One Account rates cut

karanda

rinkydinkpanther wrote: »

The last rate cut was announced by the BoE on November 6th. That's 12 days ago by my reckoning. Yes, the delay is appalling, but it won't help your complaint if you claim it is longer than it really is.

Quite right - my apologies. How time flies when you are having fun:j !

Charliecherry

And still they string it out,i spoke with the one account team again today and asked that someone more senior in the business would communicate with me on the lack of action and communication,but it seems they are too busy to speak with a someone as low as a customer....(well that is the impression i got and said as much).....I WONT FORGET THIS AND WILL BE MOVING AS SOON AS NORMALITY COMES BACK TO THE MARKET PLACE....

gazzmf

I contacted the one account team, they went through the usual robotic nonsense about not being able to let me know when and if rates would go down.

I changed tack and asked them for the name of the person who I could write to who would be able to tell me. There was a pregnant pause from the operator before they returned to their prepared "nonsense" script. However I pressed them for a name. After another "how do I answer this question its not in my script" they have said that they will write to me directly and advise me on who I should write to.

I'll keep you posted on how I get on.

Titan17

I think many of you still don't understand the One Account??


I used to sell this product as a broker, before this 'credit crunch', and i always made it very clear that this product is a variable rate, and not a tracker.

Yes RBS announced its dropping its SVR's however One Account is a totally independent product from them, so i guess are not accountable for their press statements.
Dont get me wrong i feel that the message coming from One Account/RBS is not clear enough, but surely you should fully understand a product before taking it out?

tajima1

Titan17 wrote: »

I think many of you still don't understand the One Account??

Oh I think we do, thank you! Who here has said they thought it was tracker? Most contributors to this thread are simply sick of waiting for whatever announcement they do make. It may sit in a different cupboard but it is still an RBS owned product. RBS made a big play in the press about matching the recent cuts with cuts to its SVR products. Trying to avoid doing so with Oneaccount would be slight of hand and disingenuous at best, at worst deceitful to the taxpayers who have bailed them out. This was a fine account under Branson which has most definitely lost the customer service edge it used to have under his stewardship.

Warlock_2

Right lets get some facts straight...

One Account IS NOT an RBS product. One account is owned by RBS and there is a difference. RBS's statement about dropping SVRs in line with BBR applies to RBS brand mortgages, not totally separate products. Even if it did (as someone has already mentioned) the rate drop announcement covered standard variable rates, NOT variable rates which is what One Account is. By definition a varible rate is varied by the lender as they see fit and this is clealy detailed in T&Cs.

Another point is that rates have not gone up, my One Account mortgage payment is today what it was when the rate announcement was made. It's costing me NO more money than it was before. I've lost nothing.

I agree it would be nice to know what's going on and that the staff do seem a bit clueless, hopefully One Account realise this is costing them customers fast. I'm sure they also realise they are a business and not a charity though.

Doh

Warlock wrote: »

Right lets get some facts straight...

One Account IS NOT an RBS product. One account is owned by RBS and there is a difference. RBS's statement about dropping SVRs in line with BBR applies to RBS brand mortgages, not totally separate products. Even if it did (as someone has already mentioned) the rate drop announcement covered standard variable rates, NOT variable rates which is what One Account is. By definition a varible rate is varied by the lender as they see fit and this is clealy detailed in T&Cs.

Another point is that rates have not gone up, my One Account mortgage payment is today what it was when the rate announcement was made. It's costing me NO more money than it was before. I've lost nothing.

I agree it would be nice to know what's going on and that the staff do seem a bit clueless, hopefully One Account realise this is costing them customers fast. I'm sure they also realise they are a business and not a charity though.

i'm sure we all understand the facts, however most of us havn't forgotten about the 0.25% cut earlier in the year that didn't get passed on... then of course theres the 0.25% increase they applied for no reason! well the reason is now obvious RBS were (and are) in financial trouble. Those 2 things smarted enough for many of us, now we the tax payer have paid out again to bail out RBS... and it appears they are going to try and stick one over us again by not mirroring the latest cut! or maybe delaying as long a possible to ring every extra penny out of us

with further BOE rate cuts almost certain, the ING 4.84% (and possibly falling) SVR looks really attractive against the one accounts 6.2%+

Yorkshire_Bred

From Wikipedia

The One account Ltd is single-brand subsidiary financial services company offering offset and flexible mortgages in the UK. The company pioneered the offset mortgage in the UK and; was conceived as a joint venture between Virgin Direct (Virgin's financial services company) and The Royal Bank of Scotland in 1997.
Initially, the company was known as the 'Virgin One account' and promoted to Virgin Direct's 200,000 strong UK customer base. The launch was very successful and was extended to the entire British public in May 1998.
From January 2003, the company relaunched as 'The One account' whenThe Royal Bank of Scotland achieved a majority shareholding and in effect became a RBS mortgage brand along with Natwest and First Active.

I have written to my MP who is going to be asking questions as to why the interest rate on this product has not been lowered in line with other RBS variable rate mortgages.

smarty_pants_4

Hi All,

Motivated to register to share this, I hope it can cause enough pain to RBS to get them to make their decision. The last letter on interest rates was signed by "xxx", Managing director, Mortgages. One account staff would not give me his email address, but I guessed it would be one of these and addressed my email to both:

emails removed

The response came from xxx, Head of exisitng customers:

email removed

It gets through fine! I suggest you all email this guy. Here is the response I received. I know it matches the party line, but I would rather deal with these people than the cusotmer support phone guys, who cannot make and decisions.

Dear Mr XXXX
Thank you for your recent e-mail sent to xxx regarding One
Account Interest rates. xxx has asked me to respond to your concerns on his behalf as I am the Senior Manager responsible for The One Account.

As you know The One Account is a variable rate product, but it does not
track the Bank of England Base Rate, nor is it linked to either the RBS or
NatWest Standard Variable Rates . We use any changes in the Bank of Englandbase rate to review One Account interest rates and I appreciate that youbelieve we should make a decision more quickly.

In setting interest rates, we consider a wide range of factors including the
cost of funding variable rate mortgages, which is currently significantly
higher than the Bank of England Base Rate.

At this time I have no furtherinformation but can assure you we will communicate any changes in line withthe Terms and Conditions of your account.

Thank you for continued patience in this matter.

xxx
Head of Existing Customers
Retail Products - Mortgages

jackarmy

In other words they wont be passing the full 1.5% rate cut onto its customers.

Forget all the confusion as to owns the company, if its variable, an svr or tracker, people were sent letters in the early days from the then Managing Director espousing how different they were from other banks in that any changes in Bank of England rates were implemented the following day.

Thats what the original customers remember and thats what sticks in the gullet. When you buy into something for 25 years one expects some continuity and standardisation, but then who bought an endowment. These financial institutions all speak with forked tongue.