Is it worth me applying to Santander?

junglejim2

Thanks for your patronising advice. I received funds to invest in early March so I couldn't apply any sooner.
25 days should be plenty of time to open an account, even during busy periods. Santander do plenty of advertising in the run up to 6th April do drag in last minute business. Their management should then be able to organise the rush but they clearly can't or wont.
It is absolutely their fault, they cynically move slowly to deprive you of interest.
Other posters have mentioned santanders claim that emails from them relating to the new account are rejected, they spun that line to me.
It is bull and only a fool would think otherwise.

low_spen

I have just about decided to do the following.

1. Open a new maximum Cash Isa with the Nationwide.

2. Transfer three existing Cash Isa`s(Kent Reliance/ H.S.B.C./Alliance& Leicester.

My logic is that I will not need any of the money for a few years and I feel that the ONE year fixed period I will go ahead with, is long enough.Any increase in the Bank Rate in the next twelve monthds wiil(I think) be negligible and I will look at the situation next Spring.

Any faults in my plan?

spikyone

junglejim2 wrote: »

Thanks for your patronising advice.

Nothing I said was patronising. Are you genuinely telling me that you couldn't have opened an ISA any earlier in the year, even to put £1 in?

junglejim2 wrote: »

25 days should be plenty of time to open an account, even during busy periods. Santander do plenty of advertising in the run up to 6th April do drag in last minute business.

But part of the problem from your case is that they needed ID. From your posts, they sent the letter about 7-10 days after you applied. As I said, they are busy with ISA applications at that time of year, like all banks. I don't think that's an unreasonable length of time to process it and send you a letter.
And if you look here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3159684
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3158258
...and generally have a search on these boards, you'll see several comments along the lines of "banks are busy at that time", and you'll also see that other banks have made mistakes/caused delays. I'll re-iterate though, if you leave it until 48/49 weeks into the tax year to take out an ISA, any delay will be a problem. You need to take at least some of the responsibility for this and learn from your side of the mistakes. Whoever you apply to for this year's allowance, apply early, or go into a branch so that you know the account's been opened successfully.

low_spen wrote: »

I feel that the ONE year fixed period I will go ahead with, is long enough.Any increase in the Bank Rate in the next twelve monthds wiil(I think) be negligible and I will look at the situation next Spring.

Any faults in my plan?

This isn't the first place you've posted this idea, and as before I still can't work out why you want to fix for one year, given that instant access accounts already pay more interest than the Nationwide 1-yr FRISA! So yes, the obvious fault is that you'll lose money.

Get a Santander Felixible ISA, or if you don't like them, get the Barclays Golden ISA. You may think base rate is unlikely to rise, but you'll be getting a better rate even if it doesn't.

junglejim2

From your posts, they sent the letter about 7-10 days after you applied

I take no reponsibility whatsoever, why are you making excuses for an organisation that has a well known record of poor service. They are big enough to look after themselves without you helping.
They only sent the letter requesting id because they 'claim' they were unable to email me, thus causing the interest sapping delay.

Honestly spikey the same thing happened last year, I am not on a crusade against Santander, but I think they are disingenuous.

Lowspen, I hope you don't give santander the business but if you do I would be very interested to hear whether you too have Santander email problems.

mshepherd

AVOID AT ALL COSTS!
I applied for a santander isa online for the 2010/11 tax year a few weeks before the end of the tax year (having confirmed there was still time to do this), and completed the section to directly transfer money from my santander account. After a long delay I received some paper forms on 5th April to apply for the isa. When I queried the helpline saying I had applied online and understood that this was the application, they said that the actual application had to be posted in with a cheque, and that this was the same procedure for all isa's from all providers (not true as at the same time I had applied for a different one for my wife online and it had gone through directly)! When I questioned this the girl on the helpline was very rude, telling me I was wrong and obviously didn't know how it worked. When I said that I had gone for this isa by recommendation from Money saving expert, she replied by saying that the information on the site was also wrong.

As by this time it was 5pm on the 5th April it was now too late to open the isa for that year. Since then I have been sent several letters, with a bankcard and other details, however I will be closing this account immediately as I am afraid that there is no way I can cope with a helpline that is consistently rude, and blames the customer for everything.

I am surprised that this site continues to recommend this isa, and feel that if it does that it is a lot clearer on how poor the service can be. Otherwise this poor ciustomer service will reflect back on you!

junglejim2

MShepherd....just out of interest did these letters you received say something along the lines of 'we tried to email you but emails were rejected so we are writing to you instead' ?