Coventry BS Regular Saver

colsten

Setting yourself up with your first Coventry Account and online access to it is a bit long-winded. They are excellent once you have online access as new accounts appear online almost immediately.

One proviso: their login still requires the hideous grid card (or a softcopy of it), and they don't have an app or plans for any app. I find that bearable as I don't need to log in very often. I do like their Regular Saver, and they also have some nice ISA rates at times (not at present though).

paul235

Do they send excessive paperwork to existing members who open a Regular Saver account? Deluge of letters puts me off Coventry BS.

Gers wrote: »

I’ve come late to this RS!

I applied online, got an account number and sort code immediately so did a FP of first £500 straight away. Now I await the onslaught of paperwork.

Never heard of the grid card, that should be interesting.

Fingerbobs

paul235 wrote: »

Do they send excessive paperwork to existing members who open a Regular Saver account? Deluge of letters puts me off Coventry BS.

I'm an existing member, and I received very little postal mail when I opened the RS. Just a "welcome" letter I think is all I got.

oli356

Think I had like 4 letters on one day when I set mine up recently... in my opinion its just a waste to send out paperwork on the exact same information that is online ... which i read ... before I registered. The amount of post I've had in the past couple of weeks due to registering for a dozen different things is ridiculous.... such a waste.

uptdale

One proviso: their login still requires the hideous grid card (or a softcopy of it), and they don't have an app or plans for any app.

Actually I quite like the grid card system. Simple but effective. And for those of us in the significant minority who don't have a mobile phone signal at home, it avoids having to ring the call centre everytime you log in, as seems to happen with some banks. And it's a lot less to carry around than the widgets which some banks use.

colsten

uptdale wrote: »

And for those of us in the significant minority who don't have a mobile phone signal at home

You don't actually need a mobile signal, or even a mobile, to receive texts. Some landline providers support text to landlines, or some mobile providers offer WiFi calling, or there is a plethora of free virtual mobile numbers e.g. http://www.myukvirtualnumber.com/. So "I can't receive texts because I have no signal" is not a good excuse.

uptdale wrote: »

And it's a lot less to carry around than the widgets which some banks use.

I grant you that - some of the physical widgets are even more hideous. But at least they are safer than a grid card, or a copy of a grid card, which displays the codes in clear text, with not even a password needed.

uptdale

So "I can't receive texts because I have no signal" is not a good excuse.

Some of my neighbours have devices from their mobile phone operator which work over the wifi network, so can receive texts that way. Last time I looked, they were quite expensive, and only worthwhile if you use mobiles a lot, especially for work. I don't use my mobile much, only when I am away from home, so I'm with Giffgaff which is much cheaper and more flexible for low users. But Giffgaff does not offer a device to use mobiles over wifi, and I really do not see why I should switch to a more expensive mobile service just to get the occasional text from a bank.

A few banks (and HMRC) can send the One Time Code by spoken message to a landline, and that works fine. But unless the bank allows you two phone numbers to receive OTCs (some don't), you would then have to remember to change your phone number to your mobile before you travel, and then change it back to the landline before you return home, which would be a pain.

I use Hullomail to get voice messages to my mobile sent over the internet, but that does not work for texts. So thank you for the link to http://www.myukvirtualnumber.com/. But I see that it costs £5 a month unless you first receive 200 minutes of calls to your virtual mobile number, which would be quite a challenge to arrange.