First Direct Current Account Switch Blagged Deal

meer53

zag337 wrote: »

Hi Martin,
Was a bit concerned about what you were saying about this account on This Morning, firstly you said that !!!8220;you need to pay in a 1000 pound a month to qualify for the account, and the switching fee, so you need to be earning £13000 per year!!!8221;

To be able to pay in a £1000 a month from earning you need to be earning around £17500 a year to allow for all taxes and national insurances and top up pensions to be taken in to account to ensure that you can safely qualify for the barrier to ensure that the £10 a month fee is waived.

Also, you were saying that there would be £100 cash on switching paid with in 28 days of opening the account and this would be linked to a 5% savings account. when taking in to account inflation and if this savings account is not paying 5% above inflation then this works out that it would be making 2% a year over all.

As £17500 a year is what the ONS says that is the basic minimum to live off in the UK after tax it would assume that the individuals that would qualify for the minimum of a £1000 a month would not be paying very much in to the savings if anything at all after you take in to account rent, council, tax, and the general cost of living that is incurred in the UK, meaning that when you split the linked savings across both the current account and the savings account, and include inflation in to the calculation then there is a 1% additional on cost to the account each year not a 5% savings bonus

In theory if you are one of the customers that would not be using or would find it very difficult to use the savings facility, then in your first year the account has cost you £290 based on £13,000 being paid in to qualify for the waived fees on the account £100 being given in cash and a western average of 3% inflation added to the general cost of living and monetary buying power, then around £390 a year after this

when you work with the savings facility at to cover this hidden cost placed on the account of which everything has a cost in finance! You would need to be looking at saving at least £8000 a year in the savings facility to beat the losses to inflation.

And if memory serves because of regulations First Direct would need to show that an individual would have to have at least £16000 a year in disposable income, dependant on how fast the client could access the savings before they would be allowed to save that sum, and could restrict who they are allowed to qualify for this account.

I beleive that they are not after your average joe, but expanding there cash rich client base.

You don't have to have the savings account. You don't have to pay in £1000 a month to avoid the £10 fee or to qualify for the account. All details are available on their website.

SephirothX

Was going to sign up to this today for the £125 but it looks like it has already ended. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip/ says it ends at 11:59pm today so someone got it wrong!

mije1983

SephirothX wrote: »

Was going to sign up to this today for the £125 but it looks like it has already ended. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip/ says it ends at 11:59pm today so someone got it wrong!

Still there for me when I click on the link in the email. Maybe give it a try in another browser?

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/redir/a064232a

SephirothX

mije1983 wrote: »

Still there for me when I click on the link in the email. Maybe give it a try in another browser?

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/redir/a064232a

Yeah it works on my phone. It was just taking me to the non-MSE offer on my work laptop. I'll do it from my home computer in a bit.

I'm late to the party as my Santander monthly saver finishes on Thursday so been looking for a better deal. Going to switch my 123 account.

ceepan

I don't see how they can claim that if you have ever been a customer you aren't eligible for a switching bonus/gift. Surely after a period of time after closing an account they will have to remove your details from their records due to data protection. WIth the forthcoming GPDR they should be making sure that old customers are no longer on file. Can somebody confirm this?

eskbanker

ceepan wrote: »

I don't see how they can claim that if you have ever been a customer you aren't eligible for a switching bonus/gift. Surely after a period of time after closing an account they will have to remove your details from their records due to data protection. WIth the forthcoming GPDR they should be making sure that old customers are no longer on file. Can somebody confirm this?

I could be wrong but suspect that that argument will be self-defeating and ultimately moot, because as soon as customers try to use the 'right to be forgotten' and then have a second crack at joining incentives (in contravention of the Ts & Cs) then FD could argue that such exploitation is a legitimate justification to retain enough data to prevent it....

letthew00kiewin

Before you consider switching to First Direct please consider my cautionary tale.

Impressed by the much touted "excellent customer service" and incentivized by the switching reward, I decided to make the switch from Santander to First Direct.

Some weeks after switching I was surprised to receive a letter from a finance company with which I had 0% deal for a sofa that I had recently purchased. They informed me that I had missed a payment and that I needed to contact them urgently to bring my account up to date and also that I had to pay a fee for late payment.

