abbey current account

vinnieboy

I applied today for the above. Was expecting to get offered a switch debit card, but was accepted for an electron card. I pointed out to the guy that I wanted a switch card instead of the one offered, and he said that i needed £500+ credits into the account on a monthly basis to offer a switch card. Here is the laugh...they offered me £300 overdraft and a credit card! I can't see the logic!!

newfoundglory

Abbey don't issue Switch/Maestro, they are a Visa/Delta issuing bank. A full debit card is usually £100 cheque guarantee; which would potentially mean £2,500 to £3,000 of credit depending on whether the chequebook had 25 or 30 cheques in it.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=44549

vinnieboy

sorry forgot to add they offered me a cheque book too

doelani

do you have a debit card with your exisitng bank? if you do the abbey branch can put an appeal to the underwriters to get you the debit card but you will have to supplie 3 months satisfactory bank statements. Also how much will you be crediting per month?
Apart from the appeal the only way you can egt a debit card is if you run your account correctly for 6 months then you can reapply

vinnieboy

Crediting approx £450 per month, this is my first current bank account, always used their instant saver but that account has now been withdrawn

Thing i cant work out is, they declined a debit card (but offered an electron which i know is that same but am limited to where i can use it) and offered me an overdraft and a credit card!

M_Thomson

vinnieboy wrote:

Crediting approx £450 per month, this is my first current bank account, always used their instant saver but that account has now been withdrawn

Thing i cant work out is, they declined a debit card (but offered an electron which i know is that same but am limited to where i can use it) and offered me an overdraft and a credit card!

As Newfoundglory said a few posts above, if you have a Visa Debit Card you can guarantee Cheques for £100 each which would give you a potential to spend up to £3000. So from the amount you credit that is all they want to give you right now. Perhaps in 6 months to a years time they will reconsider providing you run the account properly.

davidcampbell

newfoundglory wrote:

Abbey don't issue Switch/Maestro, they are a Visa/Delta issuing bank. A full debit card is usually £100 cheque guarantee; which would potentially mean £2,500 to £3,000 of credit depending on whether the chequebook had 25 or 30 cheques in it.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=44549

abbey cheq book has 25 so as mentioned, £2500 of potential credit.

buses7675

Hi All,

Possibly also got the credit card as the Abbey Credit Card is run by MBNA, so perhaps MBNA decide on the credit card independently of Abbey's own decision on the current account/debit card.

Cheers

Steve

BenL

Indeed, uses the MBNA credit scoring system for Abbey credit cards.

Bank accounts are done on abbeys own systems.

Ben

Fatboy_NSS

One thing I don't understand is why banks keep having cheque guarantee on debit cards. We see many customers who don't like having Electron and want to upgrade to Visa Debit but they have no need for a cheque guarantee facility. If it's the guarantee that is the riskiest bit for banks, then scrapping it on debit cards would mean they could issue them to everyone with much less risk, and keep the CGC as a separate card for customers who specifically needed and qualified for one.

Bossyboots

My daughter had a huge battle with Abbey to give her a debit card. They use a point scoring system and if you don't get enough points you don't get a card. My daughter has her wages paid into her account, had never gone overdrawn and has savings with abbey. In the end, after making a huge fuss in the branch, they agreed to contact the underwriters but only after I told the manager that we would be closing our accounts and moving our money forthwith. The debit card was approved within 2 days. You need to push the issue with someone other than the person at the CS desk in the branch. Unless you have a proven track record though you are unlikely to get anything other than Electron for a while and it may well be longer than six months.

I discussed with the manager the anomaly of being able to write thousands of pounds worth of cheques against making debit card purchases that would be prevented much sooner when the account has been emptied. She said that was not advisable as she would still have to pay the debt back but try as I might I could not get her to see how daft they were being. I did point out to her that if my daughter had written 25 guaranteed cheques and had no money or assets to pay it back, they would be waiting a long time before they got their money. Obviously my daughter is wiser than this and wouldn't dream of doing it but if this is the service everyone gets, there has to be even a small proportion of people who might attempt it.