New Lloyds Vantage current account

AP

innovate wrote: »

Someone reported there was a problem upgrading from Classic to Silver once they had registered for the 4% offer.

So it's quite conceivable that the Lloyds systems can't cope automatically with such upgrades.

That whole 4% offer seems to have been invented by a Marketing department with little or no regard to how easy or otherwise it was to implement, and what the ongoing admin costs would be. Oh, and never mind those customers who'd love to be able to see whether they are on 3% or 4%, or who would have liked to request the 4% online - - - or even better, who could just have got the 4% if they met the pre-requisites.

This does seem to be the case every time when Lloyds TSB has an interest rate promotion on their current accounts. I remember a few years back when they had a similar promotion on their Classic Plus account when the customer can request to have it put on the promotional rate of 6%. They messed mine up big time and it took a good few months for them to have the back-dated interest credited back to my account. I was threatening to close the account at the time and also sent a strongly worded letter to their customer service centre in Birmingham expressing my dissatisfaction at their computer system being unable to deal with these changes. They then offered me compensation £10 twice to keep me sweet until it got sorted out in the end.

Gromitt

Steve_xx wrote: »

Yes, understand what you say , but, it is the case that the Vantage bit can be added to any of their account types. So I cannot understand why it would affect someone should they decide to upgrade.

'Should' being the perfect wording. We know Lloyds systems are weird and that even with the standard Vantage, you need to add a 'token' to the account to get the 4%. There's no saying that this 'token' is compatible with all the different account types, or for quickness they just allowed to add it to the 'Classic' account type (ie, the most used), specially since its only a temporary offer to get people to open new accounts. I can't imagine it being cheap to alter/add things to the system and then train staff how to use the new functionality.

From experience in the past, a lot of banking software is anything but logical.

For all we know, they could have been given a budget from HO that includes the extra interest, advertising, development, etc, and so they cut back on the development to spend more on the rest. It would make sense, considering how cheap it all seems (no difference via online banking, getting new packs in the post that only show 3% interest tier, staff inadequately trained, etc)

Dekota wrote: »

- am I ok to deposit £2,500 in cash? Or will I be asked questions? My grad account has £2,500 and I want to top up that to £5k and transfer to a vantage account.

If you already have the account, I'd open a new account and transfer it across. Much easier.

and Vantage is an addition, not an account itself. So you need a Classic account + Vantage. You can open the account with zero balance and then transfer later.

YorkshireBoy

pqrdef wrote: »

No it's not calendar month, quite. The Vantage month starts on the 2nd working day of the month and ends with the first working day of the next month.

Not according to the Vantage T&Cs...

The Vantage conditions are that each month you must:

• pay into your account at least £1,000 during the calendar month; and
• keep your account in credit (that is above £0) during the monthly billing period.

http://www.lloydstsb.com/current_accounts/vantage_ts_and_cs.asp

...it's only the interest that's calculated from second working day to first working day. Presumably the "monthly billing period" mentioned above is this second to first working day?

missile

Not that it really matters, but I would suggest it starts on 01st and the first days interest accrues 24 hrs later.

Thus if you have zero balance on the 01st you will get zero interest for that month.

iilg

What's the current state of play, can one upgrade to the new Vantage 4% bit by simply using their telephone banking? Or do you need to call a dedicated number at certain hours or visit branch in person? Ta.

Megabloks

Hopefully this may help those trying to work out if an account has been upgraded or someone feel free to disprove my theory.

My interest was paid yesterday and one account of the three was paid less than the others. Calculating the rates, that account was paid at the 3% rate only and did not have the intro/promo rate applied.

If I clicked the blue "Upgrade account" button on the two with the correct rate it gave the "There's a problem..." message. However, if I clicked the one it hadn’t been applied to, it showed me a list of all of the vantage accounts (gold, silver etc.).

I called and spoke to the Vantage team who confirmed that that account hadn’t had the rate applied, even though it was opened as that account. They duly applied it, but could not provide an explanation as to why it wasn’t done in the first place.

Anyhow, now when I log in, on that account, when I click the upgrade button I see the same “There’s a problem…” message. From this, we could surmise that if you click and see the "There's a problem..." message, your account has been upgraded.

Other point to note, check your interest carefully!

exel1966

missile wrote: »

Thus if you have zero balance on the 01st you will get zero interest for that month.

It doesn't work like that as the interest is calculated daily on the closing balance. You could have several days of a zero balance and still get paid interest on the other days the account has funds.
Only if you go into the red during the month will you not get paid any interest at all. This is the way it's always worked and how I've always been paid since conception 4-5 years ago.

exel1966

Megabloks wrote: »

Hopefully this may help those trying to work out if an account has been upgraded or someone feel free to disprove my theory.

If I clicked the blue "Upgrade account" button on the two with the correct rate it gave the "There's a problem..." message. However, if I clicked the one it hadn’t been applied to, it showed me a list of all of the vantage accounts (gold, silver etc.).

I called and spoke to the Vantage team who confirmed that that account hadn’t had the rate applied, even though it was opened as that account. They duly applied it, but could not provide an explanation as to why it wasn’t done in the first place.

Anyhow, now when I log in, on that account, when I click the upgrade button I see the same “There’s a problem…” message. From this, we could surmise that if you click and see the "There's a problem..." message, your account has been upgraded.

Other point to note, check your interest carefully!

Already proved and noted. Already discussed at length here a few weeks ago.

Dustykitten

Megabloks I can confirm your theory works on my accounts - 3 give an error message (those I rang about yesterday to upgrade) the other 2 don't

pearl123

Is it ok to use and R85 forum for this vantage account? I earn under the threshold.
The reason I ask is I suppose they would expect those who use this account to be in employment and paying in their wage in.
Would anyone else hesitate in sending a R85 form.