Alliance & Leicester ISA - don't do it!

masonic

codetown wrote:

While not perfect, we have very reasonable references reading financial reports, shareholders meetings, press etc.

Whoa there, Nellie! What's all this about references then, eh? I saw no mention of that in your original statement. In fact, the only basis I saw for your statement was from "brows[ing] the forum and do[ing] some statistics". If you are now invoking financial reports and shareholders meetings to support your argument, then that certainly strengthens it considerably. Do you have any particular gems you could post? I haven't been in the habit of reading such documents and it would be interesting to know what I'm missing out on.

codetown wrote:

In terms of statistics, with over 500k people on the site we have a high sample of the UK savers and therefore we must assume that all major banks are well represented.

The number of people registered on these boards is 90,984 at the time of writing this (how many of those would post a complaint here is a matter of speculation). It is still an impressive sample size, but I think you have overestimated it just a little, even allowing for lurkers who would be spurned into posting a complaint.

codetown wrote:

By far A&L is a small, very small player in the field. The percentage of complaints it receives (and mostly for the current account and customer service, rather than ISA!!) is extremly high when compared to the others. And belive me, this is a very good statistics method with an extremly well drawn sample of the involved population. The conclusions are absolutely clear and sound and show that a percentage of A&L customers higher than Nationwide, halifax etc complain about their services.

So now we're back to statistics again. You mention the 'percentage of complaints' a bank receives (presumably on these boards) as being a very good measure of the quality of their services. What is that percentage? Is it (a) the percentage of MSE'ers holding an account who complain here; (b) the percentage of [all] accountholders who complain here; (c) neither of the above?

If the answer is (a), then how on Earth do you know how many MSE'ers hold an A&L account compared with a Halifax account compared with a B&B account etc.?? I cannot conceive of a reasonable means to determine that. (for an explanation of why I don't think it is the same as the proportion of the population who hold these accounts, see below).

If the answer is (b), I would argue that MSE'ers (at least the ones who are likely to post in the 'Money' boards) would be a very skewed sample of the population, with a much larger proportion of 'rate tarts' etc. A&L have had a market leading Current, Savings and ISA account over the past 12 months and whilst I'm not saying that definately goes any way to explaining the number of complaints posted here, I am saying that it might. I don't think you can take the number of complaints posted here and simply linearly extrapolate it to fit the general population.

If the answer is (c), then I am dying to know exactly how you have generated your statistics as I think it would be much easier than delving into company documents etc., which I have already admitted I am not in the habit of doing.

MarkyMarkD

I have to agree with Masonic. A&L's products are very attractive to rate tarts who must form a large part of the MSE population, and hence a high proportion of A&L related moans is not surprising.

EagerLearner

Still - none of this explains why they made such a big deal of 'Miss' - see original post...

EagerLearner

masonic

EagerLearner wrote:

Still - none of this explains why they made such a big deal of 'Miss' - see original post...

What was the bill being used to prove exactly?

codetown

masonic wrote:

If you are now invoking financial reports and shareholders meetings to support your argument, then that certainly strengthens it considerably.

In short:
1) Readers of MSE are far in excess of 500k.
Ask Martin or some of his staff and see if they show detailed statistics.
-> Just as a rule of thumb, in general *any* forum (and I have many around) has at least 5-10 times more readers than subscribers if it is an open forum. Many people like to read but do not bother to register.
-> MSE has over 500k subscribers to the tips alone... so the general user population is extremly large.

2) Shareholders meetings (of which i keep updated and read everything for the institutions I have money with) give you a clear indications of membership numbers. Also the amount of capital acquired also is a good indication of how well the products are selling for particular institutions. While this might not be as detailed as you wish it gives again good indications.

From the above I can say without any doubt that there are banks and Building societies which have a far far larger number of users than A&L.
If the complaint meter was linear with the number of users, then A&L should not even appear in the top 5, while I am pretty confident that it is n.1 in MSE (for complaints) for the year 2005-2006. If you have time and interest do an accurate count of complaints and will see. Or maybe we should suggest Martin to implement a "complaintometer" as ISP review sites have to measure automatically the degrees of complaints against A&L.

Having said so, I agree that some products that A&L offers are good value, and I too -having overcome the problems- am an A&L customer. But will not use them for "critical" tasks (and this for my own experience with them; not because A&L tops the complaint chart on MSE).

EagerLearner

masonic wrote:

What was the bill being used to prove exactly?

