A&L Online Saver/ISA closing & cutting rates

oldagetraveller

jenyking wrote:

Whats this business of closing the account minus £1, does that mean i have to pay £1 to close it?

No. When I closed my Direct Saver they requested I transfer all of the balance except £1 to linked account, which I did. Then the interest accrued to the closure date is added to the £1 and A+ L then transferred the total to linked cutrrent account within minutes. Surprisingly enough, I was expecting A+L to hang on to the money for as long as possible. It only took 3 days to transfer the whole account balance and interest to linked account. Previously all transfers were taking about a week!

hansi

hansi wrote:

you may think so, but my money was received on 10th June by A & L. Not counting that day, 8 working days brings us up to the 23rd! Well the 22nd actually!

My money was shown as available today but when I made a request to transfer it back, it said there were insufficient funds to make the transfer. So I changed the date to next Monday and it went through ok. So they have the use of MY money for another two days. What a liberty!

Kazza242

gm_xone wrote:

I already have a Cahoot Savings Account which is linked to the current account I also have with them.
Whilst the interest rate is only marginally more than what A & L now pay, transfers will (hopefully!) be much quicker between my accounts.

So for now, at least, I'll use Cahoot...
and as for the future...:question:

PS. Does anyone know if transfers between Cahoot accounts are instant?

Yes, the transfers are instant. I have both a current a/c and savings a/c with Cahoot. Whenever, I have transferred money between them, the money shows up instantly. I even transferred money on a non-working day from my savings a/c to the current a/c and was able to withdraw the funds at the ATM all on the same day.

WaltD

I have today (4th July) received a letter from Alliance & Leicester, informing me that the interest rate on my Online Saver account was reduced to 5% gross PA/AER from 13 June 2005. Nice of them to let me know 3 weeks after the event!

Also, they are saying that any balance in the account in excess of £25,000 will receive 0% interest from 10 August. So investors will no longer earn "interest on the interest" if they have the maximum balance in the account.

Finally, they have changed the rules so that you are only allowed to withdraw up to £10,000 per day from the account. Therefore it would take 3 separate transactions on three separate days to withdraw £25,000 from the account.

I am going to close the account (which I opened only 1 month ago) and transfer my funds to Bradford & Bingley e-Savings (5.25% AER).

Grumpy_Old_Duffer

WaltD wrote:

I have today (4th July) received a letter from Alliance & Leicester, informing me that the interest rate on my Online Saver account was reduced to 5% gross PA/AER from 13 June 2005. Nice of them to let me know 3 weeks after the event!

Also, they are saying that any balance in the account in excess of £25,000 will receive 0% interest from 10 August. So investors will no longer earn "interest on the interest" if they have the maximum balance in the account.

Finally, they have changed the rules so that you are only allowed to withdraw up to £10,000 per day from the account. Therefore it would take 3 separate transactions on three separate days to withdraw £25,000 from the account.

I am going to close the account (which I opened only 1 month ago) and transfer my funds to Bradford & Bingley e-Savings (5.25% AER).

<Ditto> WaltD.
I also received my letter today ...... 3 weeks AFTER the event.:mad:
Also not happy about them 'capping' interest rates at £25,000.:mad:

Martin L. mentioned somewhere about these organisations 'sucking' people in to take out accounts with them, then deviously reducing their rates. Having read this thread I think I'm going to ING as they have consistently been a top payer of Interest Rates.

KrazyFool

they are no different from anyone else probably. They must estimate how many will join, the amount of interest they & customer recieves and the point at which they peak so they have to reduce interest before losing out...or something along those lines anyway im sure....

Plasticman

WaltD wrote:

they have changed the rules so that you are only allowed to withdraw up to £10,000 per day from the account. Therefore it would take 3 separate transactions on three separate days to withdraw £25,000 from the account.

This is only for "Transfers to accounts not registered for Internet Banking" so a transfer to your linked current account for up to £25,000 will be OK.

hansi

Grumpy_Old_Duffer wrote:

<Ditto> WaltD.
I also received my letter today ...... 3 weeks AFTER the event.:mad:
Also not happy about them 'capping' interest rates at £25,000.:mad:

Martin L. mentioned somewhere about these organisations 'sucking' people in to take out accounts with them, then deviously reducing their rates. Having read this thread I think I'm going to ING as they have consistently been a top payer of Interest Rates.

I got my letter today, already shredded!

nessauk

hansi wrote:

I got my letter today, already shredded!

Same here - Just not shredded yet. Annoying in a way as I had accidently stopped the d/debit recently, and if i'd known this was going to be the case then I wouldn't have bothered wasting my time with a phone call last week trying to get it reinstated.

Now to decide where to put my money next, and whether there is going to be a guarantee that the interest is going to stay at the rate offered instead of reducing it 6 months down the line...

knuckledragger

Shredded today, recycled tomorrow.