First Direct Queries

Flamer

I am thinking of switching to First Direct for all my current account needs. However, I do have a couple of queries that I cant find the answer to.

Firstly, do you have the ability to post them cheques as opposed to getting to the bank and putting them in. I am currently with A & L and find this facility a godsend with no bank within a decent distance of my home.

Secondly, I have always had a Visa Debit card and I notice that First Direct use the Maestro Card. Is this card as widely accepted at cash machines, online stores and retail stores. I always thought this was not as well accepted ?

Any help appreciated.

simongregson

Q1. yes, you can post cheques. they will send you prepaid envelopes to put them in if you ask through online banking.
Q2. Maestro is less widely accepted, but in the UK you shouldn't have an issue. Abroad I use nationwide :-) I believe they are changing to visa debit soon anyway. Cash machines are all LINK in the UK, and the card can be used abroad in all Cirrus machines (which is pretty much all of them). Some online stores don't take maestro, usually those based outside the UK. Again, a credit card solves that problem.

Flamer

Cheers Simon, thats great. Any idea if the call centres are UK based ?

simongregson

They are all in the UK, leeds I think. I would say are the best bank call centre I have dealt with. You phone, they answer without you having to navigate menus, they do what you tell them to.

I joined for the free £100, but won't be leaving to collect the extra £100 :-)

Flamer

Sounds good to me. I like it when I hear good comments on something I am pursuing. Im sure someone is going to put a spanner in the works.

I am looking to transfer everything over, inc savings and even perhaps my mortgage.

SparciaM

To be honest, I wouldn't get your hopes up with FD otherwise you'll be dissapointed.

Yes their call centre is in Leeds.
Yes they pick up after 2 or 3 rings.
Yes you speak to someone right away.
But that is where it stops.

I was recommended to them by a friend and have had no end of trouble, to the point that I'm looking to switch elsewhere.
Yes people make errors and people have good service, but mine has just been dreadful.

Another good point. When I did speak to them, they were always chatting, friendly and happy and actually wanted to speak with you.

Bad Points:

1) According to FD, I live in a high risk area, so they sent my debit card via courier (which never arrived) and after 2 phone calls got it to my local branch. Yet every other CC or bank I have send everything via RM and it arrives perfectly.
2) You can't delete the money transfers on their internet banking. So if you set up a one off payment (I do about 10 a year, maybe more if I have different one off bills), you can't delete them or see them drop off until 13 months of inactivity. So you 'could' have a long list of payments you don't need, but have to scrowl through them to get to the one you need.
3) Only 1 person can access the FD at 1 time. So if you're on the phone to them and want to check something you can't. If you want to explain someone on the online banking on the phone you can't if FD are logged into your account - AND - FD have pref log in over yourself. Also, if you send a message and then log in a few hours or a day later and they are replying to your message, you wont get in as someone is in your account - this is a minor bad point - but was annoying to me when I tried to cancel a DD (i had 2 of the same just diff ref) but couldn't remember exactly the details without looking at it.
4) You can't view your sent 'secure messages' to them or see what was replied or anything. They say it's saved onto a FD central server. But when you ask a secure message and then get a reply that is nothing related to it, it's hard to re-iterate what you wanted. Eg I asked about faster payments to a particular bank and another question in particular and they copy and pasted a FP blurp which related 0% to my message. I replied asked to re-read my initial message and reply. Which they did again with a blurp at 0%. I replied and again asked to actually read my message and answer it and then they finally answered the questions with an apology saying they didn't know why the blurp was used twice!!
5) It took them 56 days to get my replacement debit card and new CC to me. As again with their stupid courier service it never arrived and then a FD employee sent it to a depot in London (i live in manchester). Then they said I'd get a call back on what happened and I never did - a week later I called them and said no call back was set.
6) I requested my notes under Data Protection to see why these things happened to me and if people at FD lying was my imagination, and low and behold they send this data via RM when they said it would be signed for courier to a complete random address. When I eventually get my notes, on them on 3 occasions it says 'tried to call customer, not in left message' but on those occasions FD confirmed that no calls were made.

So in the end, sadly, I have decided to leave them.

Yes they are better than most banks in respect of no buttons, but no menus doesn't mean great service. In all I'd say 30% good 70% bad. But in the 17 years of having bank accounts they are the only bank I've contacted the most EVER. I was with HSBC for 14 years and contacted them 5 times, FD is like 1000% more contact due to errors. Maybe I got the bad end of the stick with people, but when people whom work for the bank lie to cover themselves and send data to a random address - you can't trust anymore.

I hear smile have good customer service and are on par with FD and have better interest rates. You do have to press options though.!>!! Heaven Forbid.

redkelly

I have just transfered my second bank account to FD from Lloyds and so far can't say anything bad about them ...We got our new cards (debit) within four days of sending back the forms. I am really pleased with them and hopefully it will stay that way.

Flamer

Its like a tug of war.

I really like A & L but I have recently had a worrying phone call. I rang to verify a card and was then tried to be sold Identity Fraud Cover. God knows how young the guy was but he was very pushy to the point of telling me how fraudsters do it and even how much a Driving Licence would cost in my name.

