Sainsburys eSaver Special - Different interest rates for the same account

Uxb

nilrem wrote: »

So are people saying that they don't increase rates for existing accounts but offer new accounts with a higher rate which means one needs to open another account and transfer over to get the new rate?
hardly seems like an inefficient way to do things resulting in more 'paperwork' !

But it is better for the bank despite the paperwork/admin.
Only a small proportion of their customer base with savings in the lower rated easy saver will be arrrsed to change to the higher rate easy saver.
So they can have a large number of savers languishing on a lower rate account than they would now have to pay to get more money in.
This means it is cheaper for the bank.

If they merely upgraded all the accounts to the higher rate it would cost them a lot more.

Welcome to the world of business!
In other fields outside the regulated world of the consumer you see much worse sharp practice.
For example the same job being charged a different rates depending on how much much the bidder thought the customer would pay - which might either be because one customer was richer so could pay more or even that one customer was so stupid that they would pay more - 'cos they knew no better....

pinklady21

Yep - I found out the same thing the other week. They will write to you and tell you when rates reduce, but not when they increase! As other posters said, you can phone them and ask them for the rate for a new customer. They don't change your account details, simply give you the higher rate from the date you call.
Moral is - keep an eye on the savings rates you are getting versus new customers, and nip their heids about it to ensure you get the best rate!

Neil_Jones

In fairness though, the trend is if the rate change is in your favour it gets applied automatically and you're not always notified (such as the Bank of Cyprus increasing its rates - others got correspondence, I got sod all and found out about it here), whereas when rates fall you often get two months written notice.