Barclays opened wrong regular savings account!

Dagobert

Words fail me:
I just received a phone-call Barclays inform me that the wrong savings account had been opened for me in March!

I had applied for the 10% Regular Saver*. Instead, they opened a 1.9% regular savings* account, a product which is being discontinued now. She said the two products might have been confused because of the similar name.

I was offered an apology and, in order to rectify the mistake, a new account was be opened. She did not seem to be willing or able to understand that the mistake has lost me interest.

I checked my documents: in my letter, I requested a 10% regular savings account to be opened, unaware that there were 2 similar products. The letter of confirmation states that a regular savings account was opened.

Has this happened to anyone else?
I would advise you to make sure that you opened the 10% right account.

* note the difference!

Milarky

It was their mistake (admitted by moving your balance into the 10% paying account) so I can't see them missing off any of the interest when they come to work it out and pay it to you in about a years time. With these regular saver offers its nail-biting 'did I/did't I?' stuff all the way to the finishing post!

Dagobert

I did not express myself clearly enough:

The regular savings was closed. The money (£500) was moved into my e-savings account. A Regular Saver account will be opened and will have to be funded for 12 months from now.

The previous investment, however, only attracted 1.9% interest during the past 2 months! I make that a loss of approx. £5.

Dagobert

It took 2 letters to receive compensation for the interest lost: initially my request was rejected as the Barclays advisor argued I was still getting a full 12 months' at 10% for the newly opened Regular Saver; it took another letter to explain that, obviously, I would have never knowingly invested in a 0.9% interest account!

Eventually, I got £2.98 as I argued, had I known, I would have transferred the money to my 5.1% savings account.

Secret_Wookie

I'm quite shocked that they would only pay up £2.98 interest in compensation.

Regardless of interest calcualtions i would have expected that you would
be able to gain at least £25 as a gesture of good will for they error and the 3 to 4 months it took to get the correct account signed up.

Dagobert

Secret_Wookie wrote:

i would have expected that you would be able to gain at least £25 as a gesture of good will

I had a dispute with Egg and it took 5 months and two letters to get £5.53 interest back. Not a penny more than claimed.

On the other hand, a request for lost interest from Abbey resulted in a £10 good will gesture - a few pounds more than expected.

Daft_Monkey

I had a similar problem when I opened my regular saver over the phone, when it was introduced. I rang Barclays and asked for the account to be opened. I gave them the details of my current account etc., they even read me the terms and conditions of the account.
The account appeared on my on-line banking with a name like Bonus saver or something like that. Didn't really occur to me at the time that it was the wrong account. Few days later I got a letter with the terms and conditions of the account and to my surprise it was saying that the minimum balance was £5000 and that no interest was payable for lesser amounts. Gave Barclays a call, they were apologetic for the mistake and was told the same story about the interest (full 12 months etc.) After insisting about the interest lost, they agreed to credit my account with the interest I was supposed to be getting (since the first payment had already gone in).
That was the end of the story.

BrandNewDay

This is totally OT, but I just have to say: things like this don't happen as much in the US. Do bank employees in the UK sniff a lot of glue or something? These message boards are full of such stories.

OK... I'm done here. Ignore me!