Smile UKReviews 

I tried to send money over 24 hours ago, and the money still hasn’t reached the account I sent it to.
My account then got locked due to sending money, I called smile who told me to send an email to their fcm team to verify it’s me and the money would be released within 2 hours…

It’s now been 7 hours and the money still hasn’t been released to the Desired bank account I sent it to. I called smile who told at 17:40 today as I cannot get into the app either and the app says to call them and they can unlock it for me. After waiting on hold, I got connected, and they said they would put me on hold for 1 minute whilst they look into that. I ended up getting out on hold past 6pm in which the guy I spoke with said their system is now down and I should call them tomorrow and they will be happy to help (confident their phone lines close at 6pm).

Seems like I have to do all the work to get things done and I’m getting told different things about sending my money to the other bank account etc. all I want is for the money to be released and sent and to be able to use the app.

Hopefully this gets done in next 24 hours

Time and time again Smile block transfers without any email or text.
Made a transfer yesterday which left my account but 18 hours later still had not landed in the destination account.
I phoned up this morning and it was held.
They swear blind they have sent an SMS and email but I received neither.
This has happened time and time again, I have made a formal complaint before but it has never been resolved.
I made a formal complaint again today.
I did say after the last time this occured, I would change banks, unfortunately immediately after that, a change in my personal situation means this is currently not possible

I literally cannot use the card for anything online without the payment being declined. Just tried to pay a £7 parking fee. Declined. Fortunately I also have other more reliable cards.

After deposting cash over the counter I received a phone call from branch (using a number that comes up as spam!) 3 hours later! To be told that one of the notes i banked had a serial number cut out, untrue,and that the manager had inadvertently deposited £100 extra. And that they where removing the £120 from my account with no permission or investigation!
Lewisham branch is DEFINITELY not to be trusted and I'm no longer happy with the entire bank.

Dreadful. Can’t login to read an “urgent” message and now account locked. Again. No I haven’t forgotten my login details - you have !

So, yet again, my credit card was declined tonight on holiday. This is the second time this year when using Apple Pay with facial recognition. How much security do they need? As usual, no contact from Smile, so the only option is to phone up and go through the tedious process of phoning the customer contact centre when they open tomorrow. You keep getting terrible reviews and you’re doing nothing to improve your service for customers.

I opened an account with SMILE about 20 years ago, when they were a modern online banking service.
They now appear to be in a state of managed decline.
For example:
1. They recently withdrew the ability to make international transfer payments online (you now have to ring them up and provide the details over the phone after waiting forever on 'hold', needless to say at the customer's expense). Rather ludicrous for a service which is supposed to be 'online banking'.
2. They are in the process of removing the ability to confirm your identity by email, instead insisting that this is done using a UK-only mobile number. Which is useless for me as a I currently live in France.
3. Raising these issues with a secure message, I was told to ring up to discuss them further or to "visit a local branch of Co-Op" (which hardly exist any more).

We were with this bank for 20+ years. We chose it because it’s one of the more ethical ones, being part of the cooperative banking group. However over the past few years it’s gone downhill to the point that we have now left. You can’t contact them. It’s all through the website and you can only send a message which takes them 48 hours to respond. Except that they often don’t reply. You have to send a chaser message and wait another 48 hours to see if they respond. My wife’s card expired and they told us to wait until a certain point when a new card would be sent, but they didn’t send it. So the old card expired and she didn’t have a replacement. So we had to chase (48 hours+ between every message). In the meantime my wife had no bank card. Apple Pay wouldn’t work, even though the bank had told her it would. That was the final straw. We closed the accounts, switched to another supplier. Of course, after closing the accounts, the card arrived. No one contacted us to ask why we were leaving, let alone try to persuade us to stay.

Trying to cancel my Credit Card which I no longer use so I log in and send secure message. I'm Informed in return that I have a secure message/ reply so go to login to read. I'm then informed that I cannot login (although I'm using the same login details as before) as my details are incorrect! Try to reset details only to be told the reset service is not working! Phone to try and get a response to be told the usual 'Due to get the excessive call load ...... '. FINALLY I get to speak to a human being who confirms that my secure message (that I cannot see) has resulted in the cancellation of my card. Thank goodness I transferred my current account, etc to another bank recently as Smile communication/ systems have deteriorated so much over the years.

Terrible service and impossible to contact. They decline card payments for trivial amounts and for transactions that I make regularly, then they take 24 hours or more to ring to check if I had authorised the payment (I had already gone through the password and authentication). This time I lost a good value car hire deal. Last time they left me abandoned on the outskirts of Budapest.

Terrible.

