Post Office Online Saver

dosh37

I recently tried to close a Post Office Online Saver account after the bonus period came to an end.

To do this you have to write a letter - you cannot do it online.
A few days after I posted the letter I received a reply to the effect that they were unable to close the account as the account number provided was incorrect. I suspect I may have missed off the initial '0'.

When I logged in to the Post Office website to check the account number, I discovered that they only display the last 4 digits - all the other digits appear as '*'.
How are users supposed to find out their full account number?

The Post Office provide no contact telephone number for online savings account queries. No telephone number given on the letter I received. I think this is poor customer service.

eskbanker

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/savings-accounts/online-saver includes prominent reference to

Give us a call

For ISA queries:
0800 169 7500
9:00am-7:00pm, Mon-Fri
9:00am-1:00pm, Sat
Closed Sunday and Bank Holidays

All other savings accounts:
0800 169 7500
8:00am-10:00pm, Mon-Fri
8:00am-6:00pm, Sat
10:00am-5:00pm Sunday and Bank Holidays

talexuser

dosh37 wrote: »

To do this you have to write a letter - you cannot do it online.

That's strange, I closed mine on the 20th, the day the bonus ended, online by using the close account box, and had the full balance in my bank next day.

dosh37

I tried calling the 0800 169 7500 number.
The menu does not include online savings.

dosh37

Ok - thanks talexuser.

I did not realise you had to select the 'transfer money out' menu option to get to the checkbox to close the account. I would have expected a 'close account' menu option.

They must have changed things. It used to be that you needed to write a letter to close an account.

dosh37

What really made me laugh was the sactimoneous automated email after closing the account:-

We’re sorry to see you go

Yeah right! Who do they think they are kidding?
Maybe if they offered savers a decent interest rate and stopped all this introductory bonus crap we wouldn't go.

bigadaj

dosh37 wrote: »

What really made me laugh was the sactimoneous automated email after closing the account:-

We’re sorry to see you go

Yeah right! Who do they think they are kidding?
Maybe if they offered savers a decent interest rate and stopped all this introductory bonus crap we wouldn't go.

Ah but if they offered savers a decent rate then they wouldn't be sorry to see them go as they would be keen to reduce their losses.

dosh37

Incidentally, I discovered the reason for the missing leading zero is because I entered my account number into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Excel helpfully removes leading zeros even if the cell is formated as 'General' rather than 'Number'. It appears you have to format the cell as 'Text' to avoid this.

Eco_Miser

dosh37 wrote: »

It appears you have to format the cell as 'Text' to avoid this.

Which you can do on the fly by entering an apostrophe (') as the first character - this is not displayed in the cell.

badger09

Eco_Miser wrote: »

Which you can do on the fly by entering an apostrophe (') as the first character - this is not displayed in the cell.

Useful tip, thanks.

On my spreadsheets I've entered leading ..... before several of my accounts which start with 0.

I then have to very carefully avoid copying those pesky ..... before pasting online. Not any more though:)