Barclays Tax Beater Cash ISA - experiences so far (merged)

gelato_cat

I wasn't willing to take the risk and Egg turned out to have other advantages (online banking for one - I don't have any Barclays accounts so would have to apply for a current account to get it. Even then, can't do any transactions online).

Plus I only gave them £1 because I didn't trust them, so in the meantime I had £2999 sitting around waiting for the Barclays wheels to grind. Therefore backdating was going to give me next to nothing anyway.

Come to think of it, I think the 2006-7 applicants were assured that their deposits would be backdated to the date stamped on the cheque, so maybe you'll be alright.

Suze

fablad75 wrote:

They had better! I've been assured by their staff - admittedly this isn't saying much, but still! I'll be raising hell at my branch if I should find out otherwise.

MiserlyMartin

Its the date stamped on the cheque that I'm worried about. I sent mine by post before Easter. I hope they don't use some fictional date of receipt. Whats even more annoying is that there is no way of knowing if they ever recieved it. It might have been lost in the post, or lost by them in their chaotic backlog. They seem like a bunch of clowns.

gelato_cat

So it never got stamped in a branch? Don't know what date they'd use for date of opening in that case. Was it for last year's allowance or this year's?

The girl in the branch told me I'd have to wait two weeks, which didn't bother me too much, but given what others have said on here I'm not confident I'll be hearing from them any time soon!

Suze

MiserlyMartin wrote:

Its the date stamped on the cheque that I'm worried about. I sent mine by post before Easter. I hope they don't use some fictional date of receipt. Whats even more annoying is that there is no way of knowing if they ever recieved it. It might have been lost in the post, or lost by them in their chaotic backlog. They seem like a bunch of clowns.

MiserlyMartin

The application form got stamped with the branch ID. I had mislaid my NI number (despite as far as I know taking it with me on a piece of paper) so I took the form away to complete and send off with the cheque. I did this no later than March 27th. This years.

ED

Hope they sort it properly for you, MiserlyMartin. Also hope your judgement is astute re all those Base Rate rises by year-end! Bad for mortgage owners, but about time savings accounts had some real boosts. Perhaps it will indeed be only via 0.25% rises, because of Bank of England and PM-in-Waiting Gordon Brown.

bintheredunthat

'Pleased' ? to see that others are having problems with getting this ISA. My wife and I both went to our local branch (we are non-account holders) with the print off from the website and our cheques etc. When we arrived the staff member said that it was the wrong form as it was for a Mini ISA. I was sure that I had followed the Tax Beater link and this proved correct when I got home and checked i.e. you click on the Tax beater and end up on the mini isa application form ?!
This didn't bode well. The girl took for ever to stamp forms/copy documents/put things in envelopes etc. So much so that my wife pointed out to the staff member that she had forgotten to verify one application just before she was putting it in the envelope to seal it ! My parting words were "we won't see that lot again".
A month later and I've been proved right.
With no paperwork in sight and cheques not cashed, I telephoned yesterday to be told that it had been "heavily oversubscribed".
I suggested to the call centre operative that Banks have a habit of being caught out when a product offering something slightly better than the norm is brought out. They seem 'surprised' that people actually apply. They then have no staff or support in place to deal with the applications.
We now have to return to the branch to 'be identified' ie take our passports and utilities bills in. This I assume is a euphemism for "apply again, we've lost all your documents"
Does anybody from Barclays HQ read these forums. Have any responded?

excel30

I applied with my wife on March 30th for an ISA each, both at exactly same time.

My wifes one is up and running as of mid last week, cheque cashed and paperwork recieved through post.

My own one has not seen the cheque cashed yet and therefore no paper work. 3 weeks and nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!

So annoying my money is stuck in crappy a current account with very low interest. I sure hope they back date interest!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah right

Although at least we do have one account open.

altyfc

Yeah, at least you have one account open. My wife and I are both still waiting... *sigh*

I really do feel the ISA page on this site needs to be revised with some kind of warning. At the moment, it reads:

My top pick is Barclays' Tax Beater Cash ISA which allows instant access to your cash and pays 6.5% provided you've at least £1 with it. This account has a 'bonus interest rate' for the first year which means the rate drops to 5.5% after 12 months.

Normally I don't like bonus accounts, but as it's so much higher than the rest of the marketplace, and even when the rate drops it's not too far from a best buy, it's a clear winner. However, of course at that stage the true MoneySaving thing to do would be to ditch and switch to the top payer. The only real negative is it won't allow you to shift money you already have in other ISAs into it; it's only for those setting up new ISAs.

That's not the only real negative at all. And the REAL negative is that they're incompetent, don't open accounts and are sitting on thousands upon thousands of uncashed cheques.

MABLE

I'm certainly no fan of Barclays but I will say they were very efficient in the branch I went to open the isa account. Also when I rang their admin centre to find out about the fate of my application they were very good. However could not understand why they needed to know my income.

bintheredunthat

So come on Martin, what can we do about this wadge of money floating around in the ether ? Who can we complain to ? Can you use your clout :money: ?