First Direct - 3 serious complaints arising out of one maturing Regular Saver!!!

PatrickGrant

Why not think about this in terms of a contract?

The bank in effect entered into an agreement to pay a certain amount of interest. The bank then chose to vary that contract - but it did not inform you of the change until after the event? Who pays for that?

Well the bank assumes - not us - because it will say it published the change on its web site. This of course wrongly assumes you log in and look for updates every day which is pretty wild assumption. After all, you may be a pensioner who goes down to the Internet Cafe every month or even year.

You could try to point out to them, the original continues until their notification of the change reached you or until you could reasonably be deemed to have received it.

But I thought the FSA had taken steps to stop banks robbing Peter to pay Paul by opening new and similar accounts offering better rates of interest than the olde ones.

apt

First Direct have stuck to the contract and send out a very clear letter about 3 or 4 weeks before the one year 5% regular saver expires setting out the expiry date and what will happen to the account. If the OP has not bothered to read this letter (and seen how the 5 days it will take to set up the follow on account can easily be avoided) that is not the bank's fault.

anselld

PatrickGrant wrote: »

The bank then chose to vary that contract - but it did not inform you of the change until after the event?

That is not correct. The contract is exactly as it was at the outset.

If the OP has any valid point (which personally I doubt) it is regarding the way the information is presented and the advice received by phone, not the T&Cs.

masonic

2sides2everystory wrote: »

...blissfully ignorant of exactly how the account works (i.e. not like all of us who have posted in this thread) then receiving that final piece of paper with a final word in bold print that says Credit Interest 5% might easily wrongfoot you into leaving the balance where it is.

What I'd like to see is for the balance to be swept into my current account upon maturity. Those people who are lazy or forgetful could set up text message alerting to warn them of the large credit and remind them they need to do something with it. Sadly, I think there is very little chance of FD making it that easy. After all, they don't want to do too much to help people move their cash somewhere else.

LongTermLurker

PatrickGrant wrote: »

Why not think about this in terms of a contract?

The bank in effect entered into an agreement to pay a certain amount of interest. The bank then chose to vary that contract (WRONG!) - but it did not inform you of the change until after the event? (WRONG!) Who pays for that?

Well the bank assumes - not us - because it will say it published the change on its web site (WRONG!) . This of course wrongly assumes you log in and look for updates every day which is pretty wild assumption. After all, you may be a pensioner who goes down to the Internet Cafe every month or even year.

You could try to point out to them, the original continues until their notification of the change reached you or until you could reasonably be deemed to have received it. (Notification of change reached the depositor before he made the deposit)

But I thought the FSA had taken steps to stop banks robbing Peter to pay Paul by opening new and similar accounts offering better rates of interest than the olde ones.

Right from the start it was stated that the account would revert to a low-interest account on the anniversary of opening. The bank hasn't changed the rate without warning (they gave 12 months warning - how long do you want???) and they haven't posted the drop on the website because it was a planned drop, not something decided on a particular day.