Nationwide Flex Regular Saver 13th payment

bowlhead99

adindas wrote: »

I do not believe that the money paid for compensation will be diverted to benefit other people. The trickle down effect do not work in business, where the main goal is to maximize the shareholder's values...

Nationwide is a mutual which is not owned by shareholders. All things being equal, if it has a worse performance due to paying out a lot of compensation money, then it has lower reserves to run its business and has less ability to pay high savings rates or offer low lending rates.

So effectively people jumping on a compensation bandwagon to take out more compensation cash than the amount by which they've been disadvantaged, will hurt the other customers rather than shareholders, because customers are effectively the shareholders, through the mutual structure.

Lower profits do typically affect executives bonuses though, which means that to an extent, they may through that mechanism effectively "chip in" towards the compo paid.

Rich2808 wrote: »

Is everyone affected getting this £25 compensation or just those who formally complained or is it random?

I dropped them a secure message (category: complaint) to enquire why the account has not been credited almost a week after the due date, and whether I should be confident that my other newly opened regular saver account will pay out on its official "next payment date" or perhaps only pay up x months after it gets redesignated next 30 November.

I didn't explicitly ask to be compensated but will let you know if they offer something.

Rich2808

bowlhead99 wrote: »

Nationwide is a mutual which is not owned by shareholders. All things being equal, if it has a worse performance due to paying out a lot of compensation money, then it has lower reserves to run its business and has less ability to pay high savings rates or offer low lending rates.

So effectively people jumping on a compensation bandwagon to take out more compensation cash than the amount by which they've been disadvantaged, will hurt the other customers rather than shareholders, because customers are effectively the shareholders, through the mutual structure.

Lower profits do typically affect executives bonuses though, which means that to an extent, they may through that mechanism effectively "chip in" towards the compo paid.

I dropped them a secure message (category: complaint) to enquire why the account has not been credited almost a week after the due date, and whether I should be confident that my other newly opened regular saver account will pay out on its official "next payment date" or perhaps only pay up x months after it gets redesignated next 30 November.

I didn't explicitly ask to be compensated but will let you know if they offer something.

Thanks the last sentence.

However we are talking about a multi billion pound business run by a well paid board and group of directors who never face contested elections. Paying compensation of £25 to a few people because the society has not complied with its terms and conditions is not going to have a material effect. I am sure the directors will still get their bonuses and pay rises and get re elected unopposed next year.

mageliken

I'm in the same situation; my account matured on 30th November.

Phoned on the 2nd, advisor said that interest had been calculated and "it just takes a couple of days to pay in". Phoned again today (6th) and advised there is an issue, which should be resolved by the start of next week. I then discovered this thread, which suggests closing the account as one option to have interest paid.

I then phoned complaints taking issue with the initial conflicting information and lack of communication. They acknowledged there was an error, and this advisor also suggested closing the account as a way of expediting interest payment. I was offered, and accepted, a £15 goodwill gesture.

Nick_C

Rich2808 wrote: »

Thanks the last sentence.

However we are talking about a multi billion pound business run by a well paid board and group of directors who never face contested elections. Paying compensation of £25 to a few people because the society has not complied with its terms and conditions is not going to have a material effect. I am sure the directors will still get their bonuses and pay rises and get re elected unopposed next year.

Personally, whenever I'm asked to vote in any of these "Soviet" style elections (for or against but no real choice), I always vote against. I wish more people would do the same. And it's not just the Building Societies, Which? is guilty of the same thing.

Nationwide8

Still no interest and still no reply to 3 secure messages sent to them in the last 3 days.Got to say this is unusual as secure messages before have taken the longest 2 days to be replied to.
Cannot get to a branch until Friday...if nothing from them before will be closing account in branch and giving them a letter of complaint.

veryintrigued

ColdIron wrote: »

It's not very obvious but this is what I was told to do:

Go to My messages at the very top of the page
Compose new message
Step 1 - Managing my savings account
Step 2 - None of the above accounts
Step 3 - How to close
Continue
Continue
Enter details of what account to close and what account you want any residual interest to be paid into

I think a close account button and a couple of drop-down account lists would have been more user friendly but that's just me I guess

Thanks ColdIron

I composed a secure message (after being unable to close online - using the Close Accounts link) yesterday.

Received a message today that the interest will be credited to my nominated C/A in 3/5 working days (i.e. different timescale to what others have reported).

Like you am pleased I wasn't missing anything easy for closing the accounts but surely there should be!

bowlhead99

Rich2808 wrote: »

However we are talking about a multi billion pound business run by a well paid board and group of directors who never face contested elections. Paying compensation of £25 to a few people because the society has not complied with its terms and conditions is not going to have a material effect. I am sure the directors will still get their bonuses and pay rises and get re elected unopposed next year.

Yes, no doubt a few hundred or thousand quid paid out to customers won't really affect the exec salary or bonus pool per se.

The point was really just in response to the earlier post I'd quoted. There are no shareholders to hurt so all that you can do is hurt other customers or senior management. The latter don't really sweat the small stuff but if the service levels get bad enough to cause a customer retention issue then, at least in theory, people miss their targets and maybe can't claim quite as high salary or bonus

You are right of course that it may not affect the board - who keep nodding through their own awards and don't face much of a grilling from members - but perhaps those members of the senior management team, or middle management team -at some point in the organisation, someone takes a hit for losing customers or incurring high costs.

If the building society goes down the pan because there's nobody taking responsibility for the things it does badly and the customers it loses and the compensation it pays out, that's just down to the inherent problem of having a mutual run without shareholders to hold the board to account, which can breed poor corporate governance.

Whereas, e.g. "Fat Cat shareholders" (perennially blamed for all customers' woes in other types of companies) can sometimes do a decent job of holding board members to account, as seen in some FTSE companies where they smack down some of the bigger pay awards from time to time. With a mutual, ownership is wide and fragmented and most voters don't really gang together and get proactive.

KTF

I am not that bothered about the delay in receiving the interest as it will turn up eventually. But out of interest I sent them a message anyway and the reply was:

"Hi KTF,

Thank you for your message.

We currently have an issue where interest payments aren't being automatically credited into some of our savings accounts. Our Technology Team are looking into this and they hope to have this resolved as soon as possible. Please be assured that the interest will be backdated.

I can close your account for you if you haven't already requested closure, and the interest will be automatically credited upon closure. All I would need from you is the last four digits of the account you would like the remaining balance and accrued interest transferred to.

I'm sorry for any inconvenience or confusion this matter may have caused.

If there is anything else I can help you with, please reply to this message or give us a call on 0800 30 20 11. If calling from abroad please dial +44 1793 656 789.

Kind Regards,

Joe Bloggs
Senior Customer Consultant
Digital Services"

I wont reply in case they decide to close the new RS that I opened up when the previous one matured but it seems any missing interest will be backdated.

76rosie

Thanks everyone. I ve been going crazy thinking i d done something wrong. I will give them a call. I ve sent a secure message but heard nothing.

deppo

I am in the same boat waiting on around £160 interest for nearly a week now. given this issue runs to 6 or 7 pages on the forum, perhaps Martin and his team should consider taking it up directly with Nationwide to see if a resolution can be speeded up.