Bank of Scotland, Halifax and now TSB have closed my Accounts

YorkshireBoy

xylophone wrote: »

And as for cross selling, many (most?) people open all accounts on line and never go near a branch?

Not all "selling" is done face-to-face in branch.

Take Lloyds (and Halifax/BoS/TSB too) for example...when you apply for an account (and indeed afterwards in your online area) they'll ask you if it's OK to contact you with offers by:

Phone
Text
Email
Post

Crikey they even want to market you when you log in with their "personal offers tailored to you", and give you a "personal greeting"...just like you were in branch!

Of course all of them rely on you pressing the right radio button for your preference of course!

planteria

xylophone wrote: »

Then they could offer Vantage on just one of them?

And as for cross selling, many (most?) people open all accounts on line and never go near a branch?

perhaps xylo, but Herb's on the right track. they want customers on their books to sell additional products to, and, overall, it works for them. and YB takes it further.. their online marketing is designed to increasingly mirror the sales process.

scoot65

I may well have missed recent posts / threads regarding banks closing accounts.........but, apart from the OP, are there other people who have three BOS accounts reporting accounts being closed?

A couple of posters have mentioned that having 3 BOS accounts seems to be a common denominator in the closures.

I've had a trawl throught the threads but cannot find specific posts regarding the 3 BOS accounts situation.

Thanks.

joe134

scoot65 wrote: »

I may well have missed recent posts / threads regarding banks closing accounts.........but, apart from the OP, are there other people who have three BOS accounts reporting accounts being closed?

A couple of posters have mentioned that having 3 BOS accounts seems to be a common denominator in the closures.

I've had a trawl throught the threads but cannot find specific posts regarding the 3 BOS accounts situation.

Thanks.

I think you will find this is down to me.
The first post was to do with LBG, including, BOS, and Halifax reward, BUT, it was I who closed my 3 BOS a/cs, causing rather a kerfuffle on here, for my own personal reasons, which I posted.Now it's escalated to Tesco, and Tsb apparently.For some reason Club lloyds doesn't seem to be in the debacle, because, I also cancelled them, and they asked me not to, so I didn't, but, there's time.Hope this clarifies things for you.:beer:
Who next. Santander?

Spidernick

msallen wrote: »

As I said on another thread a week or two back, I have recently changed my usage to try to avoid a closure like this. I now have a DD on every account, even where none is required, and one extra on those where there is a requirement (e.g. 3 DDs if 2 required), and I also use the debit cards for each account on a semi regular basis (typically about once a month each for something cheap like my lunch).

I’d agree with this.


I don’t have to transfer my £500 that goes into my TSB account into another account, so have set up some standing orders relating to my mortgage overpayment, etc. which uses up half of these, with the rest being my ‘pocket money’ (which until then I hadn’t had for over thirty years!) for the month. I have even set up a couple of annual direct debits (CAMRA and Private Eye) to come from my TSB account. These are both under £30, but help to give the appearance of this being a ‘proper’ current account.

My wife’s TSB account is a different matter: currently the £500 that goes into it on the first of the month gets transferred out to her Lloyds Club account the day after, as does the interest. We’ll need to do something about this, even if it’s just a case of spending rather than transferring the interest (although that might not be enough, I suppose).

At the end of the day we all need to spend money on day-to-day items, so why not spread this around different accounts so that these are ostensibly used as ‘proper’ current accounts? If an account like TSB needs £500 credited to it each month and you usually immediately transfer this out to another account to meet that accounts funding requirements, why not put say £550 into the first account, transfer out the £500 as usual and then spend the other £50 in small transactions (using contactless where possible, so you don’t have to remember all the PINs) over the course of the month. Yes, you lose a tiny bit of interest of the £50 (or whatever) which could otherwise be in another interest-earning account (assuming you have ‘maxed out’ on the first account) but we will be talking pennies here most likely. Obviously this becomes trickier the more accounts you have.

All in all, if banks don’t like people using their current accounts in this way, then surely they should make changes (around the minimum monthly credit, number of direct debits, etc.) to make these less attractive to those of us using these accounts mainly for savings. It will be interesting to see what develops in this regard.

DragonQ

Spidernick wrote: »

At the end of the day we all need to spend money on day-to-day items, so why not spread this around different accounts so that these are ostensibly used as ‘proper’ current accounts? If an account like TSB needs £500 credited to it each month and you usually immediately transfer this out to another account to meet that accounts funding requirements, why not put say £550 into the first account, transfer out the £500 as usual and then spend the other £50 in small transactions (using contactless where possible, so you don’t have to remember all the PINs) over the course of the month. Yes, you lose a tiny bit of interest of the £50 (or whatever) which could otherwise be in another interest-earning account (assuming you have ‘maxed out’ on the first account) but we will be talking pennies here most likely. Obviously this becomes trickier the more accounts you have.

I don't want to carry around 15 or so debit cards for buying stuff, especially when I have 0% interest and/or cashback credit cards exactly for that purpose.

I do have at least one "real" direct debit on all accounts that require them though (just Halifax Reward and Club Lloyds).

joe134

DragonQ wrote: »

I don't want to carry around 15 or so debit cards for buying stuff, especially when I have 0% interest and/or cashback credit cards exactly for that purpose.

I do have at least one "real" direct debit on all accounts that require them though (just Halifax Reward and Club Lloyds).

Precisely. If people need excel spreadsheet to monitor all the A/cs, then in my opinion, they have too many.If, god forbid, anything happened to one party in a relationship, and the other party does all the banking, like me, how soon before the pile of cards tumble. The one left wouldn't know where to start. My OH, cannot even text.

Sea_Shell

DragonQ wrote: »

I don't want to carry around 15 or so debit cards for buying stuff, especially when I have 0% interest and/or cashback credit cards exactly for that purpose.

I do have at least one "real" direct debit on all accounts that require them though (just Halifax Reward and Club Lloyds).

I'm with you DragonQ!!

colsten

joe134 wrote: »

Precisely. If people need excel spreadsheet to monitor all the A/cs, then in my opinion, they have too many.If, god forbid, anything happened to one party in a relationship, and the other party does all the banking, like me, how soon before the pile of cards tumble. The one left wouldn't know where to start. My OH, cannot even text.

This might be your experience and opinion but there are plenty of couples who feel quite ok with one or two dozen accounts, with no undue concerns about the scenario in which one, or even both, of them would be unable to manage their own accounts. You can, and should, forward plan for many eventualities as, sadly, the only thing we know for sure is that one day we will die.

Spidernick

DragonQ wrote: »

I don't want to carry around 15 or so debit cards for buying stuff, especially when I have 0% interest and/or cashback credit cards exactly for that purpose.

Yes, I was really suggesting that people carry 15 debit cards around with them! Use a bit of imagination! If what I am suggesting is too difficult for some of you, then feel free to carry on as you are.