Overseas saving & BFPO woes

chipfire

Long time married quarter resident - almost lost my house savings to the 2 Icelandic banks now desperately trying to spread savings. Looking to open savings accounts from overseas. Amazing how many will not accept a BFPO postcode. I simply do not have a UK address, apart from my BFPO address.

Name and shame those who do not accept BFPO postcodes here along with those that do.

Amazingly the Post Office does not.

Egg does.

Hhhelen_2

Even worse, if you enter BFPO on the Parliamentary Ombudsmen website you get an error message. How can companies, financial institutions etc be blamed not not recognising BFPO if a government website does not?!

Andy_L

Have you tried contacting them by phone/email to see if you can open an account other than by filling in a web form?

cgsac

I used BFPO no problem at all for banking etc.. I opened ISAs etc by just using the BFPO postcode.

try the following address

Mr S Bloggs
3 loamshire rifles
BFPO XXX
NW7 1PX

The postcode is for the BFPo system, if you are in doubt as your local BF Post office (or mail room staff). i know that MIll Hill (BFPO was moving).

Paul.J.M

chipfire wrote: »

Long time married quarter resident - almost lost my house savings to the 2 Icelandic banks now desperately trying to spread savings. Looking to open savings accounts from overseas. Amazing how many will not accept a BFPO postcode. I simply do not have a UK address, apart from my BFPO address.

Name and shame those who do not accept BFPO postcodes here along with those that do.

Amazingly the Post Office does not.

Egg does.

Totally agree with you chipfire, I am in Cyprus at the moment and also have spread money around. KE now ING made a "one off case" for me, how kind of them. I have Firstsave now Nigeria UK based bank, i needed a letter from CO to open that account, ICICCI Indian UK bank would not entertain me at all, after 2 months of trying, they are utterly rubbish and discriminate against Armed Forces, infact i was that unhappy with them i have emailed Working Lunch to complain.

So as you can see it is not easy at all, I still want to open more in the future because i will be soon leaving the service and remain in Cyprus so i need to open as many accounts as possible, i will be unable to open any more when i leave because i will have no links with the UK at all, (non UK resident)

Good Luck. You certainly need a lot of patience.

bumblebeebaby

yep the posties have moved to northolt now, not sure what that address is.

clarkey1000

The new BFPO postcode is

HA4 6DQ

(in Middlesex if you need a county too)

genieuk

That is why we are still with Barclays after 14yrs and Egg for 10yrs, a lot of hassle and stress involved opening some new accounts, even changing addresses with those you already have. I have just opened a fixed rated bond with barclays did it online 2mins no hassle for once, but would have preferred someone else

Trying_to_be_good

Hhhelen wrote: »

Even worse, if you enter BFPO on the Parliamentary Ombudsmen website you get an error message. How can companies, financial institutions etc be blamed not not recognising BFPO if a government website does not?!

I was quite horrified by this, so checked myself.

You can email the Parliamentary Ombudsman without needing to enter a postcode, through the contacts tab on the site at http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/contact_us/index.html.

Which bit of the site came up with the error message? I'd like to see it put right, so will try to help if I know where the probelm crops up.

If it's the 'constituency locator' that's hosted on the http://www.upmystreet.com/commons/l/ site, it fails for BFPO addresses because they're not in a consituency - only UK postcodes (and addresses) are. If you register to vote as a Service voter, you choose a UK address and your vote is treated as if you were in that costituency, according to http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/register_to_vote/armed_forces.aspx.