You needed the magic word "basic", and confidence in your right to the account. The banks presumably make a loss on these accounts, at least in the short term,

You needed the magic word "basic", and confidence in your right to the account. The banks presumably make a loss on these accounts, at least in the short term, and seem to hope you'd give up and try with a different bank. A Bulgarian guy in a flat share was keeping his money under the bed as he had been turned away by the banks. I printed the "Basic" account information and with that in hand he had an account the next day. (This might all be 10-15 years out of date.)