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Smile customers
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BTW, Smile are due to change their bank charges in December.0
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StretfordEnder6899 wrote: »BTW, Smile are due to change their bank charges in December.
Changes effective from 5th December:
Below is a quick guide to the main changes:
- Using and Sharing Your Information - we have moved this to the beginning of the terms and made changes requested by CIFAS (the UK's Fraud Prevention Service) and to comply with regulation issued by the Financial Action Task Force (an intergovernmental body whose purpose is the development and promotion of policies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing) in relation to electronic payments overseas.
- Conditions 2 and 3 deal with what happens when you make a payment into your account and what happens when you make a payment out. We have clarified what will happen in some specific circumstances including when payments are made by mistake, delays that may arise and how cheques should be completed.
- Condition 4 clarifies how your payments will be cleared.
- Condition 5 deals with joint accounts and, in particular, clarifies what happens in the event of a dispute or death.
- Condition 6 deals with borrowing and overdrafts. We have made the term clearer in relation to our overdraft services, in particular, how we will deal with formal and informal requests for our overdraft services. A formal overdraft is where we have agreed a formal limit with you in advance and an informal overdraft is where you overdraw or exceed an existing overdraft limit without having agreed with us in advance (in these circumstances it will be within our discretion to agree your request). We have also reviewed how we will charge for formal and informal requests for an overdraft. Please refer to the updated account charges leaflet, which clearly sets out the charges you can expect for our overdraft services. As part of the review of our terms we have updated our overdraft policy and advise, whilst we appreciate the need for short term borrowing facilities and will endeavour to accommodate such requests, we will be more proactive in our contact with you if you use our overdraft services. We would also always encourage you to request an overdraft formally. Generally, an overdraft which is not agreed in advance is more expensive than one that is.
<script><!-- D(["mb","\u003cbr /\>- Condition 9 sets out the terms relating to card issue and use, including your PIN, and clarifies when we may refuse a payment. It also covers registration with a service called Verified by Visa to help reduce fraud when you pay for goods or services ordered on the internet.\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>- Condition 10 has brought together the security requirements. It is very important you are familiar with these requirements, which include your obligations in relation to your PIN and other security information and the reasonable precautions we expect you to take.\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>- Condition 11 has brought together the terms relating to telephone and internet banking use.\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>- Condition 13 clarifies how changes to the terms can be made in future.\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>As stated above, the changes will be effective from 5th December 2007, but we\'re not asking you to do anything other than simply read this and the terms and account charges information.\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>Please remember you always have the option to close your account if you are not happy with the changes, but we too can close your account, with appropriate notice, if you do not keep to the terms (see condition 12, Closing your Account).\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>If you have any questions about anything in this email, please email your query to our enquiries team at \u003ca onclick\u003d\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href\u003d\"mailto:questions_for_you@smile.co.uk\"\>questions_for_you@smile.co.uk\u003c/a\>\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>Thanks\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>smile\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>******************************\u003cwbr /\>******************************\u003cwbr /\>******************************\u003cwbr /\>*********************\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>The legal bit\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>smile, as part of The Co-operative Bank, is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (No. 121885), subscribes to the Banking Code, is a member of the Financial Ombudsman Service and is licensed by the Office of Fair Trading (No. 006110).\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>This e-mail is intended solely for the addressee and is strictly confidential. If you are not the addressee, please do not read, print, re-transmit, store or act in reliance on it or any attachments. Instead please e-mail it back to the sender and delete the message from your computer. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error free and The Co-operative Bank accepts no liability for changes made to this e-mail (and any attachments) after it was sent or for viruses arising as a result of this e-mail transmission. Any unauthorised reproduction, dissemination, copying, disclosure, modification, distribution and/or publication of this e-mail message is strictly prohibited. The Co-operative Bank may intercept any email or other communication which you send to or receive from smile via the Bank\'s telecommunication systems for certain permitted lawful purposes. By so corresponding you also give your consent to Bank monitoring and recording of any correspondence using these systems. The Co-operative Bank p.l.c. is registered in England and Wales, number 990937. The registered office is at PO Box 101, 1, Balloon Street, Manchester, M60 4EP. As part of The Co-operative Bank, smile subscribes to and supports the Banking Code.\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>\u003cbr /\>\u003c/div\>",0] ); //--></script>
- Condition 9 sets out the terms relating to card issue and use, including your PIN, and clarifies when we may refuse a payment. It also covers registration with a service called Verified by Visa to help reduce fraud when you pay for goods or services ordered on the internet.
- Condition 10 has brought together the security requirements. It is very important you are familiar with these requirements, which include your obligations in relation to your PIN and other security information and the reasonable precautions we expect you to take.
- Condition 11 has brought together the terms relating to telephone and internet banking use.
- Condition 13 clarifies how changes to the terms can be made in future.
Please remember you always have the option to close your account if you are not happy with the changes, but we too can close your account, with appropriate notice, if you do not keep to the terms (see condition 12, Closing your Account).0 -
Hello all, newbie here but I thought i'd come on and let you know (as an irate smile customer) that their new charges are now available here:
http://www.smile.co.uk/images/pdf/CurrentAccountT&Cs.pdf
The daily excess charge is going up from £5 to £20, with a maximum of 4 charges a month, however that means in 4 days you could accrue as many charges as you would usually get from being over your limit for 16 days!
And the flat charge of £15 is going up to £20.
I sent them a very nasty email after they applied £160 worth of charges this month for going £30 over my limit (and I only went over the limit due to another charge) and they were very unwilling to refund, due to previously refunding some as a gesture of goodwill.