I am more concerned this operator is sat there with all my details in front of him and can pass them onto anyone. I realise that fraud is a big issue but I got the feeling he was telling me from his experiences of doing it rather than protecting me. Quite worrying really. I now feel like he is saying "I will show you how much you need this cover"

Paranoid or what ?

username

I am looking to transfer everything over, inc savings and even perhaps my mortgage.

I wouldn't advocate the eggs in one basket. You don't get much for loyalty with any company - I got a paltry 1p interest one year on my LTSB current a/c.

Flamer: the guy at the end of the phone was probably on commission or something, wouldn't surprise me if they were. Hence the pushy sales tactics!

Re. first direct. I've recently joined them, however, it has been a bit of a rocky experience thus far. Hoping it improves.

The good bits:

Call centres are all in the UK, and you get a human. They're friendly and helpful.

You also get to use the HSBC branch network, which means you also get to use their fancy technology to deposit cash (it credits it straight-away), all much quicker and it means you don't need to queue for ages.

You can also transfer money between your FD current and savings via all HSBC cash machines (including M&S ones, as they are part of HSBC). There's a gotcha though - you have to set it up first by ringing them up, otherwise it doesn't work. You can also view the available balance of this linked account too, which is good.

On the mini-statements, they print the name of the transaction, so if it was Sainsbury's for example, it would read date, Sainsbury's and then the amount +/-. I find this quite useful, rather than a bunch of cryptic codes and amounts.

The design of the cards etc is slick,

Faster payments works for both in and out. Although it doesn't work for standing orders just yet.

But here's the gotchas:

1) According to FD, I live in a high risk area, so they sent my debit card via courier (which never arrived) and after 2 phone calls got it to my local branch. Yet every other CC or bank I have send everything via RM and it arrives perfectly.

Yeah, funny that, I had exactly the same problem. They were insistent on using their stupid courier service to deliver my card. No problem, I thought, I'll sit in for the day and they'll deliver it. I wait, wait some more, and wait and nobody comes. The hour hand crept closer to 5pm and I decided to give FD a ring to see where the courier was. They dropped the bombshell on me that the delivery had failed and that the courier had returned to the depot. Wait ... I had sat in all day and not a peep from the entryphone (I live in a block of flats). Apparently he had left a card - erm, what card?!?! I even purposely went down every few hours to check if the courier had left a card, nada, zilch, zip. Nothing to be seen. Was pretty hacked off to be honest.
Their courier is called "Secure Mail Services" or SMS for short. Bung the name into google and you'll find that their reputation for not delivering is not a one-off.
And another thing, SMS told me (when I rang them) that their couriers all use their own vehicles, and could come in anything, van, car, bike or on foot! (no word of a lie, that is exactly what the SMS woman said). How on earth it makes it more secure, I don't know. :rotfl:

Arranged redelivery 2 days later to an HSBC branch, went in to collect it and was told that my provisional driving licence wasn't "proper ID". What?!?!?! How on earth can it not be proper ID - as far as I am aware, I can't drive alone on a provisional, and that it neither here nor there when it comes to collecting bank cards.

Other banks have accepted it in the past, and I have had no problems in bars/pubs/clubs. I argued the point for a bit and the woman suggested I should ring first direct, get them to ID me and send a message to the branch. So I did, the message didn't arrive so she said come back tomorrow with a passport - but no way was I going to keep traipsing back and forth.

Rocked the boat a bit more, so she rang FD, the woman on the phone IDed me and confirmed this with the woman in the branch, I signed for the card, and bingo, one first direct debit card. Although why on earth they didn't do this in the first place I never know!! (took half an hour that).

4) You can't view your sent 'secure messages' to them or see what was replied or anything. They say it's saved onto a FD central server. But when you ask a secure message and then get a reply that is nothing related to it, it's hard to re-iterate what you wanted. Eg I asked about faster payments to a particular bank and another question in particular and they copy and pasted a FP blurp which related 0% to my message. I replied asked to re-read my initial message and reply. Which they did again with a blurp at 0%. I replied and again asked to actually read my message and answer it and then they finally answered the questions with an apology saying they didn't know why the blurp was used twice!!

Oh yes, that's another one of the gotchas as well. You can't view your old messages or ones that you have sent - they seem to disappear into the ether. Bit of an annoying system that, although I usually PDF the reply so that I have a record.

3) Only 1 person can access the FD at 1 time. So if you're on the phone to them and want to check something you can't.

Yes, I found that one out today as well, you get some cryptic error instead.

If they ever place you on hold, then you will get to know (and love to hate) the classical pieces off by heart - they only ever seem to use about 3!!!! Annoying then you have to ring them and they need to confer with other departments, as has been the case this week.

HSBC will be changing to Visa Debit in 2009, and this probably does include FD too.

brookerbabyisababy

Generally they are a good bank. However there Savings Rates are a bit low - for example the everyday e-saver is 4.75% and the bonus saver 4.55%. I don't know about you but that does not make sense having the instant access saving account more than the bonus saver and also HSBC seem to offer a better bonus saver at 5.25%. I think someone in the office has forgotten to raise the rates on the bonus saver possibly or the e-saver should at least match HSBC at 5.25%. Despite this they are efficient.

CopperPlate_2

From January fd will be converting their debit cards to Visa debit cards. Confirmed by member of staff last week.