We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.
This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.
PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING: Hello Forumites! In order to help keep the Forum a useful, safe and friendly place for our users, discussions around non-MoneySaving matters are not permitted per the Forum rules. While we understand that mentioning house prices may sometimes be relevant to a user's specific MoneySaving situation, we ask that you please avoid veering into broad, general debates about the market, the economy and politics, as these can unfortunately lead to abusive or hateful behaviour. Threads that are found to have derailed into wider discussions may be removed. Users who repeatedly disregard this may have their Forum account banned. Please also avoid posting personally identifiable information, including links to your own online property listing which may reveal your address. Thank you for your understanding.
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
The Forum now has a brand new text editor, adding a bunch of handy features to use when creating posts. Read more in our how-to guide
banks & services driving me up the wall
bobwilson
Posts: 595 Forumite
We need to transfer £75,000 for a house deposit by this coming week. The banks all told us we could only transfer £10,000 per day, but guaranteed us that it was definitely £10,000 per day.
The only alternative is to use CHAPS which would cost £35 per transaction, so when you have multiple banks e.g. 5, this would cost 35 x 5 = £175 in transfer fees. :eek:
We wanted this all to be sent from one account, so that it's easier to trace and track in case of problems the other end. It's just easier that way.
So, we carefully planned to transfer £10,000 per day from Natwest and Barclays to HSBC, so that all the money would be in HSBC in time for the exchange and completion date.
I've put a lot of effort and time into reminding myself to do this every day since last week. Today, I tried to transfer £10,000 at midday, from Natwest, as planned. However, Natwest gave an error "We cannot transfer any more funds until 27/11/12" - thats 3 days away! It appears that Natwest treats Sat Sun and Mon as only 1 day. So instead of being able to transfer £30,000 in those days, we can only transfer £10,000. This has eff'd everything up so we can't get it done in time. :cool:
Barclays and HSBC are fine at weekends. It's only Natwest causing the problems. They didn't even warn us of this, just guaranteed it'd be fine. :mad:
So after all our efforts, we're going to have to pay multiple CHAPS transfer fees to the tune of £175 from different accounts in a messy way, to get our deposit paid in time. It seems incredible that banks can hold your own private personal money and that you can't transfer or do what you want with it as and when you please. We know for the future with Natwest now, but that doesn't really help us for now.
This isn't the only problem we've had with Natwest. When we opened our £50,000 savings bond, they assured us we could close it at any time and have access to the funds within 3 days, minus 3 months interest. We told them this was important in case we buy a house. However, when the time came to close it, they told us it would take 14 days to get the money, minus 6 months interest!! :eek:
We gave up arguing with them and just asked to close the account. No one in the branch knew how to close it, no one knew how to give us access to the money, and for a week, they kept telling us to come back in the next day and try with "another member of staff".
After much time and headaches, we managed to get the name of the account closure form, went back into the Natwest branch, and asked for it. They at first refused and argued with us, but after we insisted, they spent half an hour looking everywhere for this form. They continued arguing with us, saying it's not possible / this form doesn't exist / isn't needed / manager isn't available ...etc. Eventually they found the form. No apologies. Just dumped it in front of us without a pen. It was a nightmare, but eventually after about 3 weeks and 5 hours of branch visits. we got our money back. :mad:
We are so exhausted with banks.
Santander is even worse. Last year I closed all my accounts with Santander following some incredible headaches trying to access my funds, staff being inept etc. lost transfers, no account automation and everything done by hand, my account manager (who looked and spoke like a 16 year old kid with failed GCSEs) realised I'm in the music industry, saw my account balance with wide eyes and continuously hassled me to "lay down beats" for him, refusing to see to my banking issues... I gave up with the lost funds and after months of fighting to close my accounts (can't close your accounts sir, because we can't verify your identity. Your passport, driving license, birth certificate, and proof of address aren't enough sir. I think there's a computer glitch. I'm sorry, I don't know how to fix it."), I thank god they only lost £2000 of my money in lost transfers. The Santander cashier at the cash desk whispered to me that I had got out lucky, and advised me that Santander is the only bank he's ever worked for that loses large sums of customer money all the time. Apparently it gets lost in Santander's ''Holdings''. :undecided :think:
9 month later, Santander wrote to me asking for £hundreds in ''under payment fees'' for my savings accounts. They were supposed to be closed! Apparently, the person who closed all my accounts had made a mistake, and left some of them open. I forked out the underpayment fees, asked to close the accounts again, and now thank my lucky stars I'm shot of Santander. For good hopefully.
This isn't the only problem we've had with services- you won't believe what our conveyancer has done to us.
