First Direct Joint Account

Bullet500

My partner and i have a joint account each with Smile, which all our individual state and work pensions are paid into, from these we each pay a set amount each month into a joint Santander account which pays all our household bills and purchases. We are happy with the Smile bank , but need to get away from Santander, who are a nightmare. We want to use the Santander App on our mobiles but while they have my mobile phone number correct they have the country code wrong, so i cant use it. I have phoned the helpline and even been into the branch to change it, and still its wrong, everything else is fine they send statements etc to our home address, landline no is ok, we've  had enough of them.
Have always read good things about First Direct, so thought we would move there, but on looking they only have sole account applications on the web page, and we wanted a joint account. If i was to join with a solo account can it be changed afterwards to a joint account as we don't want the hassle of moving banks again

xylophone

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78011424/#Comment_78011424
Did you ever make a formal complaint in writing ?

Had you considered a Natwest Reward account?

https://personal.natwest.com/personal/current-accounts/joint-account.html

born_again

Bullet500 said:

My partner and i have a joint account each with Smile, which all our individual state and work pensions are paid into, from these we each pay a set amount each month into a joint Santander account which pays all our household bills and purchases. We are happy with the Smile bank , but need to get away from Santander, who are a nightmare. We want to use the Santander App on our mobiles but while they have my mobile phone number correct they have the country code wrong, so i cant use it. I have phoned the helpline and even been into the branch to change it, and still its wrong, everything else is fine they send statements etc to our home address, landline no is ok, we've  had enough of them.
Have always read good things about First Direct, so thought we would move there, but on looking they only have sole account applications on the web page, and we wanted a joint account. If i was to join with a solo account can it be changed afterwards to a joint account as we don't want the hassle of moving banks again

.If you are thinking of Fd then give them a call with both of you there .They will need to speak to both of you.

Bullet500

xylophone said:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78011424/#Comment_78011424
Did you ever make a formal complaint in writing ?

Had you considered a Natwest Reward account?

https://personal.natwest.com/personal/current-accounts/joint-account.html

I did actually write a formal complaint, and got a reply by phone from Head Office with an apology and £30 gift, they couldn't sort it over the phone and advised me to go into the local branch who would sort it. this i did about 6 months back, was a absolute nightmare, i understand totally that i couldn't see anyone individually to sort it, i had to stand in the queue for the cashier,at first  she didn't grasp what the issue was, on checking my details they had everything wrong ,home address,email address and mobile, which i found very odd as we had regular statements delivered , and emails, it took ages, wasn't easy as she was behind the counter and screen, hard to understand her, lots of moaning from customers in queue, anyway she did it and checked it over with me, all ok .,but on trying to sign up for the mobile banking App next day it still has my mobile no. wrong. I've given up on them now hence wanting to go to another bank. Not looked at Natwest, i will though, only reason i chose First Direct was all the positive reviews, not bothered about the £100 sign up gift offers

funkycredit

Hmmm, my personal experience is Santander is the best, then Nationwide then First Direct. Both as my primary banks and for app functionality. 

Have you spoken to Santander online / app help desk as I had issues with personal and business accounts using same info so had two logins but neither worked. Spoke to the actual help desk who walked me through the app reset and then both personal & business were correctly assigned to my customer reference under one login. The app is by far one of the best for my needs - only thing I can't do is increase my credit card limit or do a balance transfer otherwise it's ideal for my needs. 

NatWest is by far the worst bank. Just google about them randomly closing accounts and all sorts of ridiculousness & nonsense. First Direct are also decent and worth opening there if you get approved. 

xylophone

,but on trying to sign up for the mobile banking App next day it still has my mobile no. wrong. I've given up on them now hence wanting to go to another bank. 

This is unacceptable - truly dire customer service. Make another complaint in writing.

kaMelo

funkycredit said:

Hmmm, my personal experience is Santander is the best, then Nationwide then First Direct. Both as my primary banks and for app functionality. 

Have you spoken to Santander online / app help desk as I had issues with personal and business accounts using same info so had two logins but neither worked. Spoke to the actual help desk who walked me through the app reset and then both personal & business were correctly assigned to my customer reference under one login. The app is by far one of the best for my needs - only thing I can't do is increase my credit card limit or do a balance transfer otherwise it's ideal for my needs. 

NatWest is by far the worst bank. Just google about them randomly closing accounts and all sorts of ridiculousness & nonsense. First Direct are also decent and worth opening there if you get approved. 

Hmmm, to counter your anecdotal view with my own as a customer of NatWest for nearly forty years my anecdotal experience has been nothing but positive.
Whilst there are reports of NatWest closing accounts randomly one has to question whether the full story is being told. Some closures, rather than being random and nonsense, were possibly due to said customers breaching the terms and conditions for a particular account but of course, those complaining about a bank being by far the worst usually leave that part out.

Rosa_Damascena

xylophone said:

Had you considered a Natwest Reward account?

The OP is looking for headache-free banking and this is not a solution IME.