One Account rates cut

karanda

Saran wrote: »

Also logged another formal complaint today.

Still waiting on the Financial Ombudsman Service.

I get the feeling that some gesture or action is required to spur them into noticing how irate we all are.

Anybody have any connections with media/newspapers - maybe we could produce a negative advert setting out the behaviour of One Account.

Go on all review websites - anywhere that gives advice about mortgages and ensure that people are aware of how OA is behaving.

Anyone with web skills that could create a simple site based around some variation of oneaccount.com setting out the facts?

With base rate at 1% and OA at 4.4%(for me) this is blatant profiteering - and we bailed them out! They don't even have any savers - OA is an all in one!

Anyway, off to phone FOS and add latest failure to the list!

I know of a group on Facebook - DECAMP - Declaration by Enlightened Customers against Mortgage Profiteering - they have some template letters to MPs etc available for us - I wonder if the guy who set that up would be willing to help out - may be worth a go.

Doh

first directs offset base rate track is starting to look real attractive at 2.89%, its a shame about te £799 arrangement

i'm sooo :mad: at RBS

Saran_2

Just done some number crunching to work out how much extra OA are making from their widened margin....and ten minutes later after recovering from the shock I was still furious. If OA had maintained their margin at +1.4% as it was in and before March 2008 i would now be paying £525 per month less.

Yes....£525 per month.

Before you start...LTV too high to get a decent rate elsewhere and have a facility £100,000 above current borrowings - nice cushion in current economic conditions.

And RBS are "sorry"

So sorry that they will milk us all dry.

woodam1963

Hi folks

clearly it's not an urban myth that One Account have started a major phone round of customers to try to get them to voluntarily reduce their facilities...because I got one myself earlier today. Given their mind-blowingly bad sense of timing so soon after we found out that we're not getting a penny of the latest rate cut and on the very day that Fred The Shred got his grilling over the bankers' bonus millions, I could hardly get my words out during the phone conversation, I was so angry that they had the nerve to be positioning this suggestion as looking after my best financial interests! It didn't help matters that the poor lady making the call was so delightful - despite her best efforts to remain professional, she clearly found the timing and nature of the call as ridiculous as I did in the circumstances - I'd have far preferred to have been facing someone who genuinely believed in what they were doing, in which case I could have had far more entertainment at their expense.

Joking apart, what can they possibly be thinking to be calling people up with this proposal? The ONLY thing that remains that's any good about the One Account now that the rates are no longer remotely competitive and the service ethos has been abandoned, is that fact that we still have a rainy day facility to draw down on when / if required. Why in the world would anyone want to voluntarily give up that one last ray of comfort, in exchange for so little. As someone else pointed out on an earlier thread, given RBS's actions over recent months, the only logical response to their best (worst!) efforts to encourage us to take any particular course of action, is to do precisely the opposite. Don't they realise that the only rational reason anyone will have remained with them - other than being forced to do so by necessity of course - is the very thing they are now trying to get people to hand back to them voluntarily. If you'll pardon the pun, how little credit do they give their customers?

red789

Ive written to my local MP. To do this I...

1. Found my MPs email address via http://www.parliament.uk/directories/hciolists/alms.cfm

2. Emailed the MP with contact details - I wrote this...


Dear [MP]

I am the unhappy customer of the "one account" owned by Royal Bank of Scotland. Last year they started to raise mortgage rates on a product which had traditionally tracked the base rate. The stated reason was the increase in the LIBOR rate.

Six months later, with public money used to prop up RBS, a decline in the LIBOR rate to 1.5% and the reduction in base rate, RBS has refused to pass on anything like the full rate cuts to mortgage payers - a simple calculation would suggest that rates are now 1.4% higher than a historically normal ( profitable ) level. When rates are cut, they are done at a diminished level, reluctantly, and often late.

RBS are quite simply kicking customers privately while apparently today "Apologising" for their behaviour in public. In reponse, groups are forming on internet forums to coordinate a publicity campaign.

As your consitutuent, I am asking my local MP to be aware of this situation, and raise this issue as appropriate with a view to pressurizing RBS into passing on these rate cuts and restoring the rate to a level which is fair for all. This is a case of a large well-funded bank abusing their position against individuals and our only "weapon" is publicity and awareness raising.

This guardian article explains the last climbdown by RBS and details how it's service has declined since we took out mortgages.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/04/rbs-one-mortgages-first-time-buyers

karanda

red789 wrote: »

Ive written to my local MP. To do this I...