We hired a solicitor that was a bit more pricey as they assured us they would see to our case quickly, it would be a fast personal service, she was a qualified solicitor, and they reply within 24 hours to all queries etc. They quoted us £1400 in writing for all-inclusive conveyancing fees, but after we paid our deposit to them, their service suddenly deteriorated. :rotfl:
Slow replies taking weeks at a time, no one answering the phone, our conveyancer never being available / always at home and not in the office. When we did manage to speak to the conveyancer, she had to open a case file to be reminded who we were, rarely knew any legal answers to any questions, took ages to do anything they were supposed to do. Now they have sent us a bill for £2100, which is way above the written quote, and they're refusing to complete unless we pay it regardless.
The solicitor for our house before that pulled a similar trick on us, held us to ransom to pay hidden fees at the last minute, having given us fixed quote at the start. She refused to complete, and we lost that house as a result. :cool: This time, we're determined not to let this happen again, so we're going to have to pay the extra just to get the house.
Just can't understand how they're all seemingly above the law.
The solicitor for the house before that was a whole different kettle of fish. He stuck to his quote thankfully, but it turned out he had been lying to us about requesting paperwork / providing paperwork to the seller - for months! He wasn't doing his job at all, the seller told us his solicitor hadn't received anything from ours. We asked our solicitor to confirm he'd sent out/requested all the paperwork etc. and it turned out he hadn't! He was unapologetic, as they always are, we gave him a second chance, but eventually the seller pulled out because of our solicitor, so we had to sack him! He still charged us 1/3 of the conveyancing fees, having ruined everything! :mad:
I hate banks, solicitors and services. They drive me up the wall!!!
:mad::eek::(:silenced:_pale_:doh:
I don't understand how they all stay in business behaving this way..
If my business acted like this I'd go bust!
The only alternative is to use CHAPS which would cost £35 per transaction, so when you have multiple banks e.g. 5, this would cost 35 x 5 = £175 in transfer fees. :eek:
We wanted this all to be sent from one account, so that it's easier to trace and track in case of problems the other end. It's just easier that way.
So, we carefully planned to transfer £10,000 per day from Natwest and Barclays to HSBC, so that all the money would be in HSBC in time for the exchange and completion date.
I've put a lot of effort and time into reminding myself to do this every day since last week. Today, I tried to transfer £10,000 at midday, from Natwest, as planned. However, Natwest gave an error "We cannot transfer any more funds until 27/11/12" - thats 3 days away! It appears that Natwest treats Sat Sun and Mon as only 1 day. So instead of being able to transfer £30,000 in those days, we can only transfer £10,000. This has eff'd everything up so we can't get it done in time. :cool:
Barclays and HSBC are fine at weekends. It's only Natwest causing the problems. They didn't even warn us of this, just guaranteed it'd be fine. :mad:
So after all our efforts, we're going to have to pay multiple CHAPS transfer fees to the tune of £175 from different accounts in a messy way, to get our deposit paid in time. It seems incredible that banks can hold your own private personal money and that you can't transfer or do what you want with it as and when you please. We know for the future with Natwest now, but that doesn't really help us for now.
This isn't the only problem we've had with Natwest. When we opened our £50,000 savings bond, they assured us we could close it at any time and have access to the funds within 3 days, minus 3 months interest. We told them this was important in case we buy a house. However, when the time came to close it, they told us it would take 14 days to get the money, minus 6 months interest!! :eek:
We gave up arguing with them and just asked to close the account. No one in the branch knew how to close it, no one knew how to give us access to the money, and for a week, they kept telling us to come back in the next day and try with "another member of staff".
After much time and headaches, we managed to get the name of the account closure form, went back into the Natwest branch, and asked for it. They at first refused and argued with us, but after we insisted, they spent half an hour looking everywhere for this form. They continued arguing with us, saying it's not possible / this form doesn't exist / isn't needed / manager isn't available ...etc. Eventually they found the form. No apologies. Just dumped it in front of us without a pen. It was a nightmare, but eventually after about 3 weeks and 5 hours of branch visits. we got our money back. :mad:
We are so exhausted with banks.
Santander is even worse. Last year I closed all my accounts with Santander following some incredible headaches trying to access my funds, staff being inept etc. lost transfers, no account automation and everything done by hand, my account manager (who looked and spoke like a 16 year old kid with failed GCSEs) realised I'm in the music industry, saw my account balance with wide eyes and continuously hassled me to "lay down beats" for him, refusing to see to my banking issues... I gave up with the lost funds and after months of fighting to close my accounts (can't close your accounts sir, because we can't verify your identity. Your passport, driving license, birth certificate, and proof of address aren't enough sir. I think there's a computer glitch. I'm sorry, I don't know how to fix it."), I thank god they only lost £2000 of my money in lost transfers. The Santander cashier at the cash desk whispered to me that I had got out lucky, and advised me that Santander is the only bank he's ever worked for that loses large sums of customer money all the time. Apparently it gets lost in Santander's ''Holdings''. :undecided :think:
9 month later, Santander wrote to me asking for £hundreds in ''under payment fees'' for my savings accounts. They were supposed to be closed! Apparently, the person who closed all my accounts had made a mistake, and left some of them open. I forked out the underpayment fees, asked to close the accounts again, and now thank my lucky stars I'm shot of Santander. For good hopefully.
