first direct not happy 2nd £100 pound 31 December 2010 at 8:46AM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Budgeting & Bank Accounts 13 replies 4.2K views

bilbo_2

hello how easy is it to get the 2nd £100 pound after 6 monthly wsges have gone in ??

will they accept a secure message saying I am not happy and close it

also I have a regular saver should i close it now or wait till I close the current ac?

Thanks

Morn

I remember reading that someone tried a simple 'You internet banking is not to a high enough standard' line and was rejected for the £100.

They then went back with another complaint and got it.

Basically pick a real issue and you should be fine, although I am not sure I would want to leave FD as thus far they have be superb.

apt

If you leave you will have to close your regular saver and also receive next to no interest on it. You also will not be allowed to rejoin First Direct later. If you are leaving just to pocket £100 you would make that in extra interest in less than 2 years by taking up offers like the 8% regular saver or the 7% regular ISA before that.

JuicyJesus

bilbo wrote: »

hello how easy is it to get the 2nd £100 pound after 6 monthly wsges have gone in ??

will they accept a secure message saying I am not happy and close it

also I have a regular saver should i close it now or wait till I close the current ac?

Thanks

From what's been said on here, all of your accounts with First Direct have to be closed to get the second £100, and you also have to have had a genuine issue with an aspect of their service (not HSBC's branch service and not anything you could have reasonably known when you opened the account, e.g. interest rate).

Either way if you close the Regular Saver early you won't earn the full headline rate of interest.

adamc260

First Direct are like the best bank in the UK... if your leaving them JUST to get the £100 thats kind of daft =/ Do you have a GENUINE reason why you want to leave?

pKaTz

I joined to get the £100 bonus, but I had forgotten that I had opened an account 4 years ago, which had been closed- so I didnt get the bonus.

make sure you guys keep track of what you are doing.

I am still with them just for the 8% reg saver. Its still month1 for me.

bilbo_2

Direct debits (2) didn;t get paid and then when I opened the regular saver it opened but they didn't take any payments from me had to email them 5 times to get them to take a payment for the regular saver. Then got some guy cold call me asking for security questions from my account in order to sort out problem with the regular saver. I hate cold callers and had to warn them that if they cold called me again I would close my account.
Anyway I've only paid 2 payments into the regular saver account so no great loss there.
Had to hound them for the £100 incentive. They took 3 days sometimes to answer secure messages.

Shouldn't have any reason to deny me the other £100 for closing in four months.

apt

The loss from the regular saver will be about £80 over the year if you are funding it with £300 per month and are a basic rate taxpayer, plus the £250 free overdraft is worth something. So go ahead and claim the £100 if you are unhappy and want to leave, but if you want to make more money it would make sense to stay.

bilbo_2

To be honest the direct debit mix up and regular saver set up error are not the main reason.
Its the Cold caller who rang and started asking me security questions passwords date of birth etc etc

Cold calling like that from banks should be banned as you can not verify who you are taking to.

adamc260

I've never been cold called by HSBC (Which are the main bank behind FD) but I can see how it would be worrying someone just calling up asking you details without you being able to confirm things about them.

I know when I did work for HSBC though, whenever they called they'd give you some information and make you confirm the rest

Ie: we have your date of birth as.... the 5th of June... what year? etc

JacksterD

bilbo wrote: »

To be honest the direct debit mix up and regular saver set up error are not the main reason.
Its the Cold caller who rang and started asking me security questions passwords date of birth etc etc

Cold calling like that from banks should be banned as you can not verify who you are taking to.

What did they call you for? The only time I've been called by my bank and asked security questions is when they suspected fraud on my credit card - and to be honest I really appreciate these calls!