Lloyds Classic Plus Changes to £2500 limit

hereford_2

I just received a letter today. As from 29th August they will only pay 4.25% AER upto £2500. Above that its 0.1%.

It's also on their website in very small print at the bottom of this page.

http://www.lloydstsb.com/current_accounts/classic_and_classic_plus_accounts.asp

Although the main advert still pushes the £5000 limit.

The small print also says 24th August, although the letter says the 29th.

bbford

This is the last straw for me. I've been with Lloyds for 23 years and have been a model customer, currently with 3 current accounts, savings and a loan with them. Every time they write to me it's to tell me that they have either increased their charges or reduced the level of service again. The exception was a year ago when they wrote to say they were increasing the services with the premier account, but also increasing the fees by 66% to £25 a month. Interestingly I wrote to protest at that and I am still paying the old fee of £15 a year later.

I've had enough of them and am finally going to do what so many of use are curiously reluctant to and take my cash elsewhere. They don't reduce their overdraft interest to 0.1% once it's over £2500, do they?

Thomas_Crown

bbford wrote: »

This is the last straw for me. I've been with Lloyds for 23 years and have been a model customer, currently with 3 current accounts, savings and a loan with them. Every time they write to me it's to tell me that they have either increased their charges or reduced the level of service again. The exception was a year ago when they wrote to say they were increasing the services with the premier account, but also increasing the fees by 66% to £25 a month. Interestingly I wrote to protest at that and I am still paying the old fee of £15 a year later.

I've had enough of them and am finally going to do what so many of use are curiously reluctant to and take my cash elsewhere. They don't reduce their overdraft interest to 0.1% once it's over £2500, do they?

I have had a current account with Lloyds TSB for 25 years & I have never had any serious complaints, just the odd niggling thing here & there. I upgraded to the Classic Plus account to take advantage of the higher interest on credit balances, 4.25% at the moment.

It is bad news for some people that the upper threshold for the 4.25% interest rate is being lowered from £5,000 to £2,500 but how many actually keep over £2,500 in their current accounts & why? If anyone has that sort of money in a current account they should transfer any amount over £2,500 into a savings account paying a decent rate of interest.

Why anyone would want to pay £15/£20 per month for a Premier Account, I don't know, unless they are one of the minority of customers who actually use some of the additional benefits they are paying for.

bbford, who is the ''they'' to whom you refer in the last sentence of the above quote? (ie:''do they?'').

Tomji

I get paid in 3K each month.
With this change I now need to log in to shift money around each month.
Additionally, they never increased the interest rate to reflect the rise in interest rate.

I'll be leaving.

Thomas_Crown

Tomji wrote: »

........they never increased the interest rate to reflect the rise in interest rate.

I'll be leaving.

LTSB increased the interest rate on the Classic Plus account from 4.00% to 4.25%. There has been another rise in the base rate since then but so far no announcement. Most banks & building societies are putting their interest rates up from 1st August so there ia glimmer of hope.

eagle

I would like to leave too, although they have been quite with me with respect to service. My main grudge is their rip-off ATM charges from abroad when using their normal Debit Card. Now this latest farce is worth voting with your feet I think.

How easy is it to change current account? I know I will need to sit down and start moving every Direct Debit and payment across to the new account. Plus there's always the task of memorising the new account number & sort code, etc. Is it really worth it?

Paul_Herring

eagle wrote:

My main grudge is their rip-off ATM charges from abroad when using their normal Debit Card.

If that's your only main gripe, then open a Nationwide current account *as well* and use that for spending abroad and keep your LTSB as a main account.

That's what I've done (well I put 'spending' money in the NW account as well, but DD's and SO's come out of LTSB)

Biggles

Paul_Herring wrote: »

If that's your only main gripe, then open a Nationwide current account *as well* and use that for spending abroad and keep your LTSB as a main account.

That's what I do. And if you did change, you wouldn't find any of the other main banks a great deal better than LTSB for foreign use.

But I'm staying with LTSB, it's still a decent rate of interest for a current account and (as I posted on the original thread that mentioned the lowering of the limit to £2,500) it's easy to move money above that level instantly to the Online Saver. The only time you may lose out slightly is if you need to move funds back into the current a/c to await an incoming cheque you may have written.

pksaraf

after this cap reduction, isnt nationwide bank account better than ltsb in all respects? i have held both accounts and now i am thinking that there is not point in keeping ltsb active and move all my transactions to nationwide.

sav4it

pksaraf wrote: »

after this cap reduction, isnt nationwide bank account better than ltsb in all respects? i have held both accounts and now i am thinking that there is not point in keeping ltsb active and move all my transactions to nationwide.

Agreed. But have you got a Lloyds RS? I know you need a CA to open the RS but not sure about if it's already up and running. Maybe just keep it dormant until the RS matures and then can easily transfer out?

meme_3

I have had a current account with Lloyds TSB for 25 years & I have never had any serious complaints, just the odd niggling thing here & there. I upgraded to the Classic Plus account to take advantage of the higher interest on credit balances, 4.25% at the moment.

It is bad news for some people that the upper threshold for the 4.25% interest rate is being lowered from £5,000 to £2,500 but how many actually keep over £2,500 in their current accounts & why? If anyone has that sort of money in a current account they should transfer any amount over £2,500 into a savings account paying a decent rate of interest.

Why anyone would want to pay £15/£20 per month for a Premier Account, I don't know, unless they are one of the minority of customers who actually use some of the additional benefits they are paying for.

I have to agree with you on this - just put the extra cash in a savings account - even the Lloyds online saver pays more than the current account, and you can access it instantly online if you need it.

As for paying £15 for a current account - doesn't that cancel out the interest anyway????