Fixed ISA Maturing? Be careful!

harz99

harz99 wrote: »

Your lucky to get a month. Kent Reliance do this same thing with rolling over into a fixed rate that is worse than their advertised rates for the same type of account, but only give you 14 days from the rollover date to change your mind.


I've a battle coming on Monday when KRs UK office opens as I was away on holiday when the maturity letter was issued, so never received it until RM Keepsafe delivered my stored mail, which left me one or two days past the 14 day cut off, and I want to transfer to another provider so KR (via their Indian Call Centre) are saying I will have to pay a penalty.

Just for completeness;


I didn't quite win the battle with KR as their English CS office insisted I would pay a penalty to transfer out because 14 days had passed, however they did agree to move my ISA to the current 2 year fixed rate offer without penalty rather than the "loyalty" ISA, which raises the interest to 1.68% from 1.5% and I was able to cancel the transfer with the new provider.


Have also raised a complaint regarding not being moved onto the best available rate at the time of the move, which is very sharp practice in my book.

Paul_DNAP

Just for comparison, I have a 5yr fixed ISA with Skipton BS that matures 14MAY18, and their letter explains that the do-nothing is to go into their one year fixed (as per T&C when opening the account), but they give a list of all their available fixed term ISAs for me to choose from (same rates as online and in branch at the moment).


The key wording I noted was that if their available rates drop between now and then they'll honour the rates in the letter, but if the rates rise then they will give me the rate it rises to. Which I think is a nice way to handle it.


In the end though, I've selected it to mature into their instant access cash ISA and will transfer it out to a different provider. I'm over £85k in Skipton and fancy spreading it around a little bit more so this £20k will be moving closer to where I am now, Furness BS 5yr fix at 2.20% (I just need to make sure they don't request the transfer before 15MAY, as it won't be available.)


I have another one maturing in June, which I think the Skipton can keep hold of, but I am tempting to hedge a bit on increasing interest rates and go for a shorter term.

harz99

And finally, complaint to KR upheld with £50 compo cheque finding it's way to me sometime soon (I hope).