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Post Office On-Line Saver (POOLS)
HerculesMK1
Posts: 2 Newbie
Post Office On-line Saver (POOLS).
Beware!!! When you set up the first DD to open the account it will take 10, yes TEN working days to transfer the DD from your Bank to the POOLS. There is NO mention of this on the DD page - it merely says that "Once you have made your first deposit, we'll send you a letter to let you know we've got it. This can take up to 9 business days if you make the deposit by Direct Debit". This clearly suggests that the letter will take up to 9 working days - not the DD, which would normally take no more than 2 hours!!
I made a DD from Lloyds on 27 June of £1,000. It has still not been taken nor is there any mention of it on my POOLS. In case I had made an error I made another DD for £100. I contacted the Post Office on 28th June with my concerns and it was then that I was informed that it would take 10 working days (not"up to 9 working days").
They could not tell me when the Interest would be calculated from. I was also told that because the Post Office is not a Bank they do not have to follow Banking procedures!!! Even though they are owned by The Bank of Ireland, and therefore ruled by the FCA
On the evening of the 27th I received an email from the Post Office informing me that I needed to make a deposit (by this time I had completed 2 DDs!)
I have checked my POOLS and there is nothing to indicate that my DDs have been actioned. I have contacted the Post Office and am informed that the DD for £100 is being processed but no mention of the £1,000.
Not surprisingly I am concerned about the pathetic way in which the POOLS is being administered. Contacting the Post Office on their help line is a waste of time. Needless to say I have made a formal complaint but they refuse to give me a Complaint Reference Number, so I have to go through the whole rigmarole again when I make a follow-up call.
So, BEWARE!!! The interest rate might look attractive but the administration is appalling
Beware!!! When you set up the first DD to open the account it will take 10, yes TEN working days to transfer the DD from your Bank to the POOLS. There is NO mention of this on the DD page - it merely says that "Once you have made your first deposit, we'll send you a letter to let you know we've got it. This can take up to 9 business days if you make the deposit by Direct Debit". This clearly suggests that the letter will take up to 9 working days - not the DD, which would normally take no more than 2 hours!!
I made a DD from Lloyds on 27 June of £1,000. It has still not been taken nor is there any mention of it on my POOLS. In case I had made an error I made another DD for £100. I contacted the Post Office on 28th June with my concerns and it was then that I was informed that it would take 10 working days (not"up to 9 working days").
They could not tell me when the Interest would be calculated from. I was also told that because the Post Office is not a Bank they do not have to follow Banking procedures!!! Even though they are owned by The Bank of Ireland, and therefore ruled by the FCA
On the evening of the 27th I received an email from the Post Office informing me that I needed to make a deposit (by this time I had completed 2 DDs!)
I have checked my POOLS and there is nothing to indicate that my DDs have been actioned. I have contacted the Post Office and am informed that the DD for £100 is being processed but no mention of the £1,000.
Not surprisingly I am concerned about the pathetic way in which the POOLS is being administered. Contacting the Post Office on their help line is a waste of time. Needless to say I have made a formal complaint but they refuse to give me a Complaint Reference Number, so I have to go through the whole rigmarole again when I make a follow-up call.
So, BEWARE!!! The interest rate might look attractive but the administration is appalling
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Comments
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HerculesMK1 wrote: »Post Office On-line Saver (POOLS).
Beware!!! When you set up the first DD to open the account it will take 10, yes TEN working days to transfer the DD from your Bank to the POOLS. There is NO mention of this on the DD page - it merely says that "Once you have made your first deposit, we'll send you a letter to let you know we've got it. This can take up to 9 business days if you make the deposit by Direct Debit". This clearly suggests that the letter will take up to 9 working days - not the DD, which would normally take no more than 2 hours!!
I made a DD from Lloyds on 27 June of £1,000. It has still not been taken nor is there any mention of it on my POOLS. In case I had made an error I made another DD for £100. I contacted the Post Office on 28th June with my concerns and it was then that I was informed that it would take 10 working days (not"up to 9 working days").
