Fine... if you're not in a rush! (Recommended)

Pros This is a fairly large branch of Barclays Bank, located on Linthorpe Road, just a little way out of the town centre in Middlesbrough. I’ve been with Barclays for years, but had never used this branch until recently. I was in Middlesbrough doing a little shopping and wanted to cash a cheque so I thought I’d pop in.

It was a little weird, to be honest! The place is like Fort Knox, with a security door that you have wait to be allowed through. What was weird was that, despite the apparently tough security, they opened the door for me with no questions asked! But it felt a little like being allowed into one of those spy joints where you have to give the secret password!

Well, it’s actually quite a busy branch and I had to queue. Eventually I reached the counter for what I thought was a really quick and simple transaction - I mean, how hard can it be to cash a cheque in my own bank? Well... apparently.... hard! OK, to be fair the process of cashing the cheque wasn’t hard, just lengthy. They asked for my connect card, which at first I thought was just for identification, but then I realised they were using it to pull up all the details of my accounts on their computer - and then used this to try to sell me a loan! I was in there for about 20 minutes while they tried to sell me insurance, mortgages, loans etc. All I wanted was to cash a little bitty cheque! I was actually in a bit of a rush as the car was parked on a meter, but they kept me in for ages, and it was really just a sales opportunity to them. I suspect this is a push in Barclays in general at the moment because they did the same thing in my local branch this morning when I went in to pay my bills - although they just offered the loan and accepted my rejection quite happily without trying to force mortgages and insurance on me as well.

Cons None given.