First Direct Service Guarantee - £100 for closing your account

fishofgold

Has any one been paid this money?????

Their service Guarantee states - "We'll pay £100 per customer or joint relationship if you close your 1st Account within 12 months of opening it, as long as a salary or income of £1,500 or more has been paid into that account for at least six months, and you haven't previously banked with First Direct. We'll pay the £100 into your account prior to its closure. All accounts with First Direct have to be closed and your 1st Account transferred to another bank/building society."

I closed my 1st account last week and recieved my final statement from them - no credit for £100! I phoned them to query this and to find out when it would be paid, and was told by them that as I didn't claim the £100 at the time of closing my account I have forfeited this payment.

They say that at the time of closing the account you must declare, that you wish to claim the £100 for closure of the account under the service agreement. Looking through their terms and conditions though there is no written statement/clause that would qualify that.

I was wondering if any other people have experienced similar or indeed recieved the money as promised from First Direct.

YorkshireBoy

If you've met all their T&C's (check the copy you took during your application...you did take a copy?), then register a formal complaint. Details of how to do this are on their website.

fishofgold

Thanks Yorkshireboy for your advice -

I had already followed your suggested route and today I received a phonecall from First Direct saying that after reviewing my case - I had managed my account within their rules and as such I qualified to receive this payment. I will receive a cheque through the post within 28 days.

I trust First Direct will be more willing to pay up, if and when other people decide to close their accounts under their "service guarantee" policy.

(Smugness level rising - now at critical)

bigstoo

Can I just ask,
what did you tell them the reason was you were closing the account?

I'm going to call them later this week to claim my £100 for closing. I don't want them to wriggle out of the payment.

nzseries1

bigstoo wrote: »

Can I just ask,
what did you tell them the reason was you were closing the account?

I'm going to call them later this week to claim my £100 for closing. I don't want them to wriggle out of the payment.

First Direct's Internet Banking is awful. Confusing and ugly.
No interest on credit balances.
No automated way of changing your address online. Come on, this is the 21st century!!
Secure Message service is always "unavailable". I have never been able to send a successful Secure Message. And they don't tell you it's unavailable until after you type your message out. Unacceptable.

Those are the reasons I'll be using when I leave them in 3 months' time.

fishofgold

Good luck with claiming your £100, I told them that I wasn't happy with their service giving the following reasons:-

A) The secure message facility was painful - FD web site timing me out before I had written my message in full. Also not being able to refer back to any messages I had already read.

They declined my application for a credit card!

c) Literature received from First Direct was full of typo's & grammatical errors!

Hope this helps.

puddings_2

Ive been chasing first direct for my closing £100 for over a month.

I told them that
"in order to pay cash into my account I had to use a HSBC, which is a few miles away in the town centre and I have to pay to park etc. With my previous bank I had been able to pay cash into the account at my local post office, 1/4 of a mile away and park outside for free"

Having not received the £100. I chased this again a few days ago and was promised a call back within the hour from the account closures team - a call that I never did receive by the way - so today I called again and repeated my reasons to another staff member, this one said "well thats not a reason you can claim on the service guarantee the hsbc was there when you opened the account unless they've closed a branch - just because you dont like where the HSBC branches are built doesnt mean that you are unhappy with first direct"

I'm starting to get frustrated by this.

veryunsure

they wriggled out of paying me too! Something about not paying in £1500 salary each month (when I had, but income from differenct sources).

This was after they had agreed to via their mysterious messaging system - then when I tried to leave, a phone call said 'are you sure you will get the £100 because we are very strict ...'. Then they said no, I wrote to complain, they said yes, we made a mistake but no, you can't have the £100. What a sham.

I really can't understand why so many people rave about them; I agree with the points made in a earlier post. The online side is the worst I've encountered.

jetfighter

I received my £100 without any problems. This is in addition to the £100 I received when opening the account - so I have now got my £200 and am very happy.

Here are some tips for anyone attempting to claim theirs:

1. I had my monthly salary deposit paid into the account 6 times before requesting the account closure, but was told that as I had not been paying in my salary for a total of 6 months, I could not claim the £100 yet - luckily I was told this at the time as I was then able to wait another month for a 7th monthly salary deposit to go in. This is because although 6 salary payments had gone in, they counted the 6 month period from the date of the first salary deposit, so I actually needed to let 7 salary deposits go into the account.

2. I opened a new A&L account (with another £100 incentive :rolleyes:) and sent a secure message to First Direct to explain that I was unhappy with the 0% interest rate on in-credit balances and also with the secure messaging service. I said I would like to claim the second installment of £100 from the service guarantee and gave them the account number and sort code of my new A&L account. I also told them I would like the account to be closed.

3. After 1 week my account had not been closed, so I sent them a reminder secure message saying, "I was just wondering when my account would be closed and my £100 leaving incentive would be paid?" and within a few days my account was inaccessible. A few days later and the £100 appeared in my A&L account (and yes I have verified it came from First Direct and not A&L). :rolleyes:

So relatively painless for me and I didn't even have to speak to anybody - easiest £200 I've ever made!

Good luck to the rest of you trying to claim under this guarantee. Truth of the matter is I wasn't hugely impressed with First Direct but even if I'd liked them, I don't have any sense of loyalty towards the banking giants anyway.

tinkerbell84

veryunsure wrote: »

they wriggled out of paying me too! Something about not paying in £1500 salary each month (when I had, but income from differenct sources).

This was after they had agreed to via their mysterious messaging system - then when I tried to leave, a phone call said 'are you sure you will get the £100 because we are very strict ...'. Then they said no, I wrote to complain, they said yes, we made a mistake but no, you can't have the £100. What a sham.

I really can't understand why so many people rave about them; I agree with the points made in a earlier post. The online side is the worst I've encountered.

I think they're fab.

You didn't meet the terms which clearly stated that £1500 salary payment had to go in each month - normal BACS transfers don't count under normal circumstances. A salary BACS payment is identified in a particular way.

I have no intention of closing my account for £100. I might consider it for a million

johnmoney05

tinkerbell84 wrote: »

I have no intention of closing my account for £100. I might consider it for a million

I don't need a million to consider it. Give me 1/10,000 or even less.....:beer: