wrong account opened

aloise

I wanted to open an instant acess account and went to santander. After i had booked an appointment i was not to happy for it to be cancelled an hour before we were due to see somebody. Got there for our next appointment and he was 15 minutes late. Not impressed with this at all.
So you could say i was in a bad mood from the start.:mad:
We told him what we wanted, in all honesty i don't think he could really be bothered, we are pensioners and wouldn't be bringing a lot of money in. Due to the very low interest he persuded us to open a currant account and we went along with it, gods knows why, a senior moment?
We put £500 in to open the account but now have changed our minds and want to join the post office. After all that if you are still with me my question is can i just take the money out and leave it at that ,will i incurr charges, or will i have to close the account. It's been 30 years since we openend an acount so not to savy about all this

onlypaddy

run away quickly...santander are slated all over these boards!

you can take the money out but make sure you close the account and get written confirmation, as if they leave it open you may be hit with under-funding fees as some santander current accounts have a minimum monthly income.

which account did he open?

jfke

Sounds like the "in credit" interest account which pays 5% on a balance up to 2.5k providing £1k is deposited every month. There are no fees on this account but if the depositing criteria of £1k a month isn't met then the interest reverts to 0.2% or something equally redundant.

Santander only charge for their reward accounts which incur monthly fees for the "benefits" they provide. Make sure your account is not a fee account and then you can just withdraw your cash and forget Santander ever existed.

Otherwise, onlypaddy gave some sage counsel.

Old_Wrinkly

It's just possible this is one of those rare occasions when the bank employee gave you some good advice ...

The 'Preferred In-Credit Rate Bank Account' pays interest of 5% AER on balances up to £2,500 (for the first 12 months anyway).
You need to pay-in £1000 a month to get this rate, but possibly a joint account with both pensions going in could cover this. There is no requirement to keep a particular level of money in it.
As far as I recall, you don't get charged if the £1000 isn't forthcoming, the interest rate just drops to the usual nominal amount.

Santander, though, have a lot of current accounts on the go. Which one were you given?

<sorry. drafting got delayed. didn't see previous post>

pmduk

If it was good advice I'm sure it was given in error.

aloise

It was a currant account paying 1%. i askes about fees and he said there were none but of course i didn't ask about closing fees.,