Regular Saver - have i been ripped off?

Careful_ly

One of the terms and conditions on this account was that the current account had to be funded with £1000 minimum every month and some of this had to come in as a payment of salary or pension.
Another condition that was added after I had opened mine was that the date of the £250 credit could not be changed, I got a letter saying that I'd broken the terms but successfully appealed.

HTH

Jake'sGran

chelseakel wrote: »

Thank you both for your help!
Why are big banks allowed to state things like that when they sell you products!
I thought it sounded too good to be true!
I have registered a complaint so hopefully they'll explain

You will not get anywhere with your complaint. They put these ads in the paper with the monthly saving rate in big print and they know that many people do not understand how it works. The only way you would get 10% on £3000 is to deposit the full amount from the beginning. In my opinion the banks should make it plain on the advertisements exactly how the account works, even in small print. I phoned one bank last year to ask what the actual rate was and the girl I spoke to cheerfully told me it was something less than half of the percentage advertised. Fortunately I have never invested in a monthly saver but I do appreciate that the majority of people can save only on a monthly basis.

LittleVoice

Jake'sGran wrote: »

I phoned one bank last year to ask what the actual rate was and the girl I spoke to cheerfully told me it was something less than half of the percentage advertised. QUOTE]

Well she was wrong then, wasn't she. The money in the account at any time is earning the rate quoted (assuming the originally quoted rate is an annual one).

SeanW

There is nothing wrong with regular saver if you:

1) Are saving monthly from your salary, pension, income etc...
or
2) Have a fully subscribed Cash ISA, a lump sum, and a high rate savings account which lets you move money quickly, and without penalty.

In case (2), if you had a savings paying 5.5%, and a Regular saver paying 8%, I calculate an approximate actual rate of 6.8% over the year.

Jake'sGran

LittleVoice wrote: »

Jake'sGran wrote: »

I phoned one bank last year to ask what the actual rate was and the girl I spoke to cheerfully told me it was something less than half of the percentage advertised. QUOTE]

Well she was wrong then, wasn't she. The money in the account at any time is earning the rate quoted (assuming the originally quoted rate is an annual one).

You must have known what I meant i.e. that, in effect, at the end of twelve months the rate earned equates to much less than the rate advertised.

tom188

no!!!!!!!!!!!!! The rate you earn is 10%. if you had money in a normal savings account and kept taking money in and money out would you expect them to quote the rate based on the amount of interest you actually earned. No of course you wouldnt, so why the use the same nonsensical argument when discussing these regular savers.

Personally I am able to gain a rate of 7% effective on my entire savings (ie through drip feeding from one account) using these accounts. They provide allow one to get by far the best cash rate in the market place today. To say that they are a rip off or misleading in someway just suggests a complete misunderstanding of a relatively simple financial concept.

iva_2

chelseakel wrote: »

I'll pop into my branch at lunchtime and see what they say!

What did they say? It appears they calculated the interest at about 4% (Easy Saver) instead of 10% (Regular Saver). Looks like they penalised you (and me) for breaching the terms and conditions. I cannot detect anything wrong with my regular saver and neither can they so far - I have been put on hold while they are investigating right now... They filed a complaint - it will take 5 days for them to acknowledge that and 30 more days to investigate. Does seem like a rip-off attempt from Barclays. Do they expect people not to notice the discrepancy in the interest paid?

A Barclays adviser told me that it is a system error: when the standing order date falls on a weekend, the transfer is dated next Monday. It is inevitable that the condition of "the same day of each month" is broken. They are going to receive thousands of complaints (the adviser told that I was not the first who reported this). But they refuse to rectify this automatically for everyone, despite this being a nation-wide blunder. Everyone will have to register a complaint individually. Do they hope that most people will not bother?

Paul_Herring

iva wrote: »

What did they say? It appears they calculated the interest at about 4% (Easy Saver) instead of 10% (Regular Saver).

Hmm - something that hasn't been mentioned yet - and the calulations would appear to bear this out: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pNBpCyyhhED19EDCEohw2JQ

Looks like they penalised you (and me) for breaching the terms and conditions. I cannot detect anything wrong with my regular saver and neither can they so far - I have been put on hold while they are investigating right now... They filed a complaint - it will take 5 days for them to acknowledge that and 30 more days to investigate. Does seem like a rip-off attempt from Barclays. Do they expect people not to notice the discrepancy in the interest paid?

Well since people are arguing about the discrepancy between 10% on £3000 they're expecting and 10%/12 on 78 x £250[1] they should be getting, I'm sure they'll be complaining.

Very stupid system error: when the standing order date falls on a weekend, the transfer is dated next Monday. It is inevitable that the condition of "the same day of each month" is broken. They are going to receive thousands of complaints. But they refuse to rectify this automatically for everyone, despite this being a nation-wide blunder. Everyone will have to register a complaint individually. Do they hope that most people will not bother?

[1] For those unfamiliar with this way of putting it, the first month's £250 earns 12 months interest, second month's £250 earns 11 months interest...
Each month earns (roughly) 1/12th of the annual amount - the 10%/12
12+11+10...+1 = 78.

Edit: Corrected 72 to 78

iva_2

Paul_Herring wrote: »

people are arguing about the discrepancy between 10% on £3000 they're expecting and 10%/12 on 72 x £250[1] they should be getting, I'm sure they'll be complaining.

My impression from this thread is that people are arguing about the discrepancy between £130 they should be getting (as you calculated correctly) and £52 they are actually getting because of the standing order error made by the bank.

Paul_Herring

iva wrote: »

Paul_Herring wrote:

people are arguing about the discrepancy between 10% on £3000 they're expecting and 10%/12 on 72 x £250[1] they should be getting, I'm sure they'll be complaining.

My impression from this thread is that people are arguing about the discrepancy between £130 they should be getting (as you calculated correctly) and £52 they are actually getting because of the standing order error made by the bank.

From the very first post:

When Barclays sold me this i'm convinced the guy on the phone told me i would get £300 when it matured!