Santander 123 & First Direct questions

exel1966

sparkyspark wrote: »

According to the Santander staff member who opened a 123 account for me today, if you have two D/Debits on the account they must both make a monthly payment to qualify for the interest of 3%. He said if one of the two D/Debits which failed to make a payment eg: Council Tax which is over 10 months or a quarterly bill would invalidate the interest payment as only one D/D is paid out of the account in certain months. IS HE CORRECT as the terms and conditions state that their only needs to be 2 D/D on the account, it does not specify that they must be actively paying out to an institution every month nor should they be qualifying cashback companies etc.
Could anyone clarify please, and if so what documentation or other information do you base your answer on. Thanks

All complete and utter *******s. Sanatnder staff are, let's say, not exactly known for giving out correct information !

Or you've mis-understood what was said

Or all is not quite what it seems ?

exel1966

sparkyspark wrote: »

why would you have a dead D/D you don't need set up on any account.

Bit of a paradox there :cool:

Hominu

innovate wrote: »

I do like his view of the 123 accounts a lot better since it is, sort of, supported by the T&Cs. Though of course, the term "active DD" neither appears in the T&Cs nor is it defined anywhere.

From information from various bank employees (across various banks), I've come to believe than an "Active DD" is simply a DD which will pay out when requested. For example, a DD attached to a credit card which will debit your account if you spent on that card and still had a balance by the statement date.

An "Inactive DD" is apparently one which is registered against your account, but one which a debit can not be raised against. Typically the reason is due to the fact that the DD is in "limbo" pending deletion.

I don't know if that definition is correct, but it makes sense to me.

BusinessIsBusiness

innovate wrote: »

LOL, yet another opinion from a bank employee. He might be right, he might be wrong - nobody knows because many employees (of all banks) just seem to be making things up as they go..

Blame that on poor management and training. Most things have to be self taught by trial and error at the expense of the customer...

sparkyspark

exel1966 wrote: »

All complete and utter *******s. Sanatnder staff are, let's say, not exactly known for giving out correct information !
Or you've mis-understood what was said
Or all is not quite what it seems ?

Santander Branch manager rang today to apologise as the info given by the in branch staff member was incorrect, and has confirmed again that the D/Debits do not have to be monthly, they can be monthly, quarterly or yearly to qualify for the 3% interest. Thanks for the input.

typistretired

I'm keeping my direct debits with first direct who have never let me down in over 20 years. Santander let me down again this week over a payment transfer of £1k (to nationwide) which they said had gone through and next day when I checked it had been rejected during the night and then successfully processed during the night. So for over 12 hours £1k was in never never land wherever that is. Never have these problems with first direct.