Dissapointed with First Direct account

2tontess

I recently opened a joint FD current account and started using it last week. It's more of a household pocket money account, with salary and DD's kept with Santander. I transferred £1000 and so far, according to the rubbish app, and the online account, my balance is still £1000, despite having a good spend over the bank holiday. Is it the norm for expenditure to take so long to catch up? I am on the verge of cancelling the account as I want to know exactly what I have and where it's gone when I check in.

splodgethefirst

It will update after 5pm today. I agree it's slow as mollasses and drives me mental - but I've found keeping tabs myself means it doesn't matter

Archi_Bald

This is due to Retailers not having reported your purchases to FD. Nothing unusual, this sort of thing happens with all banks.

You need to keep a record of what you spent, and how much you still have to spend.

2tontess

I couldn't agree with you more, Santander had clearly spoilt us in terms of ease of keeping close tabs on our joint account. It is very handy when the other half spends so much time away from home and frequently out of contact. I thought an 'internet bank' would improve things further but I was very much mistaken. I shall stick with Santander and do some further research into which bank offers the most suitable apps and websites.

rusty_f

This is one of a few reasons why I left First Direct. I've used Barclays, TSB and Santander and my balance is updated nearly instantly in most cases (with the exception of contactless payments which usually take a while to be posted). It is a little thing, but important to me - yes, I could keep track of my payments and a running balance total, but convenience wins every time.

benjus

First Direct's app and online banking are outdated and flaky. Recently I wanted to download a year's worth of bank statements. It took me ages because each one required several clicks, and on each click there was about a 50% chance of the website reporting an error and having to start the process for that statement again.

IMO Barclays is the leader for mobile and online banking at the moment.

I know it's supposed to be the other way around for customer service, but I use mobile/online far more than I call my bank, so I thought I'd give Barclays a try.

rusty_f

benjus wrote: »

IMO Barclays is the leader for mobile and online banking at the moment.

Couldn't agree more. Thats why I have gone full circle and switched back to Barclays now. Things have improved a lot on both their internet and mobile banking over the past 18 months!

SuperHan

rusty_f wrote: »

Couldn't agree more. Thats why I have gone full circle and switched back to Barclays now. Things have improved a lot on both their internet and mobile banking over the past 18 months!

Ooh interesting. I use my Barclays account very infrequently, but everytime I do, I hate the new bubbly online banking look. It takes me ages to find the buttons I want.

That said, I also hate the FD look. I have to read through far too many options to find the one I want. And I hate their use of lowercase for everything. It makes it really difficult to distinguish words at a glance! (For me, anyway!)

I'm a huge fan of Halifax/Lloyds/TSB online banking.

No_6

Wow and FD always comes out TOPS in the polls



6

Thrugelmir

No_6 wrote: »

Wow and FD always comes out TOPS in the polls



6

Perhaps there's more to a banking relationship than an app.

GingerBob_3

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Perhaps there's more to a banking relationship than an app.

Ah! The good old days when there was such a thing as a "relationship" between bank manager and client. Where the banks genuinely had concerns for their customers and would offer a level of personal service undreamt of these days.


The "relationship", such as it now exists is based on mistrust. The customer (rightly) thinks the bank is there to screw him over in any way they can, and the bank has a working assumption that the customer is a criminal and must repeatedly prove that he isn't.


That nauseating advert for Yorkshire Building Society - which interrupts The Chase every day - is a case in point:


"We open doors". No you don't, you slam them shut in people's faces.


"Yorkshire Building Society, built on trust". Bo****s! Built on MISTRUST!
rant over.