1. Found my MPs email address via http://www.parliament.uk/directories/hciolists/alms.cfm

2. Emailed the MP with contact details - I wrote this...


Dear [MP]

I am the unhappy customer of the "one account" owned by Royal Bank of Scotland. Last year they started to raise mortgage rates on a product which had traditionally tracked the base rate. The stated reason was the increase in the LIBOR rate.

Six months later, with public money used to prop up RBS, a decline in the LIBOR rate to 1.5% and the reduction in base rate, RBS has refused to pass on anything like the full rate cuts to mortgage payers - a simple calculation would suggest that rates are now 1.4% higher than a historically normal ( profitable ) level. When rates are cut, they are done at a diminished level, reluctantly, and often late.

RBS are quite simply kicking customers privately while apparently today "Apologising" for their behaviour in public. In reponse, groups are forming on internet forums to coordinate a publicity campaign.

As your consitutuent, I am asking my local MP to be aware of this situation, and raise this issue as appropriate with a view to pressurizing RBS into passing on these rate cuts and restoring the rate to a level which is fair for all. This is a case of a large well-funded bank abusing their position against individuals and our only "weapon" is publicity and awareness raising.

This guardian article explains the last climbdown by RBS and details how it's service has declined since we took out mortgages.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/04/rbs-one-mortgages-first-time-buyers

Thanks for this - really useful and I will use it to contact my MP. I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that this product has essentially been mis-sold to One Account holders though. Virgin One was sold on a promise to move interest rates in line with bank rate changes. RBS have simply not delivered since they took over.

By the way, I had a letter today from RBS One Account, explaining why they did not pass on the latest interest rate cut. It was printed on - wait for it - a Virgin One Account letterhead. Their argument not to move interest rates is:

"The decision not to pass the 0.5% reduction in Base Rate on to The Virgin One account and to maintain current interest rates helps balance the needs of both the Bank's borrowers and savers"!!!!!!!!!

This disgraceful bank then goes on to talk about their "commercial integrity". Needsless to say this letter will join all the others to be attached to my case lodged with the Financial Ombudsman.

Questions:
1. Is this the Virgin One Account or RBS One Account?
2. Do you know of any savers with this psychotic Bank?
3. Can over 90,000 hits to this forum site be channelled into a more formal joint protest?
4. What does Martin (Money Saving Expert) advise?

woodam1963

karanda wrote: »

Thanks for this - really useful and I will use it to contact my MP. I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that this product has essentially been mis-sold to One Account holders though. Virgin One was sold on a promise to move interest rates in line with bank rate changes. RBS have simply not delivered since they took over.



Interesting you should raise the 'misselling' word Karanda - I got an email from a DECAMP contact earlier today saying that they'd received the same call that I did from RBS suggesting a facility reduction even though they were already paying the minimum LTV rate!

When asked what benefit there was of reducing the facility the reply was :...'er none actually'. What planet are they on...this is surely getting very close to misselling to be tryng to convince customers to hand over by far the most valuable element of the account and get nothing in return!

Vancat

You can just imagine it, can't you....Contact Centre manager to staff:
" Right ...we need 2 million quid to pay our hard working execs a bonus....never mind about flogging mortgages this week....get on those phones and persuade all the customers to give up their facilities! Oh, and there's a bonus for you if you meet your target!"
(Poor OneAccount staff are probably as worried about job losses as everyone else..they've always seemed very nice!)
VC

thomasjp

Karanda, your first question is a really good one, since the One Account have told us that the reason they are not dropping the rate is to balance the needs of savers which must be RBS savers (since there are no OA savers) - therefore, the answer must be RBS One Account.
But according to the BBC (but cannot actually see on RBS own site), RBS are dropping their variable rate by 0.19 - since this does not seem to apply to One Account, the answer to question one must be Virgin One Account.
Confused

red789

just took a call from "the one account". The chap, and like all of them, was a nice guy, basically read out the advice they'd been given by the Royal Bank of Scotland ( not from the one account at norwich ).

Anyway this statement said that [and the well known rebuttals in brackets]

1. The one account is not a tracker it pitches it rate competitively in the market [Although we know the one account was pitched as a tracker and behaved like one until a year ago]

2. We need to protect the rates for savers [ and the one account has no savers]

3. The rate is determined by the cost of money [and the libor rate has dropped to 1-1.5%]

When I suggested maybe RBS was seeking simply extra profits, he said I had to draw my own conclusions.

Cheers