My bank told me not to invest in Kaupthing Edge!

newsaver5

Please can someone give me some advice...I have £35k to invest and had decided to put this with Kaupthing Edge, however when I went to my bank (Halifax) to get them to transfer the money, the cashier told me that they were a Nigerian Bank and that I should be careful of investing with them as she had heard lots of bad things!!!!
I am confused as had read good things on this site......what should I do???

Jonbvn

Kaupthing Edge are Icelandic!

Expecting someone working for the Halifax to say something good about a competitor (offering better rates) is like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.

Finally, a maximum of £35k is protected by the gov't.

savingforoz

Couldn't have out it better myself Jonbvn. What a load of twaddle that cashier was saying - a blatant attempt to manoeuvre the OP into saving with Halifax instead.

LongTermLurker

I would be tempted to contact the branch manager, complain (informally - no point in wasting too much time) about their staff's unprofessionalism and lack of knowledge of the financial marketplace (Nigerian my **se!)

1) a professional would never slate a competitor without just cause
2) someone who doesn't know their competitors or the industry they work in shouldn't be giving "advice"

btw, I have nothing bad to say about KE, and no, I don't work for them.

dunstonh

When I worked in a bank, the cashier position was generally well regarded. However, towards the end, they used to put the lowest skilled staff on the tills. So, you do have to consider that the cashier probably has little or no knowledge of product types, other providers and has a sales target to meet. You are going to get fed all sorts of rubbish in that case. (apologies to the better bank staff who happen to be on the till this week to cover holidays )

tradetime

dunstonh wrote: »

When I worked in a bank, the cashier position was generally well regarded. However, towards the end, they used to put the lowest skilled staff on the tills. So, you do have to consider that the cashier probably has little or no knowledge of product types, other providers and has a sales target to meet. You are going to get fed all sorts of rubbish.

Add to this the fact that given the current state banks have gotten themselves into there appears to be a severe lack of skills higher up the chain so I wouldn't expect a lot from the cashiers

Pssst

Customer service at many financial institutions seems to have taken quite a hit recently....

I have been with nationwide for years and i only do electronic banking with them. Thats great for me but their call centre seems to be rather shocking..

Im sure they are not alone.
A & L get on my nerves. They are hard sell merchants,. you cant go in a branch without being pestered to death and they are forever mail bombing me.

kimfarren

I took some financial advice from Barclays when I inherited some money. I decided in the end not to go for investments but to stick to savings. When I told the Financial Adviser/Sales person that I was not going to go with them but save with Kaupthing Edge she told me that she had never heard of them and that she didn't recommend that I do it. I'm a complete novice in these things and she is meant to be the expert!!

jem16

kimfarren wrote: »

I'm a complete novice in these things and she is meant to be the expert!!

"Expert" and bank sales rep shouldn't go in the same sentence!

Perhaps if the high street banks started offering some competitive interest rates they wouldn't be losing us all to those "Nigerian" banks that they have never heard of.

LongTermLurker

she told me that she had never heard of them and that she didn't recommend that I do it.

ho-ho so recommendations through ignorance, then? Makes a change to the one the OP got, which was recommendations on the back of hearsay :rolleyes:

To be honest, I never tell bank staff about my other financial plans - if I go in for one thing and they ask "do you have a xxxxxx?" I just tell them I'm fine on that side of things, thanks.

exel1966

The problem is that the public assume rightly or wrongly that the staff they're dealing with are qualified to offer financial advice whereas in reality most of these staff are just customer service agents and have very little knowledge of their own products, let alone somebody elses.

I believe the FOS/FSA are tightening up on this and have instructed certain banks to refrain from using such terms such as Financial Advisor.