Avoid First Direct - They are gonna charge all customers £10!

mrcow

Mushy wrote:

Paying £120 a year for the convenience of Saturday openings and a reciept!?

I thought that was a bit strange too! :rotfl:

Now if they were offering Saturday openings with a free cooked breakfast and a foot massage by the assistant manager, we may be talking.......

regularsaver1

I have to work till 4pm at the bank I work for on Saturday's - not today though as finally got a day off

Bank used to open Sunday's too - but not enough people used the branch

CopperPlate_2

I couldn't care less if the bank branch was never open - give me a post office any day. I can pay in cash or cheques to smile, first direct or A&L at our local PO which is a couple of hundred yards away. It's open on Sat morning and until 5pm daily. So it seems fd are still contemplating the idea of a fee-paying account for, what it seems, is just the bank account they offer just not with text message banking and a little bit of frill in the form of "pots" or a "loyalty" bonus. Not much of a pull, but lets see what else is in the pipeline. I did a survey through TNS from Barclays a few weeks ago in much the same vein as this. Lots of different options to say "NO!" to

Horasio

I am sure they will let us know. I only have a pound in there but thought it was a good account, so hope they don't charge.

gt94sss2

CopperPlate wrote:

So it seems fd are still contemplating the idea of a fee-paying account for, what it seems, is just the bank account they offer just not with text message banking and a little bit of frill in the form of "pots" or a "loyalty" bonus. Not much of a pull, but lets see what else is in the pipeline.

First Direct already have two current accounts, one is called a 'Cheque Account' (which was the one they offered years ago and isn't really advertised anymore) and a 'Bank Acount' which is what they push now.

It sounds to me as if they are simply looking at the possibility of having a 3rd type of current account as an option- one where you pay a monthly fee and get some things thrown in, like better interest rates, free overseas withdrawals, free insurance etc, etc - just like most the other banks have (I know HSBC, Natwest and Lloyds all have this type of account)

So I don't think there is anything for existing customers to worry about and in fact think this thread should probably stop as seeing "Avoid First Direct - They are gonna charge all customers £10!" will probably scare the pants off any first time readers of this board, who are FD customers (unless someone can change the thread title?)

Regards
Sunil

M_Thomson

gt94sss2 wrote:

So I don't think there is anything for existing customers to worry about and in fact think this thread should probably stop as seeing "Avoid First Direct - They are gonna charge all customers £10!" will probably scare the pants off any first time readers of this board, who are FD customers (unless someone can change the thread title?)

Regards
Sunil

Don't worry, once the consumer action group lot get their way it won't just be First Direct customers that face the prospect of having to pay £10 a month. It will be all customers of any bank or building society!

Lazy_Runner

One of the reasons I am with FD is their exemplary customer service.:j

If I had to pay to receive this level of service, I would weigh up the cost/benefit.:undecided

However I didn't realise you could pay money into a Smile account at the PO. This is certainly worth considering.:cool:

Regards

LR

CopperPlate_2

Yip. Cash clears immediately with smile and A&L when you pay in at the PO. You just need your card (no pay-in slip) and the cash (obviously!). With the other banks I think you still need a pay-in slip (and perhaps your card) to pay in and it takes a couple of days to "clear" (as if!). In Scotland only you can use the PO to pay in cash and cheques to first direct accounts too - no idea why they've done that unless it's to do with the scant supply of HSBC branches up here.

CopperPlate_2

gt94sss2 wrote:

First Direct already have two current accounts, one is called a 'Cheque Account' (which was the one they offered years ago and isn't really advertised anymore) and a 'Bank Acount' which is what they push now.

It sounds to me as if they are simply looking at the possibility of having a 3rd type of current account as an option- one where you pay a monthly fee and get some things thrown in, like better interest rates, free overseas withdrawals, free insurance etc, etc - just like most the other banks have (I know HSBC, Natwest and Lloyds all have this type of account)

So I don't think there is anything for existing customers to worry about and in fact think this thread should probably stop as seeing "Avoid First Direct - They are gonna charge all customers £10!" will probably scare the pants off any first time readers of this board, who are FD customers (unless someone can change the thread title?)

Regards
Sunil

Yes, a possibility. But then fd already offer their first directory account at £12 a month. This new prospect seems to offer much and such the same for a little bit less - if it were brought in surely first directory charges would need to increase a bit to have a little separation between the two. IMO it's not worth the tenner a month, but we'll see what happens I suppose.

Mercenary

M_Thomson wrote:

Don't worry, once the consumer action group lot get their way it won't just be First Direct customers that face the prospect of having to pay £10 a month. It will be all customers of any bank or building society!

Yes, according to a source of mine all the claims against bank charges that have recently been made (especially any that are done simply because there's a band-wagon to jump onto ) are possibly going to have the effect of the banks introducing fees as the only way to cover costs. As in "If you're going to complain about 'unfair' charges when you can't organise your own money and then claim them back from us, then we're running your overdrawn account for nothing....so we'll charge a flat fee so everybody can help offset the problem that's been created."

It is apparently almost impossible in certain cases to prove costings of producing and running the bank products which also includes 100's of man-hours (including huge legal work) and computer-programming hours from the employees involved.
Therefore the claimants who are claiming large costs back without real justification are going to screw it up for the rest of us who will probably end up paying for it all if the FSA rule this way.