but RBS successfully applied to move it to the 'multi-track' system which, if he lost, would have left him liable for legal costs of up to £50,000.
Unwilling to risk losing their home in Bents Green, Sheffield, the family thought they were beaten – until a white knight arrived at the eleventh hour.
In an rare move, the Government-funded Equality and Human Rights Commission announced it would underwrite costs because he had such a strong case.
Needless to say, the bank lost, but typically sore losers, they plan to appeal.
On what grounds would they appeal, I wonder? Seems like a watertight case of discrimination by an inept banking institution if you ask me.
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