Hi Masonic - I sent the council tax bill to prove my address, but I also sent bank and credit card statements. All of them said 'Mrs' except for the council tax one which had an admin error and said 'Miss' but the name was exactly the same. The other point was that all bills had '2nd floor flat' and the council tax one had admin error of 'flat second floor. All other parts of the address identical... I explained to A&L have no control over how the council show my address. But puh-lease someone tell me that's not enough reason to have A&L demand I go in to the branch for a third time with even more docs (I was running out of documents to take!)

EagerLearner

masonic

codetown wrote:

In short:
1) Readers of MSE are far in excess of 500k.
Ask Martin or some of his staff and see if they show detailed statistics.
-> Just as a rule of thumb, in general *any* forum (and I have many around) has at least 5-10 times more readers than subscribers if it is an open forum. Many people like to read but do not bother to register.
-> MSE has over 500k subscribers to the tips alone... so the general user population is extremly large.

The weekly tips link to articles on the forum. I seem to remember Martin stating that a very large number of people read content from the tip, but take no further interest in the forums. My point was that only people registered on these forums can post here. Whilst I accept that many more people read the MSE forums in general, there will undoubtedly be a large proportion who would never contribute. In any case, as I said before, the sample size is still going to be more than adequate.

codetown wrote:

<snip>
From the above I can say without any doubt that there are banks and Building societies which have a far far larger number of users than A&L.
If the complaint meter was linear with the number of users, then A&L should not even appear in the top 5, while I am pretty confident that it is n.1 in MSE (for complaints) for the year 2005-2006.

No. 2 after ICICI, surely? I am pretty confident that it is No. 1 in MSE in 2005-2006 in terms of new account openings, though (spread between the Online Saver, Premier Direct current account/10% Regular saver and Direct ISA). I think it is fair to say that most problems people have posted have been related to account opening, so it is not surprising to me at all that there are quite a few complaints here. Unless you know how many people on MSE have opened a particular account, there's no way of comparing complaint levels and as I have said before, MSE'ers are wont to behave differently than the general population so you can't just suppose that few MSE'ers will have an A&L account because few people have one nationally.

codetown wrote:

<snip>
Or maybe we should suggest Martin to implement a "complaintometer" as ISP review sites have to measure automatically the degrees of complaints against A&L.

I think that would be an excellent resource if it is practical.
Edit: Perhaps something along the lines of satisfaction polls for people opening accounts recommended on the site might generate some more useful data for this purpose?

masonic

EagerLearner wrote:

Hi Masonic - I sent the council tax bill to prove my address, but I also sent bank and credit card statements. All of them said 'Mrs' except for the council tax one which had an admin error and said 'Miss' but the name was exactly the same. The other point was that all bills had '2nd floor flat' and the council tax one had admin error of 'flat second floor. All other parts of the address identical... I explained to A&L have no control over how the council show my address. But puh-lease someone tell me that's not enough reason to have A&L demand I go in to the branch for a third time with even more docs (I was running out of documents to take!)

I am in two minds about the 'Miss'/'Mrs' error (obviously if you were trying to prove your name it would have been justified), but it is totally absurd to suggest that '2nd floor flat' is different to 'Flat second floor' - how would they have handled an abbreviation, or a missing/surpless district line in the address?!! I had a problem a while ago with verification documents (I think it was with Halifax). I can't remember the details, but it was something fairly insignificant. I was able to send off a different document uncertified in a prepaid envelope and that was the end of the matter.

I think what you've experienced follows the model of other complaints against A&L you'll see posted here: something not so significant that could easily be resolved, which snowballs into something bigger through not being handled well.

RichyRich

Grr@A&L

I sent ID off, which was verified in branch. No correspondance.

Rang up. "In Process".

Still no correspondance.

Rang up again. "ID incorrect" No it's not, it was verified at branch. "I'll check". Looked at system. "Oh it looks to be fine" (must have been scanned in?). "Will email ID department for you".

Got a letter asking me to prove identity :mad:

Now in the (hopefully) capable hands of Bradford & Bingley's Transfer department in Newcastle. All seems fine so far (fingers crossed), just waiting for Scabbey Abbey National to effect the transfer.

Rich

EagerLearner

Richy Rich - seems like you've moved the A&L to B&B direction the same way I did - Scabbey National indeed! I know it will be my luck that B&B now reduce their rate... IF they did before I activated my account, can anyone tell me who is the next best ISA to go for?

Masonic - A&L were definately overdoing it... thanks for understanding ;o)

Mr. EagerLearner lets me handle all these sorts of things for precisely this kind of example with A&L!

EagerLearner