Tesco Internet Saver

Ifts

I spoke to Tesco Finance today about opening a new Tesco Internet savings account. As I have already got one of these accounts, I thought I would be able to upgrade the old account to the new one, but was told instead I had to apply to open a new Internet Saving account to qualify for the new rate.
Once the new account is up and running I was told to call Tesco Finance again to close the old Internet Saver and transfer the balance to the new Internet Saver as you are only allowed to have one Internet Saver to be eligible for the bonus payment.

It would have been a lot easier if they just let you upgrade to the new Internet Saver over the telephone.

I will wait for the new account to be up and running, close the old Internet Saver and move the closing balance to the new one.

Then worth checking a few days later what rate you are getting on the new Internet Saver, just to make sure you are getting the new rate including the bonus.

psychic_teabag

mjmal51 wrote: »

Not quite sure why you would do that, maybe I'm misunderstanding your idea? You open a new internet saver with £1 funded from old account, then when new account details are available Tesco customer service will move all the old money over as instructed.
Having the 2 accounts is not a problem, just wish it was a bit simpler.

The problem, as noted above, is that the bonus is allowed on only one account at a time. If I open a new internet saver while I already have one, I assume I don't get the bonus on the new one. The paperwork may confirm that. If I then close the old one, I'm relying on someone changing the flag on the new one so that I do get the bonus. Because the interest is paid annually, I can't find out for sure what rate I'm getting. (I could phone, but if I get the wrong answer and don't have anything in writing, I lose.)

So I'd rather first close the old one, then open the new one. But since it's my only account, I risk having to go through the whole registration process, which would be a drag. Hence the proposal to temporarily open a non-bonus account so that at no time do I have two bonus accounts open.

EDIT: In post #16, ANGLICANPAT reports not getting the bonus after previously upgrading by opening a second account the obvious way.

mjmal51

psychic_teabag wrote: »

The problem, as noted above, is that the bonus is allowed on only one account at a time. If I open a new internet saver while I already have one, I assume I don't get the bonus on the new one. The paperwork may confirm that. If I then close the old one, I'm relying on someone changing the flag on the new one so that I do get the bonus. Because the interest is paid annually, I can't find out for sure what rate I'm getting. (I could phone, but if I get the wrong answer and don't have anything in writing, I lose.)

So I'd rather first close the old one, then open the new one. But since it's my only account, I risk having to go through the whole registration process, which would be a drag. Hence the proposal to temporarily open a non-bonus account so that at no time do I have two bonus accounts open.

EDIT: In post #16, ANGLICANPAT reports not getting the bonus after previously upgrading by opening a second account the obvious way.

Yes the process is a pain as we all have found out but all you miss out on is the bonus on the £1 in the new account whilst waiting for the old account money to transfer over.
Having done this a few times since Tesco first started I have never lost out on any bonus due.
The process recommended by Tesco does kind of contradict their rule of only being allowed one internet saver at a time.

malc_b

Perhaps the solution is for everyone to move to santandar for a year (they have 3.0% rather than 2.9%) and also email tesco ceo philip.clarke@uk.tesco.com saying that as a customer you have abused my loyalty by not increasing my interest rate in line with that of new customers. I am therefore move my £x savings to another bank. If enough people did that then perhaps they would take notice. It only takes 100 people with £10k savings to put tesco bank £1m down and surely they'd notice that.

This is what I shall be doing!

Stompa

malc_b wrote: »

Perhaps the solution is for everyone to move to santandar for a year....

Hmmm, out of the frying pan........

mjmal51

malc_b wrote: »

Perhaps the solution is for everyone to move to santandar for a year (they have 3.0% rather than 2.9%) and also email tesco ceo [EMAIL="philip.clarke@uk.tesco.com"]philip.clarke@uk.tesco.com[/EMAIL] saying that as a customer you have abused my loyalty by not increasing my interest rate in line with that of new customers. I am therefore move my £x savings to another bank. If enough people did that then perhaps they would take notice. It only takes 100 people with £10k savings to put tesco bank £1m down and surely they'd notice that.

This is what I shall be doing!

Santander do exactly the same hence people recently having to open Issue 3, close Issue 2 and move the money over so all the banks require existing customers to be vigilant.
None of them tell you about new rates.
There are people here with money in both Santander and Tesco anyway.

ANGLICANPAT

Quote ---"Yes the process is a pain as we all have found out but all you miss out on is the bonus on the £1 in the new account whilst waiting for the old account money to transfer over.
Having done this a few times since Tesco first started I have never lost out on any bonus due.
The process recommended by Tesco does kind of contradict their rule of only being allowed one internet saver at a time. "

Not so, Tesco in its wisdom have paid me correct bonus plus ordinary interest for my new 2.7 account on the end of March statement ,for the few weeks its been up and running, but havent given me any bonus interest at all on the many thousands I have had all year in the previous account which I closed after transferring .

SnowMan

My transfer to the new 2.9% (including 1.65% bonus) account from the 2.6% (including 1.35% bonus) account seems to be going very smoothly.

Applied on 7th April for the 2.9% account.

They sent through the bit of paper that you have to sign and return a few days later. Incidentally the rate sheet that came with that shows rate as 2.7% (but they have confirmed on the phone that is wrong and should be 2.9%)

I posted this back on Monday (11th)

The new account is showing alongside the old account when I log into internet banking from today (14th).

Rang up Tesco on 08457 104010 this evening and they are closing down my old account and transferring over the balance and accrued interest tomorrow.

I am expecting balance plus accrued interest including accrued bonus (i.e. 2.6% in total) to be moved over. I suspect that the interest won't show a separate amount for bonus but will check it does include bonus and post back to confirm that. That is what seemed to happen when I did this same manoeuvre previously. As interest including bonus was paid at the end of March for the 2.6% account we are talking small amounts of interest in any case.


Anglicanpat what makes you think that you didn't get the bonus paid when you closed the old account previously; have you checked it numerically or is it that bonus isn't showing on your statement?

kidmugsy

We applied for one but will not be proceeding. They sent T&Cs printed in a font so small that they would clearly prefer that I don't read them. Stuff that!

ANGLICANPAT

[QUOTE=SnowMan;
Anglicanpat what makes you think that you didn't get the bonus paid when you closed the old account previously; have you checked it numerically or is it that bonus isn't showing on your statement

Hi Snowman -Previous statements show the interest in two parts , the ordinary amount due on the basic rate, and the bonus interest. Only the ordinary one is shown on the statement for the last account I closed and its nowhere near enough to be a case that the two have been amalgamated ,which was my first thought.