MSE news: possible £50 boon for Nationwide current account holders

Milarky

7sefton wrote: »

I've been fuming about this for some time, and now want to get this off my chest:

It is incredibly annoying (and possibly even ethically dubious) the way people on MSE behave with such offers as this one. Nationwide obviously intended this to benefit/reward genuine, honest customers who choose to make their Flex Account their main current account. They obviously expected a steady flow of people who would take them up on this offer, hence the fairly long time limit on this offer (before it was pulled).

Instead, vultures and cynics on this website pounce to transfer 'dummy' direct debits and standing orders as soon as they see such an offer (obviously not having much better to do with their time than sit out waiting for such promotions). They gladly line their pockets with multiple pay outs from a mutual organisation - run for the benefit of all members, not just the few financially savvy ones - thus swamping Nationwide with bogus transfers so they have to pull the offer. Meanwhile, genuine customers who would have gladly transferred all their business to Nationwide are left out in the cold.

This is not going to be a popular point of view, I accept, but you need to be aware how you are milking Nationwide and similar institutions who for once are actually offering their honest customers a decent reward for loyalty. Outrageous, unfair, and selfish.

I'm of the school of thought that says if they are big enough (and correspondingly 'stupid' enough - i.e. badly run) to promote an essentially unneeded service (that of account transfers) simply because 'all the other' banks do, and offer people freebies to play along with the fiction that any of this serves a useful purpose, then we are actually providing a useful psycho-social function (see Monty Python's 'Idiots' sketch) by taking 'their', (that is 'our') money. The point being that Nationwide is probably employing a group of people who wouldn't otherwise be just to service this nonsense...

...More seriously, we could write to Nationwide and suggest that they drop this, put the staff into branches to shorten queues instead, let customers switch their own accounts for themselves and/or bring in a 'once-for-life' rule in applicable to such offers as YB suggests (they've had such a rule for their credit card for years) But do you think Nationwide listens to any of its own customers' suggestions?

ringo

The £50 offer was supposed to last until 21st. August! Nationwide have withdrawn it already (7th.August) when I was just about to take them up on their offer.
Is there anyway of holding them to their original published deadline?

Kavanne

ringo wrote: »

The £50 offer was supposed to last until 21st. August! Nationwide have withdrawn it already (7th.August) when I was just about to take them up on their offer.
Is there anyway of holding them to their original published deadline?

No I believe they said the offer could be withdrawn anytime but they were originally planning 21 Aug.

ringo

Thanks for the reply Kavanne. I suppose it serves me right for procrastinating - but it's galling when I thought I had plenty of time.

Joe_Bloggs

@ringo
I have procrastinated as well. Perhaps this means that there is more Nationwide money that can be put into making the service better.
I would like faster payments to be a priority instead of a project, without any end, that could be achieved by unsupervised work experience students .
J_B.

gjs1701

I wanted to take advantage of this offer. I had swine flu when it it first arrived and by the time I'd gotten over it it had gone. I questioned Nationwide why it had disappeared from their website and got this response.

"Thank you for your message.


Thank you for your message. The £50 ‘Make FlexAccount your main current account promotion’ was available from 09:00 on Wednesday 15 July 2009 and ended at 12:00 on Friday 31 July 2009. Originally this promotion was planned to run until 21 August 2009 however, as the payments are made from a discrete Marketing budget the popularity of this offer meant that we would not have been able to sustain the promotion through to the indicated end date and so we exercised our right to end the promotion early as stated in the terms and conditions of the offer.





If you have any further questions regarding the transfer of your account, please contact me using this messaging system. Alternatively you may choose to contact the Account Transfer Team helpdesk on 01793 656655 Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm.



Regards,

Charlotte Elliott"

LongTermLurker

fair enough comment - the key word is sustain(able). All offers have clauses which allow the provider to pull it early.

Better luck next time. Keep your eye out for the next offer and get in early. It seems they're quite regular.

magpiejay

So has anyone received their £50 yet?

thecotswolds

My £50 was credited 25th August.

Only transferred 2 £5.00 S/Os from Halifax had no DDs set up on that account!!

bundance

I am an existing nationwide customer and have not noticed £50 going into my account.

I read the news article by Guy anker, but do not fully understand it. - see below

"Existing account holders must sign-on to their internet banking account (or register first) and submit an 'Authorisation for a Current Account Transfer' form by selecting 'Transfer all my payments for me'."

Does the authorisation for a current account transfer do aything, if you have direct debits in that account anyway.
Will it alter my halifax accounts, where there is one ISA and one savings account, or will it just pay £50 into my account.

thank you