Chip Savings Account - a scam?

Emmia

Yes, it's been great!

maxsteam said:

Daliah said:

If a bank with whom you hold deposits fails, the FSCS automatically reimburses you, up to £85k per person.

Only if the account with the bank is in your name. An account in your name with Chip counts for nothing under the FSCS.

Chip is now a platform, and the FSCS protection is offered via the banks they have partnered with.  These accounts are not "Chip accounts" Chip is merely the interface. These accounts all pay interest or a "bonus", and so have the protection, as FSCS registration is required for this.

The Chip AI auto save feature is available on these accounts (provided you're on a plan that offers it).

The e-money wallet (which was an "account" fully operated by Chip) and which was the original Chip product was withdrawn several months ago, paid no interest, and had no FSCS protection - as Chip is not registered with the FSCS in it's own right.

Money in these e-wallet accounts is/was unprotected. In announcing the withdrawal of this product, Chip communications exhorted the need for the money to be removed and redeposited - with fairly hefty charges (I seem to remember £5 a month, but I'm not certain) if this wasn't done.

Anyone with any sense who wanted to continue with Chip autosaves when the e-wallet was withdrawn, would have moved their money from this to one of their interest/bonus bearing accounts offered by Allica or HTB. This involved the money being withdrawn back to the originating account, and then manually deposited into the interest bearing account. If the saver is using the autosave feature this can then be switched in the app to the new account. 

Part of what @maxsteam says is true, Chip is not currently registered with FSCS in their own right - but the banks they've partnered with as a platform e.g. Allica are, and it is important to make that distinction.

Chip does not currently directly offer its own accounts.

Daliah

Emmia said: 

Part of what @maxstream says is true, 

True but irrelevant, for the reasons you explained so patiently, and because it‘s all detailed on the CHIP website

Mustangdave

No, it's a nightmare

wonko said:

CHIP financial periodically promoted in the weekly MSE email, have to date, failed, after several months of trying, taken a single payment for 'investment' This is, according to them, because the linked account (Santander) has a problem. Yet remarkably, they were able to take one of their ever inflating charges from the very same account.

So my question is:

Have you had a good experience with CHIP and are you actually making the promised returns after all the fees are deducted?

Recently moved my isa

Emmia

Yes, it's been great!

Mustangdave said:

wonko said:

CHIP financial periodically promoted in the weekly MSE email, have to date, failed, after several months of trying, taken a single payment for 'investment' This is, according to them, because the linked account (Santander) has a problem. Yet remarkably, they were able to take one of their ever inflating charges from the very same account.

So my question is:

Have you had a good experience with CHIP and are you actually making the promised returns after all the fees are deducted?

Recently moved my isa

This thread is the best part of 4 years old. A necro post 

masonic

Yes, it's been great!

This is a three and a half year old thread. I was a happy customer up until the point they stopped offering the best rates to existing customers, at which point I moved on.

If Chip was indeed a scam as per thread title, it would have blown up long before now.