On Wed, 26 Sep 2012 23:10:25 +0100
Phil Addison wrote:

Rant warning

Just logged onto my low usage Barclays account and I'm greeted by an
empty statement saying "there are no transactions for the period you
selected". WTF.. I haven't selected any period ... oh, it says "in the
last 30 days", true I haven't used them for over 30 days but I want to
update by spreadsheet from April. There is no way to view a statement
of any kind, all that's on offer is 'export' but all attempts to coax
that with various date ranges give the same error "there are no
transactions in that period". I have to resort to phoning their
helpline where (eventually) I'm told "only 60 items or 6 weeks
[whichever is less] are available online [so any of my stuff from
April has timed out!]. They say if I change from paper statements to
online statements I can read them online, yeah right, as if I'd trust
them not to suddenly curtail that and/or make then
non-cut'n'pasteable pdf's. Fortunately I do have the data as paper
statements but that's not the point of online banking is it. I think
I would agree to having online statements if they would email them to
me, that way I am sure to get them rather than having to remember to
fetch then every month.. oh its not even every month now, they don't
generate them if there are no transactions!

On the other hand Bank of Scotland allows exporting from 1st Feb. 2005
(although it used to be 2002 and they seem to have arbitrarily changed
it) with limitations of max of 150 entries and 3 months timespan at a
time, but you can make multiple downloads to get anything and
everything from 1/2/2005.

Lloyds have exactly the same rules but go back to 1st July 2002.

So which banks do give decent access to your past transactions, and
what is the idea behind Barclays making it such a pain? And which are
the badies - name and shame them!!

/Rant

Phil

I don't know how far back HSBC will let you go, but I have never had
a problem going back into the previous month, certainly more than 30
days. I'll check next time I'm online to them.
--
Davey.