MSE News: New 7-day bank switching era begins: Full Q&A

jamesd

Archi_Bald wrote: »

I am not familiar with business accounts DDs and charge cards, but still fail to see the relationship between a payment by some card and a Direct Debit mandate.

Charge card for work expenses. Paid off by a direct debit taken from my personal account and reclaimed via expenses.

Archi_Bald wrote: »

What is the connection between charge card and DD, and was dormancy perhaps the reason for the cancellation of your DD, jamesd?

It was around 13 months between two payments on the card. 100% of the bill to be paid when presented. Roughly annual meetings, that happened to end up being around 13 months.

But I have personal credit cards that I use only when there are good deals. Some of those could well end up being caught up in similar issues because of the quite short time until cancellation. No spending on the card means no direct debits being taken. But existing customer deals can get better over time and at least one major bank can have a significantly better deal after twelve months of no use than after say six or nine months. Depends on the specifics of what they are after and the customer involved.

I could hope that the bank might be explicit in telling both me and the party which has the DD that they are cancelling it instead of letting it silently go away. Or even better, doing it far enough in advance that it's viable to say "give it an extension" or "our customer has confirmed that we remain authorised to charge this DD".

EarthBoy

jamesd wrote: »

...I have personal credit cards that I use only when there are good deals. Some of those could well end up being caught up in similar issues because of the quite short time until cancellation. .

"quite short time" is open to interpretation. Many people, and clearly the banks, would say that 13 months is actually rather a long time. Some banks will also close credit cards if they aren't used after 12 months. I've had several closed that way, -I just get a letter saying that if I don't use my card by a certain date they will close the account.

gjs1701

I finally got through to First Direct's switching department. They have to send me out paperwork and I have to call them back to confirm I want to go ahead. So the earliest switching date is the 2nd of October.

Or 9 working days away.

nxf

I started the process of changing bank on the 17th September 2013 online. It was a joint application to first direct. My wife received email confirmation but I did not, so I phoned and was told that was normal. They send out paperwork for us to view (then a period of ten days needs to pass before you can arrange for the transfer date another 7 days later). We arranged for a date of 10th October.

In the meantime we had to go through a security phone call that takes about 20 minutes of questions. The 17th arrived and no transfer. The excuse was that we had not given then notice that we wanted to transfer, even though we had gone through security TOLD THEM WE WANTED TO PROCEED and arranged a transfer date!!
They then arranged a new date for the 18th. This date has gone and still no transfer so we are putting in an official complaint.

csonakos

My experience with the 7-day bank switching:

I have switched from HSBC to Nationwide FlexDirect because the 5% interest on your credit balance seemed like a good deal.
Everything went all right, I have received the debit card and the online banking instructions via post, the bank regularly informed me about the progress and finally my old account was closed on Wednesday.

However, when I logged in to my account I noticed that most of my direct debit payment instructions are missing - they somehow slipped through the process. Unfortunately my broadband provider already charged me for failed billing.

I have emailed Nationwide to sort out the problem - move the existing direct debits to my new account - ASAP and asked for a refund of the amount my broadband provider charged me. The automatic email reply says they aim to respond within 2 working days, so I will update the forum on the progress.

nicalcruiser

I HAD a joint current account with my brother with the Halifax. I have power of attournity and was able to administrate the account via the internet.

My brother was persuaded to switch the account so as to obtain a debit card. As we live booth 300 miles apart the first I was aware of the switch was a letter stating that it would take place in 7 days time which of course is too late for the cooling off period and couldn't be stopped.

Upon advising the very unhelpfull LLoyds call centre of the situation and that my brother had special needs I was advised that as he had signed the forms then his needs weren't that special.

After now 1 1/2 weeks of going through the complaint process with LLoyds the only thing they can offer is that I should attend my local Halifax with all relevant paperwork and open up a new current account or I could do it by post. This does not get me back in control of my brother's finances plus as the old account had been in operation over 14 years there was not minimum monthly pay in which there is now.

Advise on my next move please.

So if you have a joint account and want all the money in it without the other person having any recourse just switch it.

Penelope_Greaves

Does the Switching Service cover DWP benefits payments (my total income)?

Archi_Bald

It covers all incoming payments but it won't do any harm to give the DWP your new bank details yourself

Stiggles

I thought I'd try the 7-day switch thing as Santander's charges are about to go up (£5 per month for 123 account, £24 p.a. for their credit card and no-longer-free business banking) and plumped for First Direct on the basis of their customer service rating...5 days my husband and I have tried applying for a joint account - to no avail. Turns out their site has 'glitches' with Google Chrome AND Safari, which is why we couldn't join! Forget it - not going to run the gauntlet of difficulties every time I want to do internet banking. Any recommendations?

msgerrarde

So. Three years on, I decide to make use of this revolutionary customer-focus-pocus smokescreen and of course Santander tell me they cannot do a 7 day switch as my bank account run by RBS does not subscribe to the "scheme" and therefore the switch will take weeks or months.