They could not tell me when the Interest would be calculated from. I was also told that because the Post Office is not a Bank they do not have to follow Banking procedures!!! Even though they are owned by The Bank of Ireland, and therefore ruled by the FCA
On the evening of the 27th I received an email from the Post Office informing me that I needed to make a deposit (by this time I had completed 2 DDs!)
I have checked my POOLS and there is nothing to indicate that my DDs have been actioned. I have contacted the Post Office and am informed that the DD for £100 is being processed but no mention of the £1,000.
Not surprisingly I am concerned about the pathetic way in which the POOLS is being administered. Contacting the Post Office on their help line is a waste of time. Needless to say I have made a formal complaint but they refuse to give me a Complaint Reference Number, so I have to go through the whole rigmarole again when I make a follow-up call.
So, BEWARE!!! The interest rate might look attractive but the administration is appalling
It is standard that a direct debit mandate can take around 8 working days to be set up on a current account. After that it takes 3 working days from an instruction to pull money from the mandate to it actually being pulled from the current account. It has never been the case that a direct debit only takes 2 hours. Faster payments (bank transfers) and standing orders on the other hand are normally instant.0 -
When I opened a POOS (online is one word) yesterday the direct debit page was very clear that it would take 9 days to set up. It is normal. Sorry you didnt see this. When it has been set up, additional direct debits will usually take 3 days to hit the account.
And the loss of 10 days interest on £1k at 1.33% is about 36p. I wouldnt sweat it.0 -
It's unfortunate that your expectations for your Post Office Online Saver account haven't been met. Sadly, I don't think your expectations will ever be met because the Post Office (Bank of Ireland) don't offer what you're expecting. Nor will any other financial organisations if you want direct debits set-up and paid in hours.
If you want to check when a direct debit is likely to be actioned, there's a pop-up window ("Edit/Cancel Direct Debit") which can be called by clicking on the "Options" button (three dots inside a circle) just to the right of the interest rate for each account in the "Your Money" listing; select the "Direct Debit" option in the dropdown list and you'll get the pop-up window listing the direct debit arrangements and displaying the date of the first payment. It really does take more than a week to get the first payment, for example when I set-up my Issue31 Saver on Wednesday 27th, I requested a initial direct debit and the system tells me to expect the transfer to take place on Friday 6th July (9 days). And remember, you can't see the transferred funds in your account until the next day and you can't move the funds for three(?) working days. See other discussion threads on this forum for the difficulties other users have experienced in extracting their funds from the Post Office Online Savers - it may be you're in for yet more frustration!
Over the last six months as new Online Saver issues have become available, my partner and I now have over a dozen accounts between us. All but one have worked exactly in line with our expectations. Only one has had a problem - the initial direct debit did not actually transfer any funds. But all our Post Office Online Savers have only one purpose - to generate monthly direct debits to meet the terms & conditions necessary to get interest paid on our bank accounts, so we have minimal traffic on our accounts and we certainly didn't open them for the claimed "market leading" interest rates (we can better better rates elsewhere).0 -
HerculesMK1 wrote: »Post Office On-line Saver (POOLS).
Beware!!! When you set up the first DD to open the account it will take 10, yes TEN working days to transfer the DD from your Bank to the POOLS. There is NO mention of this on the DD page - it merely says that "Once you have made your first deposit, we'll send you a letter to let you know we've got it. This can take up to 9 business days if you make the deposit by Direct Debit". This clearly suggests that the letter will take up to 9 working days - not the DD, which would normally take no more than 2 hours!!
I made a DD from Lloyds on 27 June of £1,000. It has still not been taken nor is there any mention of it on my POOLS. In case I had made an error I made another DD for £100. I contacted the Post Office on 28th June with my concerns and it was then that I was informed that it would take 10 working days (not"up to 9 working days").
