Abbey Esaver account, they can't confirm our rate

desk_engineer

i too have an esaver direct account, opened last july. the intrest has just been paid - i was under the imression it was fixed for the first year (with bonus if you didnt withdraw). i am now £2k short for my house purchase...... is there anywahere that will say that it was a vairible rate??? help!!

TheKid

simon_templar wrote: »

Interest rates are advertised in branch on a big board usually near the entrance as well as in branch interest rate leaflets freely available. They also publish rates on their website. However Abbey has confused staff and customers on various accounts with ambiguous wordings on sale literature. The confusion is that the leaflets stated such and such rate for 12 months but on a variable account. The intranet bookstore has the rates but again is confusing and contradictory.

Having been dealing with Abbey as an eSaver customer for one and a half years, I am convinced that Abbey’s ambiguous and confusing eSaver marketing literature, coupled with their recently introduced, and unusually long, one year interest accrual periods (I believe one year accrual was introduced as the credit crunch gathered pace) and their blatant refusals to inform customers of any interim accrual amounts before the end of this long one year accrual period are the main elements of a strategy of deception and concealment by Abbey, with the aim of luring depositors with seemingly competitive rates with the intention of never paying those rates.

It is this type of dishonest behaviour and the culture that breeds it that has recently brought the world to the edge of an economic abyss, from which we have only marginally retreated and because of which many people’s livelihoods have been severely and perhaps irrevocably damaged.

I urge anyone that may have any evidence of wrongdoing to make contact with the FSA and any other relevant regulatory authorities. Perhaps you work in Abbey’s marketing department and once suggested that eSaver marketing materials be made clearer only to be rebuffed by your peers or superiors. Perhaps you are an IT systems developer who was told not to prioritise the construction or deployment of tools to enable customers to see the interim interest accrued on their accounts before the end of the lengthy yearly accrual period. Perhaps you are a call centre worker who was instructed not to relay information on accrued interest to customers even though this information was available to you. Whatever information you may have I am sure the FSA would like to hear from you on an anonymous and confidential basis.

Our society needs honest people to come forward. Without successful prosecutions for this sort of behaviour, it will continue, allowing dishonest people to continue to siphon wealth from our society, the heaviest burden of which often lying at the feet of those who can least afford it.

withnell

TheKid wrote: »

coupled with their recently introduced, and unusually long, one year interest accrual periods (I believe one year accrual was introduced as the credit crunch gathered pace)

I've got a large number of accounts that only pay interest out once a year - its nothing underhand, its actually reasonably standard, and a number of institutions will pay you a lower AER if you have monthly interest payments

TheKid

withnell wrote: »

I've got a large number of accounts that only pay interest out once a year - its nothing underhand, its actually reasonably standard, and a number of institutions will pay you a lower AER if you have monthly interest payments

I agree with you that annual accrual is not necessarily an underhand practice. Indeed I also have a number of other accounts accruing annually where I haven't had any problems.

My point however is that Abbey HAS used the long one year accrual period as part of a smoke screen behind which to hide outrageous misrepresentations on eSaver account's interest payable.

I happily concede that other banks that chose to introduce these long one year accrual periods (these became "fashionable" as the credit crunch gathered pace) haven't done so with the aim to misrepresent their rates payable as grossly as Abbey. However they too have ulterior, though admitedly much less sinister, motives for herding direct access savings customers from monthy accrual to annual accrual. For one, annual accrual brings headline rates all the way up to the gross AER making marketting materials potentially more attractive at a time when banks were desperately competing for new deposits. There may have been other considerations at play like delaying the accounting of interest payable in order to minutelly aid in the frantic shoring up of capital ratios that the banks were engaged in at the time, though I admit that here my knowledge of accounting falls short on the details. One thing's for sure, this new fashion of one year accrual periods didn't come about because the banks thought it would better serve depositors... (other than the obvious fact that depositors interests are served by banks not going under of course)