Problems getting cheque guarantee card

GM43

Hi

Hoping someone may be able to help.

I've had 3 bank accounts with Barclays for well over 10 years and all my accounts have debit and cheque guarantee cards. I recently applied to make all my accounts joint with my partner (who only holds a joint mortgage account with Barclays).

We were told everything would be ok but when they came to issuing the cards for my partner they said they could only do this if I agreed to lose my cheque guarantee off my cards. I do use cheques sometimes and need this facility so I was obviously unhappy.

When queried they said it was because my partner hasn't used an account with them so they have no rating on his account usage. The mortgage account we have with them can also be used as a current account although we were told by the mortgage advisor at Barclays not to use the account as it can affect our mortgage(?) so we haven't. The really interesting thing in all this is that this mortgage account came with cheques and cheque guarantee cards! We've had the account for about 2-3 years.

Has anyone any suggestions how to proceed with this at Barclays as I'd obviously like to try to get my new joint accounts without losing my cheque guarantee cards.

Thanks

MoneySavingUser

cheques and cheque guarantee cards are being phased out (some banks don't offer chq guarantee on new cards that they issue now) so you will lose it eventually

how about opening a brand new joint account?

dja.mk

You'd better hurry up and get one if you want one, as per above the Cheque Guarantee scheme is being withdrawn 30th June 2011

GM43

Thanks for your replys - I hadn't realised cheque were being phased out that soon, think I am still hoping they won't do it.

The thing I can't get my head around with this situation is that they would give us a cheque guarantee card with the mortgage account but refused with any other.

pmduk

As long as there is a debit facility on the card, is there really any need for a cheque guarantee card?

david39

To GM43
I think you mis-read dja.mk's reply - cheques are not being withdrawn in 2011 - it's just the guarantee card facility that's going.

GM43

david39 - Yes I did misread - thanks for pointing that out, slightly relieved but will have to change my banking style because of this.

GM43

Just to update a little and hope someone can help a little more, thanks to previous contributors:

I've finally got my partner to ring Barclays to complain/find out more info about this. It appears that they not only want to take away the cheque guarantee facility, they also want to take away the visa debit facility also leaving us with the electron (I'm accepted in very few places so you may as well have a cashcard) card. Obviously not happy about this but also will it affect my credit rating if I agree to one of these cards?

Customer services claim on the phone today they have no way of telling how they have come to this decision (if it is an external credit rating problem or the fact my partner hasn't used a Barclays account before), does anyone know if this is correct or is there some way to get them to reveal this info?

They have confirmed, however, they will let us use the joint mortgage account which has a visa debit/cheque guarantee card (had this for about 3 years). We had been told not to use the mortgage account for normal transactions as this could affect the mortgage - particularly if we went overdrawn - does anyone know if this is the case? I don't really trust them because we seem to get different info everytime!

samjef11_2

GM43 wrote: »

Just to update a little and hope someone can help a little more, thanks to previous contributors:

I've finally got my partner to ring Barclays to complain/find out more info about this. It appears that they not only want to take away the cheque guarantee facility, they also want to take away the visa debit facility also leaving us with the electron (I'm accepted in very few places so you may as well have a cashcard) card. Obviously not happy about this but also will it affect my credit rating if I agree to one of these cards?

Customer services claim on the phone today they have no way of telling how they have come to this decision (if it is an external credit rating problem or the fact my partner hasn't used a Barclays account before), does anyone know if this is correct or is there some way to get them to reveal this info?

They have confirmed, however, they will let us use the joint mortgage account which has a visa debit/cheque guarantee card (had this for about 3 years). We had been told not to use the mortgage account for normal transactions as this could affect the mortgage - particularly if we went overdrawn - does anyone know if this is the case? I don't really trust them because we seem to get different info everytime!

Right i can answer this question
they also want to take away the visa debit facility also leaving us with the electron (I'm accepted in very few places so you may as well have a cashcard) card. Obviously not happy about this but also will it affect my credit rating if I agree to one of these cards?

Answer no it will not affect your credit rating as it's a debit card not a credit card meaning that the debit card is linked to your bank account and the bank is not lending money like on a credit card they would.

Mark_In_Hampshire

GM43 wrote: »

they also want to take away the visa debit facility also leaving us with the electron (I'm accepted in very few places so you may as well have a cashcard) card.

I've had an electron debit card for years. The only place I can think of where I haven't been able to use it is for Tesco online shopping (possibly John Lewis online too); these days they're accepted just about everywhere, I don't even "check to see" any more.

Gillianh2

OP,
I would also order your OH credit file and see if there is anything untoward on them.