This isn't the only problem we've had with services- you won't believe what our conveyancer has done to us.
We hired a solicitor that was a bit more pricey as they assured us they would see to our case quickly, it would be a fast personal service, she was a qualified solicitor, and they reply within 24 hours to all queries etc. They quoted us £1400 in writing for all-inclusive conveyancing fees, but after we paid our deposit to them, their service suddenly deteriorated. :rotfl:
Slow replies taking weeks at a time, no one answering the phone, our conveyancer never being available / always at home and not in the office. When we did manage to speak to the conveyancer, she had to open a case file to be reminded who we were, rarely knew any legal answers to any questions, took ages to do anything they were supposed to do. Now they have sent us a bill for £2100, which is way above the written quote, and they're refusing to complete unless we pay it regardless.
The solicitor for our house before that pulled a similar trick on us, held us to ransom to pay hidden fees at the last minute, having given us fixed quote at the start. She refused to complete, and we lost that house as a result. :cool: This time, we're determined not to let this happen again, so we're going to have to pay the extra just to get the house.
Just can't understand how they're all seemingly above the law.
The solicitor for the house before that was a whole different kettle of fish. He stuck to his quote thankfully, but it turned out he had been lying to us about requesting paperwork / providing paperwork to the seller - for months! He wasn't doing his job at all, the seller told us his solicitor hadn't received anything from ours. We asked our solicitor to confirm he'd sent out/requested all the paperwork etc. and it turned out he hadn't! He was unapologetic, as they always are, we gave him a second chance, but eventually the seller pulled out because of our solicitor, so we had to sack him! He still charged us 1/3 of the conveyancing fees, having ruined everything! :mad:
I hate banks, solicitors and services. They drive me up the wall!!!
:mad::eek::(:silenced:_pale_:doh:
I don't understand how they all stay in business behaving this way..
If my business acted like this I'd go bust!
0
Comments
-
so I guess no one's interested then
don't blame u! 0 -
No offence but it is a wall of text. Maybe ask a moderator to move it to the Bank Accounts or Vent board? Or do you have any questions?
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=82Declutterbug-in-progress.⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️⭐️0 -
I totally know how you feel!! I'm in the same boat but far less to transfer to my conveyancer but likely will have to pay for a CHAPS now as they have left it so late to give me their bank details. I'm having kittens! Over the last month I've been bringing all the monies together in small chunks and despite loosing a bit of interest it is all in one place now ready to go (once I know where).
AND my conveyancers service deteriorated once they had my business!
I need to exchange Friday 30 November, still haven't signed the sale contract, waiting on local searches and still have all this money to send. AAARRRRHHHHHHGGGG! How to stay calm? Good luck with yours.0 -
in a similar boat, although after a sale, but I can send £25k a day 0
-
I don't see any question in there (I can't be bothered to actually read it all) but some information for you:
Pretty much all banks will treat Saturday, Sunday and Monday as a single day, it's certainly not just NatWest. What's really the issue is that (presumably) NatWest have a transaction limit of £10K and a daily limit also of £10K. Some banks have a limit of some sort below the FPS maximum of £100K but will allow that limit amount to be sent more than once in the same day. I'm sure this information will be available on each banks' website somewhere, it just needs to be found. Had you done that before relying on a free transfer system you could have arranged your finances accordingly.
Single payment limits for each bank can be found here
http://www.fasterpayments.org.uk/faster_payments/how_to_use_the_faster_payments_service_new/-/page/1948/0 -
I quite agree with the OP actually, if you have any volume of money to move around it is a bit of a nightmare, they make it as hard as possible to access your own money, you have no choice but to spend hours visiting branches arguing with incompetent staff and the service of banks in general is very shoddy.
Having tried numerous banks, I recommend you put your money into Intelligent Finance going forward. They don't have the 10k limit, they have UK call staff that you can get straight through to, they give fantastic service, they give a good rate of interest, not the very top rate but no bonuses so you don't have to keep swapping it over. Complete contrast to the rest.0 -
Having tried numerous banks, I recommend you put your money into Intelligent Finance going forward.
Changes to Intelligent Finance
Please note that as from 14th November 2012, Intelligent Finance savings products are no longer available to new customers. Existing Intelligent Finance customers can still apply by logging into their Plan online, or by calling us on 0845 609 4343.
http://www.if.com/myifdotcom/changestointelligentfinance2.aspx0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 353.7K Banking & Borrowing
- 254.2K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 455.1K Spending & Discounts
- 246.8K Work, Benefits & Business
- 603.3K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 178.2K Life & Family
- 260.8K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.7K Read-Only Boards