Re: How long...
As someone who has blacklisted most of the high street banks due to (admittedly) generally isolated cock-ups, I can tell you there are still plenty of options. Especially for tech savvy.
I abandoned Barclays after the university branch (the only bank allowed to have one) refused to pay a Barclaycard (separate company I know) debt using a Barclays-issued grant cheque, in my name, provided to me from that same branch by the university itself, unless I also took out a Barclays current account. Despite, for three years, them doing the same every single month without question or ID.
I abandoned NatWest after they couldn't sort out, in the early era of online banking, an online banking that didn't require IE and ActiveX and never worked in Netscape even though they said it would.
I abandoned HSBC after a guy in the branch literally laughed in my face when we gave him the details while applying for a mortgage. So we went next door, to a mortgage lender, who approved us on the spot and was paid on-time every month for several years until we moved (and then it was paid off in full).
I've actually been put onto Monzo by someone on these forums. Sign up via an app (just a photo of your ID is needed). Get a full UK bank account under the same financial guarantees as any other, regulated by the same authorities. No monthly charges. Everything you would normally want (DD/standing order/transfers/etc. etc.). You get a Mastercard on the account sent to you. You can manage everything online. Even just drag-and-slide an overdraft or freeze your card yourself if you lose it.
Sure, there's probably a downside somewhere that I'll discover in time. And then maybe it'll be so insurmountable that I'll move my money again. But if you stay with the rubbish companies even through their failures (surely they must be asking "how many accounts have we lost over this?" at some point), then they'll fix their stuff next time, or you'll recognise how much you meant to them. While you do the "oh, but it's so complicated to move" when a free bank will give you an account in a matter of hours from just a photo of your ID, move everything under the current account switch guarantee so you never have to change anything, and then allow you to do that again if something happens, the other banks have NOTHING to care about in order to retain your custom.
Same for car insurance etc. My renewal this year was THREE TIMES what a rival company was charging. And that rival company was underwritten by the same firm. They literally care more about new customers than existing ones of many years. So show them what such loyalty gives back... all their customers flee for elsewhere as they have NO distinguishing features, except negative ones (i.e. nothing works or they cost more than everyone else).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
