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

SarahNeedle1872

That's absolute nonesense!!! How is it your fault that they took 26 days to open your account!?!
I know they said they were busy, but surely they knew with rates like that, they were gonna get a lot of interest and should have taken more people on.
I wouldn't be surprised if a large number of customers, especially those of us who don't normally bank with Barclays, shut their ISAs as soon as they're open. This service is pretty rubbish...
I'm just glad that I only gave them a cheque for £10 and the money I intended to put in there is still earning reasonable interest.

Kazza242

SarahNeedle1872 wrote: »

That's absolute nonesense!!! How is it your fault that they took 26 days to open your account!?!
I know they said they were busy, but surely they knew with rates like that, they were gonna get a lot of interest and should have taken more people on.
I wouldn't be surprised if a large number of customers, especially those of us who don't normally bank with Barclays, shut their ISAs as soon as they're open. This service is pretty rubbish...
I'm just glad that I only gave them a cheque for £10 and the money I intended to put in there is still earning reasonable interest.

I agree with what you've said.

In my complaint letter to Barclays I explained that I have proof that they have had my application since April 2nd, as I had sent it to them by recorded delivery. I told them that I want them to backdate my interest A.S.A.P. I don't see why the customer should lose out. I'll give them until next week to respond.

SarahNeedle1872

Well good luck, I hope u get the interest back. Keep posting with updates, tho, I'd like to know in advance what I might have let myslef in for :eek:

Thomas_Crown

cs27 wrote: »

...... but I'm guessing its down to individual branches and how staff have been trained (or not!).

It isn't branch staff who conduct the ISA account opening appointments, it's a personal account manager who travels from branch to branch doing nothing else but open new accounts.

I handed over my cheque for £3,000 on the 2nd April & I later realised that I wasn't given a receipt. Almost 4 weeks later I had heard nothing & I complained online & got a reply assuring me that interest would be backdated to the date on my cheque.That isn't actually possible because my ISA is for the tax year 2007/08.Hopefully they will backdate the interest to 6th April.

The £3,000 was finally debited to my LTSB current account on 30th April. I still havn't received any paperwork through the post.I havn't dealt with Barclays Bank before & I am distinctly unimpressed with them to say the least.

cs27

...is that Barclays don't want any more of my money. The branch staff refused to accept a paying in slip with either cash or cheque, and won't allow me to do a transfer from a Barclays current account with a personal banker. So I asked, well if its so hard to get money in - how do I get it out? The response was that for up to £300 you just need your debit card and one form of ID. Unfortunatley at this point, I was so fed up I never thought to ask what if it was a withdrawal of more than £300 - I assume the answer would have been that you would need two forms of ID - one photographic and one for address confirmation.

The personal banker I met with has given me the number for the ISA savings line so it looks like telephone deposits and withdrawals are the way to go!

After taking on this ISA product (it's my first ISA) based on seeing it as one of Martin's Best Buys so to speak, is there any chance that Martin could confirm with Barclays how this account can be operated? It's very disappointing after it says 'Manage your account in branch, over the phone or view online' not to be able to manage in branch!

The only other thought I had - but it was after I had left was the self service kiosks. They have them in some of the branches now and you can use your debit card and then transfer money between your own accounts - I wonder if anyone has tried this?

(P.S. No mention of a form to fax off at the branch to do a transfer!)

carpy

Kazza242 wrote: »

I've just spoken to Barclays customer relations about my ISA interest not being backdated to the date my application was received. The advisor was very helpful and promised to call me back, which he did within 20 minutes.

He had ran down to the ISAs department to check with them and then called me back. They told him that ISAs for 2007/08 that were officially opened before 27th April 2007, will have had their interest backdated and credited on May 1st. According to them, they run some sort of process which does it. He said that he was told that accounts opened after the 27th April will also have their interest backdated after the process is run on 29th May. It will then be credited on 1st June.

I am still sceptical about this, though the advisor did make a note about what he'd told me next to my account should the backdate of interest not occur. I await a response to the complaint letter I sent to customer relations by recorded delivery yesterday. Hopefully, they will confirm what will be done to rectify the situation.

that explains my situation then.......

applied in branch on 5th April for 07/08 tax year

they opened my ISA online on 30th April hence i only have 1 days interest of £0.52!!!

although i think they should add the back-dated interest ASAP i don't mind waiting until 1st June PROVIDING THEY CORRECTLY WORK OUT THE INTEREST.

by that i mean the whole of May's interest should be on approximately £3013 (initial £3000 deposit 6th-30th April + interest) not just the original £3000!!!

helenyw

I went into a Barclays branch on 5 April to apply for the ISA. The young man took my details and £3000 cheque and said that they will be in touch. I asked for a receipt and he said I didn't need one.

Days later, I still haven't heard, and call to ask about it. Only after expressing serious concern about the fact that my application is lost in the system ("well, you can always go and send in another application with a new cheque"... er what about the existing cheque which would be valid that's lost in their system???) that I was passed to a complaints manager. She sounded genuine, and told me that they will try and resolve this within 5 working days.

10 working days later, I call the complaints dept with my reference number. A shirty a****** told me that I had been misinformed and that they only agreed to send me an acknowledgment letter within 5 working days. He started to sound annoyed when I pressed him about the current status of their investigation and insisted that there was nothing more they can tell me except that this is an ongoing investigation. I continued to express my concerns about the £3000 cheque and he got a bit annoyed and wouldn't let me finish saying what I wanted to say. I would have thought that the person that should be annoyed is me, not him!

Anyway, god knows when I'll see this account opened.

Kazza242

carpy wrote: »

although i think they should add the back-dated interest ASAP i don't mind waiting until 1st June PROVIDING THEY CORRECTLY WORK OUT THE INTEREST.

by that i mean the whole of May's interest should be on approximately £3013 (initial £3000 deposit 6th-30th April + interest) not just the original £3000!!!

I did stress to the Barclays advisor (and in my letter) that I wanted my interest for May to be calculated on £3,012.96 - not on just £3,000 and it should all be credited. I should receive £16.14 (interest on the 31 days in May calculated on £3,012.96) plus £12.44 (missing interest from April) so a total of £28.58 should be credited on June 1st.

Stueymonster_2

I opened my account and handed over a cheque on 5th April (for 06/07 ISA year) at the London Queensway branch (to a very pretty girl actually) and was told I didn't need any form of receipt.

Still no contact as of 5 mins ago.



Just got through to Barclays and they do not have any record of me on their system. They have faxed the branch who will be contacting me within 2 hours. I'm very confident they will.

morg_monster

Phew my own situation should hopefully be sorted out soon. Barclays hadn't got back to me, so I rang again, a nice man called Ian Lee took my details and found that a couple of days ago my cheque was referred back to the issuing branch for more details. No idea why although someone earlier in this thread seemed to have a problem with addresses being different to what the tax office has - this could be my prob. But anyway. Ian Lee recommended that I ring A&L and ask them to stop the cheque (he said if I told them it was lost they wouldn't charge me, and if I was charged, Barclays would reimburse me). I did this and A&L will cancel it for free but I need the cheque no. which I don't have on me, so will sort out this evening.

Now - do you think I should additionally write a letter of complaint to Barclays? I said originally I wasn't so bothered about losing out on the interest (since my account was never actually opened) and never raised this with CS, but once I've got the cheque definitely cancelled and my money safe I think I'll feel differently. Will they look badly that I didn't make a huge fuss earlier and insisted on interest etc? I can at least praise their CS!!