They could not tell me when the Interest would be calculated from. I was also told that because the Post Office is not a Bank they do not have to follow Banking procedures!!! Even though they are owned by The Bank of Ireland, and therefore ruled by the FCA
On the evening of the 27th I received an email from the Post Office informing me that I needed to make a deposit (by this time I had completed 2 DDs!)
I have checked my POOLS and there is nothing to indicate that my DDs have been actioned. I have contacted the Post Office and am informed that the DD for £100 is being processed but no mention of the £1,000.
Not surprisingly I am concerned about the pathetic way in which the POOLS is being administered. Contacting the Post Office on their help line is a waste of time. Needless to say I have made a formal complaint but they refuse to give me a Complaint Reference Number, so I have to go through the whole rigmarole again when I make a follow-up call.
So, BEWARE!!! The interest rate might look attractive but the administration is appalling
Astounding non-news !0 -
It's unfortunate that your expectations for your Post Office Online Saver account haven't been met. Sadly, I don't think your expectations will ever be met because the Post Office (Bank of Ireland) don't offer what you're expecting. Nor will any other financial organisations if you want direct debits set-up and paid in hours.
If you want to check when a direct debit is likely to be actioned, there's a pop-up window ("Edit/Cancel Direct Debit") which can be called by clicking on the "Options" button (three dots inside a circle) just to the right of the interest rate for each account in the "Your Money" listing; select the "Direct Debit" option in the dropdown list and you'll get the pop-up window listing the direct debit arrangements and displaying the date of the first payment. It really does take more than a week to get the first payment, for example when I set-up my Issue31 Saver on Wednesday 27th, I requested a initial direct debit and the system tells me to expect the transfer to take place on Friday 6th July (9 days). And remember, you can't see the transferred funds in your account until the next day and you can't move the funds for three(?) working days. See other discussion threads on this forum for the difficulties other users have experienced in extracting their funds from the Post Office Online Savers - it may be you're in for yet more frustration!
Over the last six months as new Online Saver issues have become available, my partner and I now have over a dozen accounts between us. All but one have worked exactly in line with our expectations. Only one has had a problem - the initial direct debit did not actually transfer any funds. But all our Post Office Online Savers have only one purpose - to generate monthly direct debits to meet the terms & conditions necessary to get interest paid on our bank accounts, so we have minimal traffic on our accounts and we certainly didn't open them for the claimed "market leading" interest rates (we can better better rates elsewhere).
Nearly all other financial organisations you can pay in by either bank transfer or debit card. The OP has a valid point in that why do the insist on a DD?0 -
Nearly all other financial organisations you can pay in by either bank transfer or debit card. The OP has a valid point in that why do the insist on a DD?
They don't.
You can make one–off deposits from your nominated account and one–off deposits by Debit Card.
https://www.pofssavecredit.co.uk/POFS-NPS/contentHelp/frequently_asked_questions_websaver.html#3b0 -
Nearly all other financial organisations you can pay in by either bank transfer or debit card. The OP has a valid point in that why do the insist on a DD?They don't.
You can make one–off deposits from your nominated account and one–off deposits by Debit Card.
https://www.pofssavecredit.co.uk/POFS-NPS/contentHelp/frequently_asked_questions_websaver.html#3b
Indeed. The OP is, er, grumbling unnecessarily. DD's always take time to set up. That's not new, it's not the PO, it's not a problem.
They could deposit in other ways - it's their choice they've gone for DDs. This is a rather pointless thread.0 -
They don't.
You can make one!!!8211;off deposits from your nominated account and one!!!8211;off deposits by Debit Card.
https://www.pofssavecredit.co.uk/POFS-NPS/contentHelp/frequently_asked_questions_websaver.html#3b
Ive got a fixed rate bond with PO & they wouldnt let me deposit any other way than DD.
Once its set up, you maybe deposit other ways etc, but the initial deposit for a fixed rate bond is DD only, and you lose a weeks worth of interest as a result.0
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