Thinkbanking stay clear!!!

creditpunch

THESE GUYS ARE A COWBOY OUTFIT.

I’m short on time so will be quick even though I could write a book on these guys.
I have been with TB since January 2009, I pay £15 a month for very basic service and zero customer service. But it worked for me. They give you 2 accounts one for your incomes (called the salaries account) that you can’t touch and all your bills are paid from, then any surplus is put into your card account for you to spend. You get a Mastercard Debit with zero credit facility which is good. There telephone number is a very premium rate number but if things are running smoothly you can avoid using it. You get online banking and a text service too that helps you manage your account.

Down sides are opening hours are no existent at the weekends and holidays on everything including the call centres and last Christmas even my card stopped working at 5pm Christmas Eve which almost wrecked Christmas because it didn’t start working until 5 days later when the bank was open again. There is no branch you can go into to resolve emergency issues and you are at the mercy of the call centre staff being human and not hold you to ransom, which as you will see they aren’t. Any mistake on your account can take about 2 weeks for it to normalise, if you make a card payment online or otherwise that requires pre authorisation (such as Next orders, supermarket shopping etc. When you order something and they ring fence the money in your account then take it for real when they are about to dispatch) Think banking will actually take the money from your account and when the company goes to take it for real Think banking will take it again from your account. The first lot will remain in TBs holding account waiting for someone to come and take it for about 5-10 working days before they put it back into your account so in effect you pay for the thing twice although you will get you payment back after 2wks. This plays havoc when you’re talking about large sums.

If you have an irregular payment coming into your salaries account then it won’t be credited into your card account until the next day and not at all if you don’t tell them via phone (expensive call) to a money manager where and who and why it came from, else they will reject it. I refused to do this last week on a one off loan from a family member. I told them it was a transfer from a UK bank account, and it was for so many pounds and it was a one–off payment not a regular one. This wasn’t enough I need to tell them who this person was to me and why they where transferring money to me. I felt this was an intrusion of privacy and refused as a matter of principle. They said they would reject the payment. I said fine I will be changing accounts. Straight away I could not access my account on the phone, text, or online. I had no access to my account. They said it was technical problems when I called, which I don’t believe at all as it happen straight after the call. I had to wait 5 days till I could have access to my account/money. They said my salary would also be rejected if I didn’t tell them so I had to hot foot it over the road and open an account asap while telling my company to put my salary into my mum’s account for the time being. Totally held to ransom just because I didn’t want to divulge my personal life story.

So last night my account access came back and low and behold they haven’t rejected or returned the £600 to the family members account, they have held it and it says on my statement that it will clear on the 01/04/2011 (5 weeks!!!!!!) so not only did my tied me over loan not come to me I am now having to make explanations to my relative about their money. And who knows if TB will give it to me then. I have been on hold not for ages with them trying to sort this out, being put on hold and fobbed off. I have absolutely no other way of resolving this with them quickly apart from towing along their bullish ways.

So steer clear as this guys are cowboys and sharks with will do as they like with your money just for fun. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
I will be contacting the financial ombudsman as I’m sure this cannot be allowed or be fair.

Paul_Herring

£15 sounds a lot for the service they're actually providing.

If you can open two current accounts with different banks, you can do much the same as they're doing, for nothing.

Get your pay into account #1, get your DD's and SO's for bills set up on account #1.

Put any excess that won't be needed for bills into account #2, and use account #2 for your day to day needs.

All that, and you'd have an extra £15 per month, and a lot less hassle.

The difficult part will be taking some responsibility to ensure account #2 doesn't go into the red - something this outfit purport to prevent.

ehlo

The difficult part will be taking some responsibility to ensure account #2 doesn't go into the red - something this outfit purport to prevent.

You could use a prepaid card such as the o2 money card (which has no fees) to prevent going into the red.

[Deleted User]

ehlo wrote: »

You could use a prepaid card such as the o2 money card (which has no fees) to prevent going into the red.

or many other basic bank accounts or prepaid cards

birkee

The money transfer problem, is an unpublicised control operated by the government(?) in order to prevent cash transfers between terrorists and drug dealers etc.
At what ammount it kicks in, I've no idea, but when we had a relatives estate transferred to us from South Africa in 1982, we had people calling at the house, and we had to produce and show them all the Solicitors paperwork, and will etc, to prove that it was legal.
Has it's good points, but why do they not tell us about it?

Doesn't the USA operate a similar scheme, on amounts over $5000? $50000?

blueberrypie

birkee wrote: »

The money transfer problem, is an unpublicised control operated by the government(?) in order to prevent cash transfers between terrorists and drug dealers etc.
At what ammount it kicks in, I've no idea,

I very much doubt it kicks in for a £600 payment.

If you read what the OP wrote, you'll see that this was purely down to Think Banking's policies, and nothing whatsoever to do with money laundering regulations.

birkee

blueberrypie wrote: »

I very much doubt it kicks in for a £600 payment.

If you read what the OP wrote, you'll see that this was purely down to Think Banking's policies, and nothing whatsoever to do with money laundering regulations.

You know what 'the system' is like......no flexibility!
If a rule is in force for ONE situation, they go through the motions in every situation of money transfers. Bet ya!

JuicyJesus

blueberrypie wrote: »

I very much doubt it kicks in for a £600 payment.

If you read what the OP wrote, you'll see that this was purely down to Think Banking's policies, and nothing whatsoever to do with money laundering regulations.

I don't see why it would have been so hard to have just said what the payment was for etc. It's hardly unreasonable.

They weren't asking for a life story, just the source of an irregular payment. "It came from my family, they're lending some money." Hardly an intrusion of privacy, quick and saves a lot of bother.

blueberrypie

JuicyJesus wrote: »

I don't see why it would have been so hard to have just said what the payment was for etc. It's hardly unreasonable.

They weren't asking for a life story, just the source of an irregular payment. "It came from my family, they're lending some money." Hardly an intrusion of privacy, quick and saves a lot of bother.

In a way, I agree with you. If someone chooses to deal with an organisation like Think Banking, which is all about hand-holding and taking care of stuff that grown-ups are really supposed to be able to take care of for themselves, it shouldn't be a surprise if they're asked more questions than usual about the transactions on the account.

However my post wasn't anything to do with that - I was pointing out that it was highly unlikely that the questions were anything to do with money-laundering regulations.