£100 if you switch to Nationwide (6 month+ existing members only)

YorkshireBoy

JoeA81 wrote: »

...a lot of extra work for no benefit to Nationwide!

Exactly the point I put to Nationwide's 'Product Manager - Banking' at their Head Office when I rang for details of the offer. She said "that's the benefit of mutuality, we like to give something back to our members".

...because from what I have been told, if you have applied for this switching process using an existing flexaccount, then you will NOT qualify for the free £100...

The trouble is you have been speaking to branch staff, who are usually (in my opinion) the least clued up*. Indeed, if you check out the offer T&C's they clearly state...

Terms and conditions
The promotion will run from 19 March to 5 May 2007 and is open to anyone who has:
(a) held a Nationwide product for six months or more;
(b) transfers their existing current account to Nationwide’s FlexAccount; and
(c) will credit £1,000 or more per month to their Nationwide FlexAccount and is accepted for, or already holds, a debit card account**

* When I opened my LTSB current account/regular saver last December, the 'banking advisor' wasn't aware of their upcoming Save The Change scheme - despite there being a 4' x 3' poster advertising it in the branch window!

** Just a thought...is it possible that you (and/or your GF) only hold a 'cashcard', and not a Visa DEBIT card?

JoeA81

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

The trouble is you have been speaking to branch staff, who are usually (in my opinion) the least clued up.

Can't disagree with you there!

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Just a thought...is it possible that you (and/or your GF) only hold a 'cashcard', and not a Visa DEBIT card?

Ahhh, that may be it. Both of our account are just cardcash I think, with no debit card. But that was never mentioned in the branch that I was in, so even if we had had debit card facilities I still think they would have made us open new flex accounts.

Why having a debit card should make a difference I dont know. I will just be annoyed if I had to waste 10 minutes of my life filling out a form if I didnt have to!

techno_geek

Both phone and branch staff knew nothing of the offer, except that it was running!!

I've applied in-branch to "switch", despite most of my DDs are taken from my FlexAccount anyway! £100 for free ain't bad at all...

thumshie

JoeA81 wrote: »

Why having a debit card should make a difference I dont know. I will just be annoyed if I had to waste 10 minutes of my life filling out a form if I didnt have to!

Nationwide offer the two 'flexaccounts'.
1. Cashcard -available without a credit check.
2. Debit card - needs to pass a credit check. (Also enables Chequebook and OD)

You can't upgrade from cashcard to debit card, and you must open a new account! You can hold both side by side if you wish. Also you could transfer DD's and SO's on the cashcard only type of account by filling in the form, but you wouldn't get the £100.

stylus360

I have also been to local branch about this. I have a flex account purely for abroad (debit card) and overpayments with mortage.
The PROBLEM i have though is that i applied to switch accounts from Barclays on 22/2/07 BEFORE this deal came into effect. That was my APPLICATION date. I recieved the forms to switch dd/so on the 22/3/07.
How can i get around this. The advisor at branch reckons i am now not eligable....
She is going to contact head office anyway to find out the score.
Anyone got any ideas or help me out here..

techno_geek

thumshie wrote:

Nationwide offer the two 'flexaccounts'.
1. Cashcard -available without a credit check.
2. Debit card - needs to pass a credit check. (Also enables Chequebook and OD)

Not true - they will credit check you when you open an account, and use the details they get from it to decide whether to offer you a debit card or cashcard.

Just because you have a cashcard does not mean you can't have an overdraft or a chequebook. I used to have a cashcard with a chequebook and a £500 overdraft (account was opened when I was 17, and i got the chequebook then... when I turned 18 they offered me the overdraft but no debit card!)

thumshie wrote:

You can't upgrade from cashcard to debit card, and you must open a new account! You can hold both side by side if you wish. Also you could transfer DD's and SO's on the cashcard only type of account by filling in the form, but you wouldn't get the £100.

You can upgrade from the cashcard to the debit card, but it's often easier to open up a new flexaccount if your circumstances have changed!

thumshie

techno_geek wrote:

Not true - they will credit check you when you open an account, and use the details they get from it to decide whether to offer you a debit card or cashcard.

Not true
OK, I'll correct myself:
Don't know about now, but 5'ish years ago when i opened my Flexaccount I had the option of getting the cashcard without a credit check, or applying for the full account which required a credit check, and that may have came with Debit card. Didn't ever intend on using debit card so applied for the simple account(no OD no chequebook). I've asked twice about upgrading my account(year ago and last week) both times told I can't upgrade as a credit check was never done, so a new application was the only way. My circumstances haven't changed....

JoeA81

Ok, after all that it looks like I have failed the credit check! I just got a phonecall from my local branch saying as much. I asked why I had failed, and the guy said "Experian doesnt give a reason why, all we can say is we can't offer you the account".

What could be on my credit rating to cause this? I am a little worried now. I was a student for a while sure, but I've been earning a good wage for 18 months now, I always pay my credit card balance in full each month, and I successfully applied for a credit card with egg money last week. I've never had any form of 'money trouble' so why have Experian got something on me that nationwide doesnt like?

Edit: They've rejected my girlfriend's application as well! And I could not think of a person more credit-worthy than her...this seems very odd.

MrChips

When I tried to open a Nationwide flex account back in 2004, I was also given the "inferior" current account after failing the credit check. I was surprised as I considered myself a fairly safe risk. They told me to give it 6 months and come back to the branch and try for an upgrade.

The guy who I saw 6 months later was a lot more clued up and told me I was failed because I had an address which didn't quite match the format on their system so it couldn't match it to my credit file (a problem he had seen a few times before). The problem was that I lived in a block of flats so instead of my address being (eg):

123 Fake Street
Fake Town
Fakefordshire
FA66 6KE

it was:

123 Fake Buildings
Fake Street
Fake Town
Fakefordshire
FA66 6KE.

As with many such systems these days, if they searched for my address by entering the post code and house number, it would generate the first example above, which was an existing address, but which wasn't mine.

Do you live in a flat in a block like me?

JoeA81

I used to live in a block of flats, but I recently moved into a new house (with a 'proper' address), which [slaps head] is probably the reason why I was denied, as its the main thing me and my girlfriend now have in common, which points to it being the main reason for both of us failing to get the account. Someone I spoke to says that if the address has previously been blacklisted it can cause problems.