Co-Op bank - £200 if you switch to them

weanie

Lured byt he prospect of £200, I have switched my account and now it seems I can see the downside! I understood that the Co-op were going to do all the legwork in contacting all the necessary companies who require payment from my accoount each month.
I have a situation now where two of my payments have not been made and fines have been added from each company. The Co-op reckon that they contacted them and told them about the switch but that it takes a few days for the warned switch to happen and a sa consequence both companies have not attempted to acquire payment from my old account and have now charged me fines. The Co-op say it is not their fault and the Building Society says likewise. I have raised acomplaint with teh Building Society but also feel let down by the Co-op who say it simply isn't their fault. I have ample money in both accounts by the way.
Has any one else experience along these lines?

NorthernStudent

Bring on the promised 7-day switching!

Gromitt

weanie: This is exactly why people don't switch 'live' accounts. Always have a 'dummy' account ready to switch, and then if you like the bank you can switch your DDs and SOs yourself gradually, knowing you are doing it just after a payment so they have a months notice.

The other added benefit is that if you don't like the bank, you can just claim the incentive and walk away, closing the account some months later with no hassle.

System

weanie wrote: »

I have a situation now where two of my payments have not been made and fines have been added from each company.

These is what is supposed to happen:
http://www.bacs.co.uk/Bacs/Banks/BacsServices/Accountswitching/Pages/TransferOfDirectDebitsAndStandingOrderService.aspx
I think you need to press the companies that have 'fined' you to explain why they failed to act properly on the (usually, electronic) notice from the Co-op that, from date x, they should collect from your new Co-op account, not your Building Society account.
You could also check whether and when your Building Society actioned the request from the Co-op to cancel your direct debit authorities with the Building Society.

Nath4n

I switched account about a year ago and my Vodafone contract seamlessly switched over. Not so easy this time round. Halifax cancelled the DD and it started showing in Co-op, all good I thought. Thankfully today (the day the payment is due) I checked vodafone to find my account had no record of a DD set up. I rang them and Vodafone told me they'd recently changed their policy on setting up new DD's without customer authorisation. So basically had received a cancellation request for the old Halifax one but did nothing about setting up the new Co-op one. Paid the bill using CC and set up DD for the next month manually. Would have been nice for a heads up, late payment penalty would have been a nasty shock.

chanz4

I setup x2 dds that never will be taken and 2 dummy so's.

ZELDARINO

I'm happy to say I received the letter(s) from Co-op confirming they had transferred the four standing orders from my Nationwide account and that I would be eligible for the £200 bonus if I deposited at least £800 into the account each month.
Of course, the standing orders were to accounts I have with other banks. They were:

7th Monthly = £7.77 NW > Lloyds TSB TWO
7th Monthly = £7.77 NW > Lloyds TSB THREE
9th Monthly = £9.64 NW > Northern Rock
11th Monthly = £4.82 NW > Santander

Co-op stated in the letter that the switch would be complete by November 28th so when I logged onto my account today (21/11) I was pleased to see that the standing orders were displaying on the account. However, all was not as I would have liked it.

Firstly, the standing order to my third Lloyds TSB Advantage account wasn't displaying. Had I confused them by setting up standing orders of the same ammount to the same bank on the same date even though both Advantage accounts have different sort codes and account numbers? In the letter confirming what accounts would be transferred from Nationwide it did state clearly that all four had been noted by the Co-op switching team. So should I give it another week for it to fully clear or just accept it as it is? There's no chance of me going overdrawn on either account but it would be nice to know where my money is bouncing around to.

Also, to other Co-op bank account holders, in the list of standing orders from your account does it display what date these are due to be paid out on? At the moment it doesn't in mine and I'm wondering if this is to be expected from the Co-op online banking website or will the payment dates eventually show? I already know the dates because I'm meticulous/obsessive about such things but I think a basic omission as not displaying standing order dates could cause problems to people.

adindas

N9eav
It is not silly to have more than one current a/c. I will even say the people that have a lot of bank a/c such as a lot of people in this forum are very smart people. I will definitely will not call them silly. Many people in this forum have benefited from having a lot of bank a/c such as high interest rate, earning incentives, get free £5 a month, etc.

Also it is a good idea to have more than one because:
If you loose/damage your Debit cards, or the computer server of your bank is down, say the worst case during the weekend, you could still use the other cards to withdraw money as an emergency measure.

But if you only need one bank a/c I think the option is to talk to them hopefully they will agree to increase the day withdrawal limit.

N9eav wrote: »

Thats sort of silly. I need one bank account and access to my money when I need it. I also rarely use cash, but on the one occasions I needed some, I could not get it. I had hoped that the Post Office who deal with Coop accounts might have that facility, but they don't. Even a phone call to customer services could not get them to authorise a larger amount.
But I doubt I will switch banks again, just for that...

adindas

Got confirmation letter today DDs and SOs are completed. £200 is confirmed to be paid after I pay £800 for at least three months which is an easy job: transfer forward and back again the same day, just need a few minutes to do that each month.

When I did transfer my first £800, I just notice it is very quick just took a few minutes to arrive.

Wilma33

ZELDARINO wrote: »

Firstly, the standing order to my third Lloyds TSB Advantage account wasn't displaying. Had I confused them by setting up standing orders of the same ammount to the same bank on the same date even though both Advantage accounts have different sort codes and account numbers? In the letter confirming what accounts would be transferred from Nationwide it did state clearly that all four had been noted by the Co-op switching team. So should I give it another week for it to fully clear or just accept it as it is? There's no chance of me going overdrawn on either account but it would be nice to know where my money is bouncing around to.

I don't think their switching system can cope with two standing orders for the same amount on the same day as I had the same problem. The only way to get it set up now is to phone them and get them to do it manually.

As an aside, I think it's silly to only have one current account!