When and How to close/leave Santander 123?

David28

I have decided to close my Santander 123 account and transfer my direct debits back to my BoS Vantage account where my income is paid into and the rest into a Marcus savings account which I have just opened.

Any money over £5000 in my BoS account I am also going to pay into my Marcus savings account.

Because I do not have a council tax direct debit for the next 2 months I have worked out that the cashback plus interest less the £5 fee will actually be less than what I will get in interest alone from the Marcus savings account.

In fact my cashback will now be £2.00 a month then in April £4.24 a month because I have cancelled a direct debit.

Should I start the closing process now and should I transfer the direct debits manually or will the BoS do this for me and if I do this before the 27th of Feb will I still be charged the £5 fee?

molerat

Why not convert to a Lite and keep the cashback for a £1 fee. BOS will only manage the DDs if you switch the account to them. You need to close or change the account type before the next due date, go one day into the new period and you will get charged.

colsten

You could use the CASS switching service which will do all the moving of DDs, SOs, and money for you, and also close the account.

You could also move the DDs manually - easy to do, just give the recipient your BoS sort code and account number. You could then downgrade the 123 to and EveryDay account, which has no monthly fee, and keep it for a good switch offer to come along. Or don't bother with the downgrade, and switch straight away using one of the current switch offers.

youngretired

You can either downgrade to a 123 Lite account and pay a £1 fee and still get the cashback on those DD. Or switch your Santander to your BoS account and that way the Santander account will automatically close and the DD will all be transferred over for you with no mistakes, as if there are any problems then you are covered by CASS.

On both occasions when I downgraded and closed a Santander account neither time did I get charged the £5 fee, regardless where in the monthly cycle I was in, but that was a couple of years ago.

David28

You need to close or change the account type before the next due date, go one day into the new period and you will get charged.

I suppose you don't get the cashback for that period either?

David28

Is that the considered opinion, downgrade to 123 lite and keep getting the cashback as long as it is more than the £1 fee?

colsten

David28 wrote: »

Is that the considered opinion, downgrade to 123 lite and keep getting the cashback as long as it is more than the £1 fee?

Not from me if you can still do switching offers. If you fancy the cashback, too, you can always switch back to a 123 Lite.

JGB1955

I have Power of Attorney for my father. His house has recently been sold so he no longer has utility bills to 'earn' cashback'. Today I've asked Santander to downgrade his account to an Everyday current account, cancelled all his DDs (in and out... other than EDF who owe him a shed full of money) and transferred £20k to his Barclays account. I would have closed the account totally, but there are a couple of dividends that still haven't been transferred to Barclays... time will tell if it all works out! The lump sum will join his proceeds of house sale in NS&I.

molerat

David28 wrote: »

I suppose you don't get the cashback for that period either?

If you switch to a Lite you get any cashback and interest up to the switch date.

fozz010

I have around 10k in my Santander 123 account and I'm going to switch to the HSBC account to get the £175 bonus. Once that is sorted open a Marcus and deposit £9k. Then I'll open a HSBC saver which I think is 2.75% and drip feed £250 a month from Marcus to that saver.

DavidAC

Requested switch to Lite at the weekend and it happened today. I did consider switching to HSBC to get the payout but not knowing how reliable they are thought it not worth the risk. They only need to screw up or delay one large transfer to negate the bonus and their customer rating is not the best.