Santander 1-2-3 as a Savings Account - Is it Safe?

Archi_Bald

silver145 wrote: »

santander = 20k & 3%

minus the £60 (12 x £5) annual charge, unless you can make that up with cashback from DDs.

silver145

cheesemason wrote: »

A very fair point! Assume it means moving money between each account every few days to make sure each one gets the minimum deposit each month. So all depends if I think my brain can cope with that with the brain cells my toddler seems to be killing

all i do is once a month, 1500 into one, transfer it to the next, transfer it to the next, transfer it to the next. done. Takes 5 minutes once a month

Eco_Miser

cheesemason wrote: »

However, I am a bit concerned about keeping that much in a current account, and (rightly or wrongly) feel its a bit more vulnerable to people hacking into it and running off with all my money!

If they hack into the bank, your savings account is as vulnerable as your current account.
If they get hold of your login details, your savings account is as vulnerable as your current account.

So it's only the debit card adds extra risk.

saver861

LXdaddy wrote: »

The Santander 123 current account is just about as safe as any other account that you can operate online.


we don't have cheque book and the debit cards are never carried about with us. We also don't use the accounts to pay for anything online only for the Direct debits that pay cashback.

If you have a Santander 123 are you not utilising the cashback for the utility bills? These should more than cover the monthly cost of the account.

silver145 wrote: »

all i do is once a month, 1500 into one, transfer it to the next, transfer it to the next, transfer it to the next. done. Takes 5 minutes once a month

Why not just set up standing orders between the accounts? Better than the manual transfer and if you forget or fall ill or something then its all sorted.

zolablue25

saver861 wrote: »

If you have a Santander 123 are you not utilising the cashback for the utility bills? These should more than cover the monthly cost of the account.

I pay all my bills that are eligible for cashback from my Santander account and they are still a couple of quid short of covering the monthly charge.

colsten

Eco_Miser wrote: »

If they hack into the bank, your savings account is as vulnerable as your current account.
If they get hold of your login details, your savings account is as vulnerable as your current account.

So it's only the debit card adds extra risk.

The hackers would also need to get hold of your mobile, or manage to convince Santander to change your mobile number to theirs, before they could set up a new payee. Otherwise all they could do is pay existing payees. So unless the hacker is one of your existing payees, the risk of losing money is minute. If it is an existing payee, they'd leave a massive clue for the Police to track them down.

psychic_teabag

colsten wrote: »

The hackers would also need to get hold of your mobile, or manage to convince Santander to change your mobile number to theirs, before they could set up a new payee.

Search for sim-swap scam : it seems that bad guys can take over your mobile phone number.

VT82

Also worth considering keeping the debit card for your 123 or other 'savings' current account. If your main current account bank has technical problems for a few days like we have seen over the past couple of years at various banks, it's handy to have a back up account. I change the PIN on all of my 'savings' current account debit cards to be the same as my main one, and then allow them to gather dust hidden away as spares.

Not_Me_Officer

You probably have greater risk of being hit head on by some idiot while out on the road.
Best stay indoors

gilly56

As an extra safety measure with Santander you can set up alerts on your account so that you'll receive an instant text message and email if any amount over a certain figure is withdrawn from or deposited into your account. An alert can also be set up to advise you if your overall balance falls below a certain amount. You can choose all the amounts yourself.