Leaving the Halifax - for where? Custoemrt Service & Good Online banking important

ramagel

ramagel wrote: »

The wife has the NW credit card and the 10-digit number business drives her crazy.

Hah! I found an 0800 number for the Nationwide, messed up the voice prompts, got to the switchboard and got to where I needed to be for free (now THAT's moneysaving!).

Anyway - to the point: the nice man he say 10-digit number can be saved in cookie for PC access. Obviously no use for phone banking but we phone way less often than once in a blue moon anyway.

Mollymop5

Hi, I have banked with the co-operative bank for many years now.I have no problems with their online services and their customer service by telephone is fantastic.I always get through immediately and have very pleasant and helpful people to talk too.
My children also save with the co-op and have good saving rates etc.

ramagel

Mollymop5 wrote: »

Hi, I have banked with the co-operative bank for many years now.

Is that 'Smile'? My wife likes the idea of co-ops in general.

Mollymop5

Not "smile".Just the co-op.I like their ethics policy.
http://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/servlet/Satellite?cid=1170748476664&pagename=CB/Page/tplStandard&c=Page.

Hopefully this will take you to their homepage.

Hanco

Egg. Has anyone else tried Egg Money Manager. I love it. And if you want a provider that answers online emails well then you can't do better IMO. So friendly in tone and quick to answer. I've got nothing but praise for the service. I have accounts with Lloyds TSB, Halifax, Barclays and Egg. Egg is the best for frienly support and a nice interconnecting website to manage all the logging in/out (I still keep a record of them all tho. Even Egg sometimes has to be down at night for maintenance - but they do advertise it in advance)

Hanco

ginger_nuts

I use nationwide online ,I just tick the remember account number .
You still need to enter your securiity details but not the account number .

And you can phone any branch direct or phone the call centre

Horace

I used to bank with the Halifax and moved my money because of the rudeness of staff, I have now been with First Direct since 2003, you can speak to a real person 24 hours a day, 365 days a year - no foreign call centres either. I occasionally ring them - all I give is my name, dob, and two memorable things e.g. address, maiden name. With the internet bank you have to set up an online password, a user name and set a memorable question. Ever so easy and I can move money about without a problem.

If you want friendly staff then go to First Direct, also I can use HSBC and do so when I need to pay in cheques etc - all staff in my local branch are friendly too.

ramagel

I think we're going with the Nationwide, mainly because that enables us to send debit cards to my wife's step-children in the US to replace the excellent BoS TAPs Service to transfer money. (Not kids really, 27 & 30, but they still sometimes need a bit extra and stuff for the wife's grand-kids).

One stumbling block appears to be my wife's nationality: being American she can't be on the electoral roll, and this stymied the dronette at the call centre. The facts that she already has a Nationwide Credit Card, Halifax Bank Accounts etc etc didn't seem to mean that they would definitely offer her an account: so we shall see.

Finally, horror of horrors: because I'm semi retired with a modest income (asset rich, cash poor, few expenses - what a tragedy!), they're only going to offer me a £1300 credit limit on my credit card! Oh, the ignominy! (Maybe that's because I have a load of unused ones that I really should have cancelled ages ago still sitting on my Experian file totally £20k+).

Off Topic Ramble Begins
We'll see how it goes with my poor American wife: We aren't in favour of her becoming a British Citizen because we're (well, actually it's mainly me, to be fair to her) insulted a) by the citizenship test (she already knows more about our history and politics than most Brits) and b) if certain MPs of a dubious loyalty to the UK can avoid swearing an oath to the Queen, we don't see why my wife has to!
Off Topic Ramble Ends

Lazy_Runner

lolarentt wrote: »

Suggest either First Direct (EXCELLENT hands on customer service from UK), or Nationwide, the latter having a very good cc if you travel abroad at all without the usual 2.5% service charge.

First Direct don't charge a fee for foreign credit card transactions. I don't know how their exchange rates compare with Nationwide though.

HTH

olly300

ramagel wrote: »

Finally, horror of horrors: because I'm semi retired with a modest income (asset rich, cash poor, few expenses - what a tragedy!), they're only going to offer me a £1300 credit limit on my credit card! Oh, the ignominy! (Maybe that's because I have a load of unused ones that I really should have cancelled ages ago still sitting on my Experian file totally £20k+).

Nationwide are mean with their credit card limits.

My first limit was £500 and was only extended when I went over it when I was aboard. At the time I had a Barclaycard with a reasonable limit. Barclaycard increased my limit by £3,000 even though I didn't ask for it, hadn't used it aboard and I was not and have never been over my orginal limit. I've also never banked with Barclays and I had lots of savings with Nationwide.