Abbey 7% Fixed Rate Monthly Saver launch 14/07/06

ED

PBA – thanks for being here. Very helpful having you, an Abbey branch staff member, answering questions here.

Top question, for some of us is :

Can existing Abbey customers currently open the 8% Issue 5 Monthly Saver? Or is it, perhaps, being relaunched early in October? Alternatively, has Abbey decided to take a page out of Alliance + Leicester's somewhat dubious book whereby the account is offered only to new current account applicants?

Abbey's savings section currently refers not to the 8% Issue 5 Monthly Saver, but only to its predecessor, the 7% Issue 4 Monthly Saver.

I have been into several Abbey branches during July and August asking to open an 8% MS, and at first staff denied its existence. I was actually lied to by a senior staff member whose defence was that the 8% MS was "only for new customers opening a current account".

Do you have any idea whether Abbey head office have issued guidance to all branches to deny existence of the 8% account when quizzed by existing current account holders?

Dagobert

PBA wrote:

The reference on the standing order should be W, then 6-8 digits, then the first three letters of the surname of the first account holder ... There are no spaces between any of these

Some of the documents I received from Abbey for last year's Fixed Rate Monthly Saver contain spaces between the digits and the last 3 letters, some don't, some don't even show the last 3 letters. In particular, the printed SO form for last year's Monthly Saver contained a space.

This SO executed successfully with the space. Abbey's software ignores the space and is not case sensitive (i.e. the letters can be lower or upper case).

PBA wrote:

buses76757 wrote:

The standing order is preprinted, all that's filled in manually is the amount and reference number.

If Lloyds didn't know how often to send the payment then they didn't read it. Not Abbey's fault.

Absolutely.
Unfortunately, I'll never know who cocked my SO up, Abbey or my bank? (see [post=2921186]rant[/post]). Either Abbey missed the 3 letters or Coventry when entering it on their system. None of the documents I received from Abbey for this year's Monthly Saver showed the full account number including the 3 letters. Therefore I had no way of knowing, when checking the SO online, that the reference was incorrect.

Had the SO been set up towards the end of the month, I would not have been able to re-send the money in time and thus failed the T&Cs. (The failed SO returned after about a week.)

PBA wrote:

Dagobert wrote:

after maturity...accruing a paltry interest rate during that period

After maturity the account pays 5%. You must be a really keen MSE member to consider this "paltry"!!!

I was referring to last year's Monthly Saver. At the time, I believe, the Monthly Saver was attracting 4.75%, which is not bad but I wanted to withdraw immediately as I was getting 5.4% or so at cahoot.
During the month of withdrawal though, the Monthly Saver only yields 0.75%, which is what I meant by paltry. I was under the impression that this rate also applied to the month of closure. But I must apologize: I got my facts wrong; during the month of closure, I received the higher rate.

However, the cheque was received by my bank (cahoot) 9 days after closure, during which I received zero interest. Is Royal Mail that bad?


Question

According to the T&Cs of the account, pay-ins have to be via SO. My understanding is that a SO is just a repeated BACS payment. Do you know, PBA, whether "manual" BACS payments would be rejected? Can they be distinguished from a SO at all?

RayWolfe

See my last post here
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=3038246#post3038246
Ray

david78

Thanks everyone. Very useful advice here regarding account numbers and procedures.

I have set up my standing order myself as it looks like no instruction has been received from Abbey. The first payment is on 3rd Oct (Tuesday). I will go into my local branch on Saturday and try and get the passbook.

David.