allaince & leicester pay you 25 quid for a financial review?

stphnstevey

gingercordial wrote:

Hmm, I suppose it depends on how complicated your finances are, and how much you're willing to tell them. I mean, if you don't mention the huge inheritance and all the offshore bank accounts, they can't spend any time asking about them surely?

Seriously though, my affairs are very simple, I'm only in my mid-20s, I rent rather than having a mortgage and I have no dependents, my pension is run by my employer. I have very few existing financial products for them to ask about (except for the stoozing credit cards and savings account and I don't intend to mention those). I am absolutely not going to be sold anything. On that basis, I'm going to call them tomorrow and ask them how long the review should take...

They will see the fact you haven't got alot of finacial products (insurance, mortgage etc.) as a great chance to sell you stuff!

yogiberr

hiya,

So, for anyone who has actually been, how long did it take?

ta,
yogi

gingercordial

stphnstevey wrote:

They will see the fact you haven't got alot of finacial products (insurance, mortgage etc.) as a great chance to sell you stuff!

Ha ha, they can try!!! I rang them up this lunchtime, they said the review slots are an hour but it will probably take less than that. I've agreed to go on Thursday.

yogiberr

good luck bud,

Keep us posted eh?

yogi

gingercordial

Went for my financial review today, only took 15 mins!

She only covered insurance, which I don't need as I'm covered through work, and investments, which I didn't want as I want to keep my money in easy-access accounts at the moment. I let her do me a quote for critical illness cover but she didn't object when I said it's something I'd think about in a couple of years. She said herself there was nothing else she thought I needed at the moment, then it was a case of thank you very much and please sign here to get your cashback!

If anyone's trying to decide which branch to go to in London that was the one on High Holborn, very nice and not at all pushy. They had leaflets about the offer and a big poster so it's not just for people getting invitations through online banking, but you still need to have one of the Premier current accounts.

Now have to wait for up to 60 days to actually get my £25.

ec9wrr

I went for my review today.
No pressure at all. Had no problem with me taking info and "thinking about it".
Was really surprised, more of a relationship building thing for A&L as far as I could tell. The person I spoke to said that they weren't paid per sale.
Overall well worth doing. He checked I had the highest interest rate on all my savings accounts, recommended I get cover for my mortagage (printed off a quote) and that was it. The whole thing took about 20 minutes (most of which was just chatting!)

Sillychuckie

I was in my branch earlier today (just popped in) when they tried to collar me for this review. They even fed me a CRAZY line that I could earn interest TAX FREE even though I have filled up my maximum 7k ISA allowance. Surely this can't be true?
I told them my allowance was full, but still they said they could help.
Anyway, I chuckled... and explained I wasn't interested due to my short lunch break at work (I can't really take more than 40 minutes away from the desk).
The guy said that if I was prepared to come in for 30 minutes, he'd still be prepared to have me qualify for the £25 review incentive.

Anyway, the point to my post:
DustonH. Could you repost the link to the other thread (which I can no longer find) that contains the reasons their standard Legal and General offer is pants. I remember a bulleted list, and would LOVE to have that with me during the review. I'm not quite savvy enough to argue with some of their claims but intend to revise before hand. Thanks.

dunstonh

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=2728519#post2728519

That hasnt got the bullet points against but there should be enough for you to break into bullet points.

Paul_Herring

Sillychuckie wrote:

I was in my branch earlier today (just popped in) when they tried to collar me for this review. They even fed me a CRAZY line that I could earn interest TAX FREE even though I have filled up my maximum 7k ISA allowance. Surely this can't be true?

Oh, it's true. But I cannot really see their tied advisors advising you on the other tax free savings accounts available:

http://www.nsandi.com/products/pb/index.jsp £30,000 maximum total

http://www.nsandi.com/products/ilsc/index.jsp £15,000 maximum per issue

http://www.nsandi.com/products/fisc/index.jsp £15,000 maximum per issue.

There's another £60,000 you could save 'tax free' (Admittedly the PB's are a bit of a gamble with the interest though.)

schiff

I've been for my review, it took an hour, was pretty intensive and we covered a lot of ground. I am very happy with my financial situation and pretty savvy so I didn't expect to 'go' for anything! The man had his boss sitting in with him but the interviewer wasn't a novice.

The only thing they came up with - after I had talked to them (in a role reversal!) about the High Yield Portfolio system of investing - was the L&G thing 'which you might be interested in'. Any interest I might have had evaporated very quickly when dunstonh gave me his very thorough (and convincing) résumé, which is well worth a read if you are ever tempted.

The only thing they might have got me interested in was Annual Travel Insurance - which I find an absolute pain each year, because of my age and a very basic ailment (which half the population suffers from). But they had nothing.

I took the opportunity to get in some personal digs about A&L! The attractive offers to new customers that the faithful long-termers can't have (though he got me there - reminding me that I had had a credit of £50 when I opened my current a/c - touché my friend!). And the fact I'd been turned down for a modest unsecured loan and a cash ISA earlier this year - neither of which matter very much now.

My current account charges were only £55 (for the big claim back) and they refunded £30. In spite of my presenting very strong arguments to get the rest, they wouldn't play ball and I wasn't prepared to have my current account closed down out of their spite. So, getting this £25 (it comes in a few weeks) for a review that, quite candidly, I didn't need, makes up for that a bit.

Plus - when the FSA has finished mauling the banks in the action that it started recently, I may still get my £25 back without the account closure. We'll see.

schiff