8.05% Rolling Account One Year Notice from Friends Mutual

don_giovanni

Aegis wrote: »

Then it's not a cash investment, it's essentially mezzanine financing (at best)

This part of your post makes me think you don't realise how banks work. If they kept your money in cash, they couldn't lend it out and so couldn't pay interest.

Aegis wrote: »

Should not be compared with cash, should not be presented as cash

This part of your post makes me think you haven't seen the requirement for up to 12 months' notice.

Aegis wrote: »

This part of your post makes me think you must either be winding people up or a representative of the company itself without a clue about search engines. Google will put literally anything up on the web, they certainly don't check out website claims before allowing people to find that website in their searches.

This part of your post makes me think you're confusing search engines with Google Compare: see, for example, google.co.uk / compare / savingsaccounts.

Although I'm going to check this out, I'd rather make money than just be negative about everything.

Aegis

don_giovanni wrote: »

This part of your post makes me think you don't realise how banks work. If they kept your money in cash, they couldn't lend it out and so couldn't pay interest.

Banks can fractionally lend out money deposited with them. Other deposit takers can't do that. In addition, UK banks all contribute a proportion of their revenue to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme when it has a requirement for funding. This scheme protects UK savers against banks going bust due to improper investment decisions, acting as a statutory government-sanctioned safety net for at least the first £85,000 of savings and, based on past experience, likely a lot more if the stability of the banking system is questioned.

Placing money with an FSA regulated bank or building society is a cash investment. The scheme described here is not a cash investment, it is apparently an unregulated offshore scheme purporting to be as safe as cash but in actual fact investing into what appears to be a risky venture, supposedly backed by a Lloyds of London contract, but completely unverified.

This part of your post makes me think you haven't seen the requirement for up to 12 months' notice.

How does this address my point that this "Should not be compared with cash, should not be presented as cash"? I've recently seen cash accounts with terms of 5 years, it doesn't make them non-cash, so the term or notice period is utterly irrelevant. The issue here is the degree of risk being taken. The site in question is passing this off as a cash savings account, which it cannot legally be described as in the UK.

This part of your post makes me think you're confusing search engines with Google Compare: see, for example, google.co.uk / compare / savingsaccounts.

These comparison sites are rarely put together by people who actually have specialist knowledge in the field. Other websites with much more clout than google when it comes to cash accounts were recently shown to have done almost no research when adding a similar scheme to this one to their lists. Shortly after being made aware of the issues, the company was removed from their lists.

I don't recall the company name, but there were a couple of large threads in this forum two or three months ago regarding this matter.

Although I'm going to check this out, I'd rather make money than just be negative about everything.

I'd rather not lose money, which is precisely what will happen to you if you give the benefit of the doubt to every scheme which offers you a rate that should scream that it's too good to be true.

ctdctd

It's Re-Give all over again but even worse - based offshore.

The FSA stepped in and got the fools money back - they won't assist if it's offshore.

It's a long way to New Zealand to try and get your money back when it goes tits up - and it will.

don_giovanni

Aegis wrote: »

Banks can fractionally lend out money deposited with them. Other deposit takers can't do that.

Firstly, rather than a fraction, banks lend out practically all the deposits they receive. Secondly, how do you think “other deposit takers” function? By taking money in and sitting on it? No: they lend it out too. In that sense, their functions are identical.

Aegis wrote: »

In addition, UK banks all contribute a proportion of their revenue to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme when it has a requirement for funding.

What’s the difference between paying a premium towards the FSCS or Lloyds insurance? One difference: the FSCS is limited to £85k but the Lloyds scheme is apparently for £500k. I know which I’d rather have.

Aegis wrote: »

How does this address my point that this "Should not be compared with cash, should not be presented as cash"

This part of your post makes me think you don’t understand the meaning of cash. Folding bits of paper have no intrinsic value, whilst a deposit with a financial institution - whatever you call it - is not cash, just a debt.

Aegis wrote: »

I'd rather not lose money, which is precisely what will happen to you if you give the benefit of the doubt . . .

I'd rather not lose money, which is precisely what happens by sitting on the couch, never investing but always criticising. The high street banks form a cosy club to rip off borrowers by charging them up to 30% - whilst only paying savers a lousy 1%pa. Maybe you can live on that but I can't.

Aegis wrote: »

. . . to a scheme which offers you a rate that should scream that it's too good to be true.

Stop screaming: this lot are only offering a few per cent over the high street. I’d become worried if the difference were ten per cent or more.

innovate

don_giovanni wrote: »

........
you're confusing search engines with Google Compare: see, for example, google.co.uk / compare / savingsaccounts.

This is getting more hilarious by the minute. There are a sum total of 6 (six) companies on the "Savings" section of this site, some of which are paying to figure on it.

Our service is free to you but to operate this service, we are compensated by some of the providers.

Nobody will be stupid enough to be guided by an ad dressed up as a "comparison" site.

innovate

don_giovanni wrote: »

What’s the difference between paying a premium towards the FSCS or Lloyds insurance? One difference: the FSCS is limited to £85k but the Lloyds scheme is apparently for £500k. I know which I’d rather have.

The difference is that the FSCS guarantee is real.

innovate

Don't know about the rest of you, but I am very grateful to don_giovanni for joining the forum just to support that outfit.

There is nothing more convincing and entertaining than a newbie who signs up specifically to defend/promote something that has already been flagged as highly suspect. It also helps a lot if the newbie then almost immediately starts responding in a condescendent manner to the posts of a longstanding and respected forum member. :rotfl:

bizzybee

I see neither of the directors are based in NZ, one in Stanmore, Middlesex and the other in Switzerland.

I think the NZ equivalents of Companies House and the FSA Register give so much more information than ours!

jimjames

innovate wrote: »

The difference is that the FSCS guarantee is real.

Absolutely.

What guarantee do we have from a website based outside the country it is supposedly invested in and with UK directors.

1 year fixed savings sounds like a great way to get lots of money in and have a year to run away before anyone finds that they can't get their money back.

don_giovanni

There is nothing more entertaining than a mutual admiration club of “longstanding and respected forum members”, some of whom doubtless work for the high street banks that own this “independent” comparison site.

It also helps a lot if the members immediately start responding in a condescending manner to any competition to those banks - and in the same way to any “newbie”, automatically connecting him or her to the competition.

Although not all of us share those august views, it takes courage to stand up to them. I’ll leave you to continue “investing” in hot air.