From a good service when it began to an awful one - the app does not work and has very limited capability, the website does not work (in many many many ways), and the phone banking service is limted to only helping with technical issues, which there are of course many.

The latest example: I have tried to pay off my credit card using my current account and the payment has not appeared after 24 hours. Most banks it's instantaneous - with Smile I have no idea where my money is and if it will even arrive.

Asking for help using their messaging service? Yeah done that and all you get is a canned response and even that takes an excessive amount of time.

Disgusting service that should be shut down.

My credit card was declined when I tried to buy a new mobile phone from Amazon on Black Friday. Smile sent me a text asking me to confirm the transaction after 3 layers of existing authentication which I did. Another text was received with the message saying try again in 5 minutes which I did. I wasted some time trying to buy my phone using my Smile Visa but it was consistently declined before my Wife stepped in and bought my new phone with her card.

After this I tried to buy new tyres for my car from Black Circles – again my card was declined but no communication was received from Smile.

I tried to call Smile to get this resolved but limited call hours and long call queuing times prevented me speaking to them.

My card continued to be accepted for high street purchases.

Much angst with messaging back and forth resulted in a stand off where the bank needed to speak to me but I was unable to beat the call queue and they would not call me.

Took the easier option of getting a replacement credit card from another provider.

Tried moving funds to an account I hold with another bank(sent by faster payment) the money is taken out of my account but a day later I still haven’t received them. Payment status just says unknown-Facebook messenger help was no use,tried to ring and I’ve currently been on hold over an hour. Only opened the account this week but already regret doing so

Very difficult to contact when there's a problem, and slow to resolve problems once you've reached a human

Awful customer service, appalling. Called today just to send an overseas transfer to my mum and the service I received was abysmal. Spoke to two customer service advisers, didn’t get the name of the first one, the second one said her name was Hanna. When I asked for the surname she refused to give it. So basically after an hours call I was unable to send the overseas transfer as they refused to assist with the request and no only that, they were the most unhelpful people. Avoid Smile, awful and humiliating customer service.

I’ve been with smile for years and I will be moving away due to the frustration of this banks service, currently have to have a pin and password to log in a different pin to use my debit card and a different password to verify on line transactions, also if I want to transfer anything greater than 10k I have to go down chaps route no faster payment service, even got third degree whilst trying to transfer monies between my own accounts, I know security is important but it’s that secure I can’t even access my own money, using alternatives has been easier and less stressful, will be changing asap, please don’t reply to this review asking for more details I will not reply

I've been banking with Smile for years. Wait times to speak to someone to move your own money are outrageous. Card declined for usual and trivial payments which is humiliating BUT not for clear fraudulent activity (over £100 taken in 2hrs in middle of the night in dozens of payments to online gaming website in the US). Fraud - spent 2hrs on hold reporting fraud. IBAN payment - currently on minimum 30 minute wait. Cannot do either online so have to call. We WILL be moving all our online banking to another bank. This is absolutely abysmal service.

We've been with them for some years, now I finally needed to query a debit. I could only phone, and was asked to stay on hold for 15 minutes.

I am writing to formally express my dissatisfaction with the deteriorating level of service I have experienced as a long-standing customer of Smile Bank, which I have been with since December 2006.

Over the years, I have observed a noticeable decline in service quality, particularly with telephone banking. The waiting times and lack of responsiveness have made it increasingly difficult to manage my account effectively.

In addition to the issues with telephone banking, the mobile app has become frustratingly unreliable. It is frequently down, preventing me from accessing my account when needed. This is especially problematic given that digital access has become essential in managing daily finances.

The tipping point for me was when my account was subjected to fraudulent activity. It was bad enough to have money taken from my account, but receiving only half of the funds back was disappointing. As a customer, I expect thorough support and full protection in such situations, especially as I have bills and financial obligations that cannot go unmet. To be left out of pocket due to inadequate fraud resolution procedures has been extremely distressing.

As a result of these ongoing issues, I am now in the process of switching my primary banking to Monzo. I have used Monzo for a few years for budgeting purposes and find that their app offers more reliability, transparency, and a wider range of products. With Monzo, I receive real-time notifications and can track my transactions instantly, giving me more control and peace of mind.

It is truly disappointing to see a bank that once offered great service decline to this extent. I hope this feedback serves as a reminder that long-standing customers expect consistent, reliable service and that improvements are needed to prevent further dissatisfaction.

Good grief. What a painful process onboarding as a new customer has been. Whereas every other bank seems to be able to open accounts instantly, Smile need to speak on the phone and then take two days to actually open the account! Reading these pages and pages of issues I do wonder whether I have made the right decision.