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

MORPH3US

A long time after we get bored of people trying to defend their obscene profits and their desire to make even more by hitting the people who can least afford it most.....

Well done Scaldyflash!!!

mrcow

karatedragon wrote:

i wonder when people will get bored with moaning about first direct?

I don't think I will get bored.

They are now on my "don't ever touch with a bargepole" list and I will be recommending to everyone I know to do the same!


I hope that Martin will have one of his "worst/best company to deal with" polls coming up again soon. I bet FD were on the best poll last time. It will be interesting to see how they fair next time around........

CopperPlate_2

The interview with their CEO on 5 Live yesterday was very telling - not a straight answer to the scenario of the woman who pays in in excess of £1500 per month yet goes on maternity leave to have her income drop to under the threshold for a few months - will she be charged the monthly fee? No reply from Mr Pilling, just regurgitated the promo line about great service, deeper relationships, and so on. I take it from the avoidance of an answer that the hypothetical new mum would have a charge unless of course she had extra products with the bank. The other immortal quote was from the paper that ran the story - "so you're paying £10 a month to have the phone answered quickly?" in reference to their great service and very little else that's competitive.

CopperPlate_2

heatherw_01 wrote:

I highly doubt they would charge everyone £10 for nothing, they would lose lots of customers

Oh dear.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Hindsight's a wonderful thing isn't it

Phoenix79_2

scaldyflash wrote:

Yes they have given plenty of notice (But not to me, I heard from LBC)

I have never driven a Mercedes or a BMW because I can't afford to, however I can afford to drive a car (luckily) that does not mean that I have to pay vauxhall every month just because I bought one of their cars ! I give all my money to First Direct every month so that they can invest it as they see fit. By doing so they make about 7 BILLION pounds per year. I do not want to pay them to make money from them having my money and I certainly do not want them taking money from the poorest people in society they are GREEDY GREEDY GREEDY and anyone who supports them in what they are proposing is just as bad as them.

Its a service at the end of the day. You give them your money and they give you a card, produce statements for you, set up DD payments, give you an overdraft if required, have excellent CS should you require it etc. If you don't want to pay for it then put your money under your mattress. They aren't forcing you to bank with them. You have decided to close your accounts and fair play to you. Thats your perogative.

As has been said before, First Direct and HSBC make very little of their huge profits from personal banking services. FD are taking the flak now but i'm sure other banks will follow suit.

I do think however that the £10 is too high. Perhaps half of that would have been better. would you rather pay nothing for a dire CS service from HSBC with its outsourced call centres (worst CS i have ever received) or pay and utiise an excellent UK based customer service from its subsidary? I'd rather pay money and keep the UK call centre jobs alive myself.

YnotL

Phoenix79 wrote:

FD are taking the flak now but i'm sure other banks will follow suit.

I'm not sure they will. FD are deservedly getting a lot of flak. Free banking of some form simply has to be available. If all banks applied charges on the FD basis you're going to end up with people demanding their wages in cash, do you think businesses really want to go back to all the associated costs of having to have large amounts of cash delivered?

So whereas some banks probably will apply charges, many of others won't. I think the more likely scenario is banks offering different levels of support. A fee based account will give you greater access to customer support, for example.

johnofhertford

scaldyflash wrote:

Bye bye First Direct, after TWENTY years with HSBC (Midland/First Direct) I am leaving. I pay in more than £1.500 per month and I have several "products" with them so I would never pay the £10 per month but I am disgusted with them. I have had excellent service from their employees throughout the years and I really feel sorry for the ordinary employees but I cannot stay with a bank which penalises the poor in this way particularly considering their obscene profits. Greed total greed. GOOD RIDDANCE

What are you going to do with your nose, now that you've cut it off to spite your face?

heatherw_01

CopperPlate wrote:

Oh dear.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Hindsight's a wonderful thing isn't it

Oh well, they are going to and they will lose lots of customers

CopperPlate_2

Yip. Pity that a great banking outfit like fd is taking such an apparently anti-customer stance. Sorry heatherw_01, I just had a look through the thread and found your earlier post!

heatherw_01

Yeah, I posted that in July when we first heard the rumour about this. I didn't think they would do it and I was wrong. I had emailed them back then and they said "they were always brainstorming ideas".