first direct free overdraft

kanchhelskis

dear people, to get the free 250 pounds overdraft do you have to keep on putting in 1,500 pounds a month into your current account?thanks in advance.

Horace

I spoke to First Direct about this only recently - I had a £500 free overdraft with my old current account which they have now changed to a 1st account (I never asked for the overdraft). I asked the question because my circumstances have changed and I now receive JSA and they advised me that it was OK to have that going into my account as I would still get the free overdraft.

kanchhelskis

so i can keep putting 1,500 pounds in to get the free overdraft.

peester

found this thread by using search function..
Saw an ad for this:

First Direct.com 1st account £500 overdraft limit on opening account.
First £250 is interest free,12.9% EAR (*whats is EAR?) thereafter.
Txt service to send statements blah blah alerts...

I thought about giving this a toot - but have just read above you need to be earning/putting £1500 a month into the account..

So, say i dont earn £1500 a month, or cannot acctually plough much over £1000 a month into any account..

A no go for me?

Thanks in advance.

CopperPlate_2

peester, the way to get around the £1500 earnings limit is to have another product with first direct - one of their savings products for example, or credit card. Deposit some cash into the savings acc and leave it, or add to it every now and again just to keep it 'active'.

EAR stands for Effective Annual Rate - apparently the real cost of an overdraft, but someone else might manage to explain it better!

moggsy

So what stops you taking the £250 out of a current account you no longer use and putting it into the savings account in order to earn interest?

CopperPlate_2

Nothing as long as the other current account provider makes no charges for being overdrawn, or requires a minimum monthly deposit into it to avoid charges each month. But then you could just open the savings account with £1 and leave it if you wanted?

moggsy

CopperPlate wrote: »

Nothing as long as the other current account provider makes no charges for being overdrawn, or requires a minimum monthly deposit into it to avoid charges each month. But then you could just open the savings account with £1 and leave it if you wanted?

Yeh what I meant was (and didn't explain very well) is that I have an unused First Direct current account tied to an Everyday E-Saver account. So I was thinking of taking £250 out of the current account and putting it into the savings account. There's got to be a catch...

CopperPlate_2

No problem, we all get days like that!

Can't think that there'd be an immediate problem, although I'm sure somewhere something would be flagged up that there was a 1st account with a £250 interest free overdraft up to the limit and no payment ever going in to reduce it?