So I threatened to close my account, and they still refused to budge. This is just the straw that broke the camels back, I will be cancelling my account with Smile before these new charges are implemented.
I must say, for an "ethical bank" the charges they are apply are far from that!
I'll look around on here for the best bank to go for, unless anyone has any recommendations?
JamesDebt Summary:
[STRIKE]Natwest 5yr £4000 loan[/STRIKE] - Paid off!
[STRIKE]£3.8k loan from parents[/STRIKE] - Paid off!
Capital One Progress MasterCard - £500 limit - paying off in full each month0 -
I have this month been charged £55 by smile.co.uk for going £6 overdrawn, so I gave them a ring. The girl on the phone told me I'd need to send a secure message through my account, so I sent this:Hi,
I was at Tesco today, and I was under the impression that I still had a few pounds left of my overdraft allowance. I was declined, so I went to a cashpoint only to find that £50 worth of charges had been applied to my account.
On further inspection, it seems that the charges are the result of an interest payment (which, admittedly, caught me off guard).
I'd like to know if it'd be possible for you to remove the charges as a one-off?
Thanks in advance,
WilliamHello Mr Squires
The charge of £55 is for going over your agreed overdraft limit of £500. The charges for going over your overdraft limit are:
- £15.00 service charge (this is for going over the agreed overdraft limit)
- £5.00 daily charge (for every day you're over your overdraft limit).
Our charging period runs from the 5th of one month to the 4th of the next month, with the charges applied on or as near to the 21st of the month as possible.
You were over your overdraft limit from 22/10/2007 to the 30/10/2007.
I have had a review of your account and as there has been no bank error on the account I am only able to offer a 50% refund on the charges totalling to £27.50, I will also make sure that no charges next month on the account are applied due to these charges, however you will need to get funds into the account to bring you within your limit.
Thanks
NatalieThat really is the most you can do as a one-off?
It's incredibly difficult for me to actually get any funds into the account, and it will be until tuesday.
I've got to admit, this is all leaving me with an incredibly sour taste on my tongue. After my application details being 'lost' when I tried to open this account, I now feel like I'm not really getting a good service with it.
I know one or two people who bank with your parent, the Co-Operative bank who have reliably informed me they were offered to have the charges taken away as a one-off...
Surely with Smile effectively being a branch of said bank you can offer the same to me?Hello Mr Squires
As there is no bank error we don't normally give any refunds but as a gesture of good will we have given you 50%. As you are still overdrawn in your account and were at the time of the refund, this shouldnt have been offered. You do need to contact our managed accounts team with the status of your account and you can contact them on 0870 241 1068.
The Coop bank is not our parent company. We are an independent sister company under the Cooperative Group. Each case of bank charges are reviewed on an individual circumstance and unfortunbately we cannot comment on the Coops refund procedure as every customer is treated as an individual.
If you are still unhappy after this response, please reply to this message and your complaint will then follow our escalation process.
At this stage we are required to let you know that smile will regard your complaint as closed if we do not receive a reply within 8 weeks of this response.
If you remain unhappy after exhausting our internal complaints procedure, you may ask for your complaint to be referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Full details of our procedures are on our website, https://www.smile.co.uk, click on 'Talk to us' then 'Complaints' on the right hand side.
Thanks again
Heather
What I would actually like is all the money back, not some smarmy response incorrectly declaring that Smile is totally seperate from the Co-operative Bank.
What should I do next?
Thanks in advance!
William x
EDIT: Just rang the 0870 number and the woman refused to go further than 50%.0 -
Hi all.
Has anyone claimed there bank charges from this bank. i phoned customer service to ask for my bank statements since 04 as that is when i joined them and they said that i would need to pay £10 per statement but i could get last year on my account.
Has anyone else had this problem ???. If i send the letter will they send them ??
Thanks
Robert0 -
All banks can and do charge per statement, you need to use the template letter in Martin's article here...
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges#step2
and ask for your details under the DPA.0 -
Read the article, but you're basically asking for a list of the charges from your bank and there is a £10 maximum charge, however, if they can't supply you with a list of all charges, then you will accept copies of your statements, but as Edinburghlass says you're asking for the details under the Data Protection Act.
I wrote to Clydesdale Bank and said that if there is a charge to let me know, they didn't and sent the statements anyway, not bad for them I suppose.Thanks to all the competition posters.0 -
who is i make the cheque out too ??0
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Please can anyone having experience with the Co-op/Smile Online ethical bank provide me with further insight?
I don't expect them to be perfect, but ethical use of investment funds, customer care, etc. would be a very good start.
I'm planning to switch to them for online banking soon.
Thanks!0 -
I am now £44 over my £700 on my SMILE overdraft due to my bank loan coming out. I knew this was going to happen and asked my bank for a temporary overdraft increase to £800 until payday, which was less than two weeks off. They refused.
Because I have gone over my limit I am being charged £20 management fee per month and a service fee of £20 a day for up to 4 days. So as soon as my wage goes in, £100 will go out in bank charges.
On reading through the banks info I found this:-"if you don't ask us for an increase but go over the agreed limit anyway, you will pay interest of 15.9% EAR on the overlimit balance, there'll also be a £20 management fee every month and a service fee of £20 a day (up to a maximum of 4 charges per month). So it's always better to ask."
Does this apply to me as I did ask, yeah they said no but I asked?
There's nothing in there about being turned down and going over your limit!!!!
They have emailed me to contact their Managed Accounts team to discuss this. What's the piont in that if I can't have the increase and I don't get paid for another week. I'll still get hit with the charges!!!!
</PRE>0
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