Your Student Bank Account experiences

wrexhamandy

Hey everyone.

I'm writing an article on this year's student bank accounts for a student website which I edit. As well as comparing the key bits of each account (size of interest-free overdraft, whether they have special customer advisors, interest rate on student cred card, freebies etc) I'm hoping to put some experiences of people (especially insightful Moneysavers) who have or have had that particular student account.

So yeah...anyone who'd like to contribute?

Only has to be a few lines if you want, on the customer service, the account itself, any specific good/bad experiences, anything really. I'll give you credit and the link to the article when it's up (this week sometime). Use a pretend name if you'd like or PM it me if you don't want it in the forum.

An e.g.:

"BANK X
Andy, Aberystwyth: "The big overdraft came in very handy. However, I could never get through on their student service line and they were never helpful when I did. One time they messed up when I used the self-service machine to pay in some cash, saying I paid in less, and dragged their feet in correcting it"."


Cheers me dears!:D


Andy

DrFluffy

Which website is it for?

wrexhamandy

DrFluffy wrote:

Which website is it for?

Better not say in the forum just in case I get shouted at for free plugging or advertising or something! I'll PM ya now to let you know.

Andy

wrexhamandy

Any more experiences......................?!

Share the love (err, or hatred).:o

DrFluffy

Then I shall decline.... I have a thing about informed consent

Volcano

Natwest again....

Opened an account on first day of uni to take advantage of £1000 free interest overdraft (with everyone else as obviously that's what they want you to do....)

9 months later they want to know why I haven't paid anything into the account (I'm a student so have no money, duh!)

With no warning they freeze account/card/cheques (that I hadn't used for 9 months anyway) and threaten me with court, bailiffs etc which is of course not what I need when I've got exams to worry about.

I had to borrow money from a credit card to pay off bulk of the overdraft (negating the purpose of the overdraft entirely) to get them to back off. Good job I never took their offer of a credit card as well....

Barclays......

Changed my standard account to a student account to use the free overdraft facility. On campus branch said I couldn't have the overdraft as I hadn't been using my account enough the previous year. Walked to a Barclays branch down the road that said "of course, no problem!"

Why are important decisions like this (that will affect whether I use this bank ever again) left to half-wits to decide?

First Direct are brilliant with excellent service, don't know whether they have a student account though.

wrexhamandy

DrFluffy wrote:

Then I shall decline.... I have a thing about informed consent

Yeah I'm PMing respondents after to ask if I can use it then what they'd like as their name if at all....Or do you mean something else sorry? Made up names for the article is fine, it's about helping this year's students make choices on which bank they should or shouldn't go with, nothing sinister!


Thanks to all contributors so far who've posted and PMed, keep them coming in, you're helping future students!:D

Chris123_2

I have had an account with HSBC and not had any problems with them, even though all i did was max out the overdraft and put it into my Cahoot savings account.

Although i have now finished i have just popped into HSBC to find out when my account will be converted only to be told that i still have a year to run on my student account and my overdraft increased! woohoo!

My overdraft combined with my students loan in my Cahoot savings account has lead to me getting me around £30 a month interest!