Tesco Savings - Check Your Interest Payments

I opened a savings account there with a 1.5% bonus in Jan 2009. When I received the documentation there was no mention of the bonus. I queried this and they said my application may have been too late but because I had noted the application reference number. I could prove I was in time because the number included the date. This number was on screen but never appeared in their documentation.

In March I received my interest payment for the year end. It obviously wasn't much because the account hadn't been open long. I checked the amount by calculating my interest per day in a spreadsheet. I was paid short so I queried it wondering if my 1.5% bonus had not been applied and set my calcualtions. They replied that I was correct and an extra payment would be added to my account. Which it was.

Recently they opened a 1.75% bonus so I opened one of those and closed the 1.5% transferring over all the money. Because the 1.5% account was closed I was paid the interest it had accumulated. You guessed it. The interest was short again. I sent Tesco my calculations and they have been writing to me for weeks saying they are looking into it.

Today I have received a letter saying I was correct and over £150 will be credited to my account. This is due to "Errors made by staff at Tesco Personal Finance whilst keying your bonus interest":

"No bonus 18th March to 31st March resulting in an underpayment of £20"
"No bonus interest applied August 2009 resulting in an underpayment of £115"
"No bonus interest applied September 2009 resulting in an underpayment of £22

So... how can this happen? Two years messed up. I assumed interest payments would be automated.

I would advise everyone to check their Tesco interest payments and I would be particularly concerned if I had opened a 1.5% bonus account early this year, that the bonus may not be applied at all.

In my spreadsheet I have columns for Date, Credit In, Credit Out, Balance, Interest Rate (noting changes), Interest Accrued that day then I total the days and deduct tax.

Obviously Tesco have sorted it out in the end and deserve credit for that but in my opinion missing interest payments is very unsatisfactory. I could imagine people less vigilant than me could be missing out.

Of course if Tesco did monthly interest there would not be a problem as people could check their interest payment easily each month. Pity Tesco don't do monthly interest isn't it?