I contacted the company concerned to advise that I had recently changed bank accounts and had understood that all receiving parties had been provided with my new details under the switching guarantee.

After many hours waiting for a reply and on hold, the company confirmed that they did not have my new bank details. I provided the same and made the payment. I also managed to persuade them to waive the fee (although this took several subsequent calls and many many hours on the phone to them).

Naturally I contacted First Direct who assured me that this was not their fault and that everything that they should have done at their end had been done. I explained that my concerns were that:

1. That did not appear to be the case
2. I was unsure as to whether the missed payment breached the finance agreement and whether the 0% terms would continue
3. I had been advised this might affect my credit file
4. I had already had to spend many hours trying to rectify this when I had been promised that the switch would be "hassle-free"

First Direct agreed to investigate. Unfortunately, this involved many further hours of telephone calls with them including being on hold for very long periods of time with both them and the finance company.

To be fair to the finance company they carried out intensive investigations at their end and maintained that they had not been informed of the switch.

After several days and in the region of 5 or 6 hours of telephone calls, eventually I spoke to somebody at First Direct who confirmed that from the outset I should have been advised that this was First Direct's fault.

I was offered a bottle of wine and ultimately £200 in resolution of my complaint. Whilst this was a nice gesture, I asked them to resolve matters with the finance company so that I could sleep at night knowing that the 0% deal and that my credit rating was not affected.

I sorted the former out myself and eventually managed to set up an arrangement between the finance company and First Direct where they could correspond with each other directly about my credit status. I am still awaiting confirmation about this which continues to cause me sleepless nights.

When I pointed out that I had spent in the region of 5/6 hours of time that I should have been working in the office and £200 was inadequate I was told that this was more than they would normally offer and I should just be grateful.

I pointed out that what had happened was a breach of contract. They had promised a hassle free service and they had to concede this is not what I had got. As a result of the breach I had sustained loss not adequately compensated by £200 and a bottle of wine.

I was left with no option other than to write to the legal department. Rather than receive a response from the legal department, I received a further call from First Direct's customer service team who insisted that my complaint had been dealt with. I explained that I had still not received confirmation that my credit file was not affected but in any event, my email to the legal team was about my loss - not customer service. I was advised that the legal team is not "customer-facing" and would not respond to me. If I wanted to take the matter further I would have to issue proceedings at Court!!

I felt I had to complain further about this response and the attitude of the customer service representative that I dealt with. I am still awaiting a response to this second complaint.

I eventually heard from the legal team that said First Direct had not been in breach, I should be happy with what I was given in compensation and the whole affair had been dealt with with "minimal inconvenience" to me!!

I would not want to put people off from switching banks as undoubtedly there are often great benefits to doing so. Just bear in mind that things aren't always straightforward and when things do go wrong, rather than it being "hassle-free" you could be in for a whole deal of pain and lost money which you will not get back unless you take the bank to Court.

eskbanker

You're far from alone in having hiccups with an account switch, other posters have reported similar issues with many of the banks, not just First Direct, so it's clear that the process isn't as bulletproof as they'd all like to paint.

It sounds like they've accepted liability and offered compensation accordingly - it's your prerogative to reject their offer if you feel it's inadequate but rather than trying to go legal you do have the option of referring the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service, who can, if they agree with you, 'encourage' FD to increase their offer, without incurring the cost of legal action.

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm

ormolu

I got my (cash) switching bonus in the account today, only a couple working days after the account switch date. Re: direct debits, I noticed that all my direct debits were already listed on the FD app when I first downloaded it, before the switch date, and the first DD went out today with no problems. Clearly this is not always the case!

The switching process in general definitely seems less neat than the banks market the 'switch guarantee'. For me personally, though, I think making a couple phone calls and receiving a weird amount of paper from FD with the message 'if this information is correct, do nothing' was worth it for the hundred quid and the regular saver account.

sallyp1978

Hi


This is the first time I have posted on the forum.
Could somebody tell me when the new switching incentive from First Direct was launched? I applied for a current account on 20th April to get the cash switching incentive prior to the 23rd April deadline. The application was referred and it was only yesterday did I receive paperwork in the post saying the account is now opened with effect from 29th April. Will I qualify for the cash incentive, the new goods incentive or nothing at all does anyone know?