I have to defend the banks.  We've been extending huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in the world for the past several years.   In the "trickle down" theory, the money the wealthy  save by not paying taxes trickles down to the bankers, where it is held on to for dear life, or given to other bankers, then fed and fattened with the less important money of "taxpayers" and "consumers" before it is redistributed to the wealthy, the original owners, untaxed. 
Like a hot chick in the throes of a crazy orgasm, the trickle sometimes turns into a flood; these extra hundreds of billions of dollars burden the banks' human resources.  Please forgive the infelicity of my analogy, but its elements--trickle, flood, orgasm, hot, throes--do lend themselves nicely to the daily sensations of being a rich, untouchable, untaxed American.  So, seriously, the banks are very busy and it is hoped that customer service will come eventually, once they get the problem of excess cash sorted out.

NJS,

Why not switch to a Brazilian bank? Or at at least have an additional account with one to avoid future problems.

'Abroad' is not the only issue.

You have to bring a passport with you to open a fekkin building society account nowadays. When a building society bond expires, instead of just being able to transfer the money to the best alternative they ask you to make an appointment with one of their 'financial advisors'. He asks all sorts of impertinent questions about your general finances and tries to sell you stuff. Old fashioned cardboard passbooks that you can use across the counter are being phased out with poor interest rates.

I switched banks years ago when Nat West wanted to charge for a current account.

I subsequently used Williams and Glyn, Royal Bank of Scotland(when it was a smaller player and OK), The Co-op bank and then the Nationwide when they introduced flex accounts. As a consequence I avoided some of the worst features of modern banking but the general trend towards selling and generating an even bigger profit at the expense of customer service has been insidious and affects most institutions.

General rage at how things have come to such a point is understandable though my generation simply watched as it happened. Mea Culpa.

There was a good article on Style Forum about the Irish crisis (from Vanity Fair which I assumed was a lightweight women's magazine). The Irish government paid off bond holders with tax payers' money when there was no need to.
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/03/michael-lewis-ireland-201103

I'm not sure its relevant but here we are a member of a local bank which is in effect  a franchise of a bigger bank that is one of the smaller Oz banks.

Bendigo Bank. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendigo_Bank

Community Bank is an innovative franchise program in which the local community owns and operates a Bendigo Bank branch (which is separately incorporated) and Bendigo Bank provides all the banking infrastructure and support. The community company and Bendigo Bank share all branch revenue with whatever is left over, after the company pays its branch running costs, remaining as profit. The program was a response to the massive closure of bank branches in rural areas. Bendigo Bank has since extended the program to areas that have bank service.

Our bank is luckily just up around the corner and after starting off with just one branch now has 3. All of wider Bendigo Bank services are available and all Bendigo ATMs are accessible. Over the last 3 years our branch has given away over $1m in profit to local organisations such as sports clubs, schools, elderly cits clubs etc.

If I get overdrawn on my cheque account, which happens because no one uses cheques any more and I often forget to transfer the money in - they ring me on my mobile, ask if I forgot, offer to transfer the money and pay the cheque out. My last bank used to bounce the cheque and charge me $60 - all without letting me know.

We usually t ell them if we go overseas to save them worrying about multiple credit cards uses in Amsterdam or Beijing or Taipei. They tell us the cheapest and best way to use the cards and say to ring them direct not head office if anything goes wrong. Nothing ever has gone wrong.

Several years before I left Blighty, I had already sussed on the banking world with nasty experiences with Barclays bank, MBNA and American Express credit cards. I used the Co-operative Bank, and if I was still located there, I would be using them.

I had pretty much good experience with the cash points in Brazil, on the odd occasion when the communication with Blighty went down, which sometimes stretched for two to three weeks, I would just get a cash advance from the company I worked for office in Rio. Of course, if I didn't have this back up, I would have been extremely fucked. Requiring someone to Fedex cash out.

This is why, when you are in tropical climes and such like, you need a local office or agent, or you will be at the mercies and vagaries of the world.

Well I’m glad you don't have to draw cash daily due to hyper inflation as was the case when I was visiting Brazil all to regularly in the 90’s. I still have a few Brazilian bank notes somewhere over printed with an extra 3 zeroes that were worthless as soon as I got home from a short trip.

No fond memory’s I’m afraid of the Varig flights or of San Paulo (but then I don’t like Cities).