Update! Santander First Home Saver Account: 5% on up to 50k savings (up to 35 only)

Eponym

Thanks for posting that every month, it is reassuring!

I just got my first year's interest added. At first glance it looks right but I'll use the spreadsheet very helpfully posted a few pages ago to check it.

Eponym

Sorry for the double post. My payment for this month went on 2nd May but I checked my internet banking and another payment went out on 3rd May. My payments go by standing order so it wasn't because of me.

My total is now about £4600 but it should be £4300.

Obviously as a result, if I leave it I will get 0.1% interest for this month. Therefore I was going to call Santander to get them to sort it out but I while I'm sure they can withdraw the payment, I have no confidence that the interest will be paid correctly. Secondly, it occurred to me that it might actually be better for me to lose one month's interest in exchange for the higher amount of money in the account.

These calculations are not my strong suit, can any helpful MSE tell me how to work it out please?

demonblade

@Eponym,

if you already over paid this month you will only get 0.1% interest for the month, you might as well transfer any spare cash into this account and take advantage of the 5% from next month.

Eponym

demonblade wrote: »

@Eponym,

if you already over paid this month you will only get 0.1% interest for the month, you might as well transfer any spare cash into this account and take advantage of the 5% from next month.

You're probably right. I can probably manage putting another £600 in there, which will mean total contributions of £1200 this month! I still don't know if it will work out in my favour but I know I can't trust Santander to make the appropriate interest adjustment!

archangelrich

Boo-ya!

Letter back from Santander customer services, saying the interest was right, and they didn't believe they'd underpaid me.

An hour later, a phonecall from the executive complaints team saying that I was right, and they'd put the interest into my account shortly - apparently it's a system fault, which is known and they're working to fix. I raised the letter, and the person was not impressed - so due to this, they're giving me £210 compensation, and an apology from the regional director who'll be calling me next week.

So a big thank you for the e-mailing the CEO suggestion - well worth it!

beefturnmail

Wow, well done. I thought getting £100 compenstation out of them was good - should have held out for more....

Lizling

I got my annual statement through today and thought the interest didn't look right. Opened up Excel and sure enough they'd screwed up and only paid about half of what was due.

I was on the phone to them for 20 minutes or so, which isn't great, obviously, but at least I didn't get any of that only dealing with that in branch rubbish. But then they made up for it by giving me £5 for the trouble. Looks like their customer service is improving even if their systems aren't.

The woman on the phone said this has happened to a lot of people so definitely check your statements!

Eponym

Lizling wrote: »

I got my annual statement through today and thought the interest didn't look right. Opened up Excel and sure enough they'd screwed up and only paid about half of what was due.

I was on the phone to them for 20 minutes or so, which isn't great, obviously, but at least I didn't get any of that only dealing with that in branch rubbish. But then they made up for it by giving me £5 for the trouble. Looks like their customer service is improving even if their systems aren't.

The woman on the phone said this has happened to a lot of people so definitely check your statements!

Mine was just over £1 short according to the spreadsheet but I thought it probably wasn't worth bothering for that mich.

I'm surprised you only got £5 compensation, to be honest. Seems pretty stingy considering it was their mistake and you had to spend 20 minutes on an expensive phone call.

pazza2000

Sounds like the interest is wrong for a few of us. Dissapointing although definetly worth pursuing

RedRuby_2

After reading this thread, I went back and examined the statement that I had recently received. Lo and behold upon further examination my interest was also calculated wrongly.
Bostered by the examples here I trotted off to a branch and after a wait I rang customer services. They said that they would look into it and the guy did mention giving me £20 compensation for having to go to the branch. He also said to ring back after I received a text message so I'll do that and report back on the final outcome.

One thing is certain though, anyone with this account has to pay careful attention to their statements and the interest given.