Slightly confused re Barclays Fixed Monthly Saver

intalex

Tibbledom wrote: »

"To ensure savers qualify for the Barclays Monthly Savings rate of 7.75% AER they will need to get their first credit into the account by 31 December 2008. We apologise to the small number of customers who have been into the branch and not received this information and we will re-iterate our policy to the branch network."

This still doesn't talk about whether the account should have been opened before 30 Nov 2008 or before 31 Dec 2008. I think that is the key information that needs to be clarified!

Mind_Overload

im going to my local Barclays tomorrow, im going to print that statement made by Barclays, hopefully it will work.

Does anyone know what the maximum money i can put in the account to start with?

fullstop

Timbledom , Did they say anything about up-dating the website?

Marcus, The maximum you can pay each Month is £250.00

Mind_Overload

Ok thanks, so basically you start with nothing in there and can put a maximum of £250 in?
Or would it not be possible to put £1,500 in there staight away and pay say £100 a month?

Tibbledom

I haven’t been in contact with Barclays myself but don’t reckon they will update the website. It is too near the cut off point. One reason for what they are doing could be that they didn’t get the 6% rate onto the website until after 1 December (I vaguely recall it being added a bit late) and so there was a problem with people opening accounts in the first days of December. They may have then taken the decision to extend the opening date to 31 December reckoning it would only cost £22 per account max but didn’t want to publicise the extension. Could be a number of explanations. Who knows.

I take intalex’s point that the Barclays statement on its own doesn’t prove the rate is 7.75%. But I am assuming that the question asked was “You told us that savers who opened the account before 31 December and paying first contribution before 31 December would get the 7.75% rate but our forum users are being told otherwise by branch staff. What do you say about that?"

hardpressed

So can I get a better rate for my £3000? I could leave it in my current account and deposit £250 a month or should I put the whole amount somewhere else?

intalex

intalex wrote: »

This still doesn't talk about whether the account should have been opened before 30 Nov 2008 or before 31 Dec 2008. I think that is the key information that needs to be clarified!

Do we have further clarification on this matter from the MSE team?

The MSE Savings article has not been updated, and I'm sure several people have been opening the account this month, thinking they'll get the 7.75% rate. But so far a majority of individual experiences indicate that the accounts needed to have been opened by 30 Nov 2008 to qualify for the 7.75% rate (contrary to the Savings article).

thor

Even after reading this thread I still don't know if I can get 7.75%.
How should I go about it? March into the branch, open up a reg saver and fund it before 31st December and the 6.0% magically becomes a 7.75% saver?

intalex

I've just realised that interest on this account is paid monthly - on the 1st working day of each month. That means we should be able to know what interest rate we've been given on Friday this week (02 Jan).