How did First Direct come first in MSE polls?

redux

I have never been a First Direct customer, but I have quite surprised some friends who are by telling them how inefficient I thought it was.

They sent me a rather patronising letter about me so far not having made the effort to fill in the forms to apply for their bank account. And they said as I was obviously too busy to get around to doing things like this myself then surely they were the perfect bank for me.

I phoned up. It took 34 minutes for them to answer. I pointed out I hadn't enquired about an ordinary bank account. I'd enquired about a TESSA (predecessor of cash ISA) savings account just over 2 years earlier, and they'd never bothered to send me anything, brochure or application form, for any type of product.

So they offered to send me stuff then. About a bank account, not savings.

I said if you can't be bothered to even listen to me then please delete me from your records.

I suppose I could try again now, if that monthly savings starts to look useful. But from the posts above it doesn't sound simple.

I do wonder about companies that keep winning polls about customer service. Some polls are obvious fakes or have been too manipulated, like the one that had different mobile network quality for brands on the same network. Is customer service some form of modern addiction? However did the world manage to run properly before customer service was invented?

Kendall80

Well i'm going to vote them #1 now. Both me and the wife had our £150 switch bonuses yesterday. Easiest £300 we've ever 'earned'.

No_6

Going back a fair few posts
our post man ! always folds EVERY thing in half
to get any thing through the letter box
even if is it the size of a match box


6

MissyD_2

"Yes, they're rather spiffing."
Look I'm not going to lie, I love FD! The best move I ever made to hassle free banking!
No, I don't work for them and nor are they paying me!

As I was saving for my 1st house at the time, I was chasing interest rates like it was fashionable!
(I had been rejected previously as my income wasn't high enough, I don't see why they have this requirement or why it was so high, it's been reduced since)
I went for this FD Current Account for the 8% Regular Saver account, which is now 6%.
I switched from Barclays to FD about 3 years ago signing up online, used switching service (before the new 7 day switch guarantee etc) moving all direct debits/standing orders.
Received good communication in writing with a list of all the Direct Debits & Standing Orders so I could confirm which would be transferred.
Received bonus in a timely manner.
Switch was a success, hassle free.
Always found friendly UK based human answers the phone regardless of the day/time and usually are able to help you*

Found them to be great overall, I can't see me leaving as it stands - I get the following -

0% £250 Overdraft (if I go over £250, I'll be alerted by text, allowed until 23:00 to add funds for balance over £250, and will not be charged)
6% Regular Saver
I can pick up the phone and speak to human straight away.
Payments refunded (About a year ago, I lost my oyster card on the way home, which was set up for Auto top-up. Following morning, I realised my oyster card was missing and managed to report it to TFL later, an auto top-up payment had already gone through and TFL said they couldn't stop it. FD on the other-hand just refunded it back straight away).
Same excellent service when a cash machine broke down as it was meant to 'give me my money' and again I was refunded.


*without 10 different menu options, automated security (+20 minutes), waiting in queue for another 20 minutes and (4/5?) people later... is my experience with quite a number of the other banks.

hellopaul

If switching bank accounts wasn't such a nightmare (if First Direct is anything to go by) then I'd be tempted to close my FD account and take the £100. This is the message I FAILED to send to FD, due to their stupid website being stupid (the grammatical errors are where I progressively removed more and more punctuation, in an attempt to defeat the ludicrous "Please enter valid characters only" warning whenever I tried to send the message). I also tried to call them, and after being on hold for ages, got through to a woman who could not hear me at all (I have made many other perfectly fine calls on that same landline phone today).

I felt compelled to contact you regarding my abysmal online banking experience with your website. Here is a brief outline of what is wrong with the site:
1. Internet Banking always opens in a new browser window. Why. This is just really annoying and unnecessary.
2. I cannot download statements in any useful manner. The format always defaults to Quicken 97 - I want it to stay as Excel. I cannot download more than 90 days of statements. I cannot download statements from more than 90 days ago...unless I use the midata thing, which cannot download data from the most recent 25 days or something stupid. So I have to download all kinds of data and stitch it together in my spreadsheet. WHY. One of the questions I asked when opening this account was can I download a years data in one go And I was told yes, you can. This was a lie. I, like most people who have accounts or tax returns to do, want to download everything from the entire tax year IN ONE GO. Is this so hard for you to implement?
Are you lying about the awards you've won for your website?

I have been VERY disappointed with the whole First Direct experience, from the difficulties in opening the account, to the ludicrous security measures and multiple passwords involved, to the impossibility of adding my wife to the account. I may be taking advantage of the "£100 if you leave" if things do not improve.

Oh yes - and the stupid timed out limit that just happened. Luckily, I'd taken a copy of this message so I didn't have to re-type it all again.

Oh !!!!!! - and now a Please enter valid characters only. warning. Hence all the grammatical errors where I have taken out punctuation.

meer53

Why not just close your account ? They're obviously not the bank for you.

colsten

hellopaul wrote: »

I may be taking advantage of the "£100 if you leave" if things do not improve.

Just move and take the £100. There might also be other banks that would pay you if you switched to them.

Don't expect you find any banks that allow you to download a year's worth of statements in a single transaction.

System

I tried to join the FD fan club but found them patronising, website clunky and HSBC branches backwards - they made me order a cheque book for cash withdrawals over the counter and deposits.

ChemistDude

I use FD. Best bank. Had my wife added to my 1st acc 3 years ago. Very painless all direct debits transferred. No problems. As for security questions, its all stuff that never changes anyway. One's mother can only have one maiden name. Ones first car will always be their first car? Surely its not rocket science?

Btw I managed to get a £25k loan in literally 120 seconds using their website. Easy money...

No_6

just wondering why anybody would want a years worth of statements ?
some might I suppose if they have memory lose.
or if they don't use MS money.