Cahoot 5.5%

alared

Last night I received an unexpected phone call from Cahoot to enquire that I had received my forms to sign and apologise for the delay due to excessive demand for their new 5.5% savings account.
The lady was very helpful and answered all my questions and confirmed that a DD would take up to 10 days to set up.

System

Trying to get my head around which is the best rate - I have Ing which pays 4.7% and Cahoot at 5.5% - no problem there !

Cahoot pays the interest anually based on your daily balance.

Ing on the other hand pays monthly and interest is calculated as follows:

"How do you calculate the interest on my account?
Interest on your savings account is accrued daily, compounded monthly and credited to your available balance at the end of each month.
The formula is:
Daily closing balance x interest rate (as a percentage) = one day's worth of interest "

So, Ing will pay interest on the interest ?
Isn't that better than 5.5% annual or have I got this around my neck ?

(Excuse a novice investor !)

alared

ING calculate your interest daily than ADD it to your account on the last day of the month.
So with the interest added it will then start to earn interest from the first day of the following month.
The monthly interest rate for monthly paid is adjusted slightly lower than what is paid annually.
The most important number to look for to compare rates is the APR

System

Thanks - is it APR for borrowing and AER for investing ?

lisyloo

Yes - they have slightly different meanings.

AER is annual equivalent rate, this basically gives you the annual rate and takes care of compound interest.

APR which stands for Annual Percentage Rate is slightly different because it usually includes some fees.
For exmaple with a mortgage you might pay solicitors fees or an application fee.
The APR includes these fees and is meant to give you a tool for comparison.

It has some faults - for example solicitors fees can vary a lot on a mortgage and lenders tend to use the figure that's most favourable for them i.e. lowest in this case.
However it's the best we have at the moment for making easy comparisons.

It can however be misleading.
For example if you are looking at a 2 year discount mortgage and thinking of remortgaging after that, then the APR figure (which includes 23 years of mortgage at the full rate) is rather irrelevant.

System

Although I have not read through all seven pages of this thread, I was interested to read from Alared that he had problems getting Cahoot to send out his application pack.  

I have also had the same problem.  I opened the account online on 26 June, and on 10 July I received an email communication from them stating that they had not as yet received my application via the post.

I responded by telling them that if they had bothered to send it out to me in the first place then I would have returned it!!!

After a great deal of wrangling with one of their underlings on the telephone, he started to argue that they had sent out the application pack to me (computer generated no less), they had received no reports of other customers  not receiving their application packs, and surely I could not blame Cahoot for the failure of Royal Mail?!  

I advised him that I only had his word for it that it was a failure by Royal Mail, and that considering the fact that I had intended to transfer a considerable amount of money to this account, I was losing money by the day.  He said, "what do you expect me to do - give you a preferential rate of interest from everyone else?"  I replied that I did not expect that, but I did expect them to adjust the opening date of the account to take into consideration the lost time through incompentence!  

He nearly blew a gasket at that, and said certainly not - oh no sireebob - no way could they do that.  

I insisted on speaking to his Manager, and of course they do not work at the weekend, and anyway they do not answer emails.

I stated quite firmly that as customer relations go this particular situation sucked!

As as result of me insisting he take this to a higher authority it has now gone to customer complaints who are supposed to get back to me by Friday of this week.

Do I hold by breath?  Forgive me for being cynical, but I think not.

Anyone else besides Alared and myself having this problem?

PS - I am still waiting for my application pack.

System

Hello
Hope this is'nt a daft question but to pay money into Cahoot - you send them an e-mail under the comments box asking for a direct form form to make a one off payment from your bank - I have got this right

Thanks

Smokeyone

Milarky

Hello
Hope this is'nt a daft question but to pay money into Cahoot - you send them an e-mail under the comments box asking for a direct form form to make a one off payment from your bank - I have got this right

Thanks

Smokeyone

It depends if you are an exisiting customer  - in which case they already have your bank details - I suspect?

Ah, no! You have a choice! You can request the paper DD form under certain circumstances, but the option to set up a direct debit online was given to me when I applied as an existing customer. They then just left the details on a secure message for me to confirm. The direct debit can be used to take an initial requested amount, but does not appear for a while at the cahoot end of things. If you have online banking, you may find [as I did] that the details of the DD appear there first.

System

hi, i have applied for a cahoot account setting up direct debit online. I recieved an email that they have sent a secure message to confirm the direct debit details.

What is this secure message ? How and where should i check it ? Can somebody tell ?

Thanks

lisyloo

A secure message is one that you can access via your cahoot account after logging in.

It's more secure than email because you need to be logged in.

Go to the website, log in and it should be pretty obvious to look.

If you still have trouble let me know and I'll look at my account but I believe it'll be fairly obvious (and I think the messages are usually at the bottom of the screen).