Co-operative Refer a Friend Switching Offer £125 (Nov 2022)

WillPS

bristolleedsfan said:

Did anyone who was asked to send ID etc by post, account opening/switch taken place after referral form claim deadline get £125 payments?

One of my referees did in Jan - although in that case the published date was basically ignored since so many switches which were scheduled ended up happening late.

bristolleedsfan

WillPS said:

bristolleedsfan said:

Did anyone who was asked to send ID etc by post, account opening/switch taken place after referral form claim deadline get £125 payments?

One of my referees did in Jan - although in that case the published date was basically ignored since so many switches which were scheduled ended up happening late.

Someone I know, not from this forum applied around 12 December, since filling in referral form has not heard anything, he has since contacted Coop Bank who referred him to "within 60 days" terms.

17 January  "hey, still ongoing - co-op seem to only communicate by letter, so its taken weeks to get ID sorted with postal strikes etc, soon hopefully, re-sent off last week"

23 March     "hi, after some gremlins the switch has worked, will fill in form now"

WillPS

bristolleedsfan said:

WillPS said:

bristolleedsfan said:

Did anyone who was asked to send ID etc by post, account opening/switch taken place after referral form claim deadline get £125 payments?

One of my referees did in Jan - although in that case the published date was basically ignored since so many switches which were scheduled ended up happening late.

Someone I know, not from this forum applied around 12 December, since filling in referral form has not heard anything, he has since contacted Coop Bank who referred him to "within 60 days" terms.

17 January  "hey, still ongoing - co-op seem to only communicate by letter, so its taken weeks to get ID sorted with postal strikes etc, soon hopefully, re-sent off last week"

23 March     "hi, after some gremlins the switch has worked, will fill in form now"

Ah, I think this was (just) inside 60 days still... I'd complain if I was in your referees position. 

Bridlington1

WillPS said:

Bridlington1 said:

The thing that's baffling me though is that there are people on this thread who claimed the £50 during the original offer period (2021-November 2022), switched out before they increased the payment to £125, then switched back in in November/December to successfully receive £125.

Unless I'm going mad, the FOS ruling would suggest these people would have been ineligible for the £125 so why have Co-op paid them?

The FOS don't have sight of them though, you'd probably have trouble getting them to consider the bank's actions towards those miscellaneous offers and even if you could the Co-op would just claim those payments were in error.

There's been an interesting development. I've received a message from someone on this forum who was in the same position as me regarding the Co-op refer a friend, i.e. had got the first £50, switched out shortly after Co-op upped the amount to £125, then switched back in again. The FOS has ruled in their favour and Co-op have agreed to pay up. The only difference between our cases was that they included evidence from this thread in their FOS case, plus details of other switching offers from other banks which define what a new customer is.

I shall now go through this thread collecting evidence (omitting names of course) and shall ask the FOS to reconsider my case. It would be helpful if anyone else who has received both the £50 and £125 payments could post this information on this thread. I think I may have shot myself in the foot though as their response contained the following:

But if you decide that you don't accept what I’ve said – and want an Ombudsman to make a final decision on your complaint – you must provide any further evidence or representations by 6 April 2023. Requests for more time must also be made by that date. If I don’t hear from you by 6 April 2023 we might not be able to look at your complaint again.

So it looks like I have made a complete and utter horlicks of this one but I think it's worth a shot.

Bridlington1

It's just suddenly occurred to me, what a fool I've been. The excuse that the £50 and £125 offers were one and the same on the grounds that Co-op never announced the end of their offer before upping the amount from £50 to £125 can be blown out of the water by our good old friends at Santander.

On 2nd August 2022 Santander launched a £160 offer, which was replaced by a £175 offer on 23/8/22. Santander never announced the end of their £160 offer prior to launching the new £175 offer, indeed their website shortly after 1am on the very day they launched the £175 offer still showed this:




Source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220823010123/https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/current-accounts/switching

So Santander never announced the end of their £160 switching offer when they upped the amount to £175 but despite this both offers were in fact completely separate offers.

bristolleedsfan

Bridlington1 said:

/https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/current-accounts/switching

So Santander never announced the end of their £160 switching offer when they upped the amount to £175 but despite this both offers were in fact completely separate offers.

The only posts I have seen have said that Santander did not pay for more than one switch, maybe i have missed something ???

Ed-1

bristolleedsfan said:

Bridlington1 said:

/https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/current-accounts/switching

So Santander never announced the end of their £160 switching offer when they upped the amount to £175 but despite this both offers were in fact completely separate offers.

The only posts I have seen have said that Santander did not pay for more than one switch, maybe i have missed something ???

That's because Santander have a clause that says if you've ever benefitted from a switch incentive before you're not eligible. Coop don't.

Bridlington1

I've emailed my case handler asking that an Ombudsman gives a final decision on my case and included evidence from this thread of people having received both the £50 and £125 payments and also detailed the August Santander switching offers . I've just had an email from the case handler:

Dear Bridlington1

Your complaint about The Co-operative Bank Plc

Thank you for your email.

 

I’ve looked at everything you’ve said and the documents you attached most of which relate to Santander Bank.

 

I’ve read what was written from the Money Saving Expert blogs but I still don’t consider that the £125 was a new offer. Under section 4.1 of the Co-operative Bank terms and conditions the scheme states;

 

‘We can withdraw this offer at anytime and should we chose to do so, we will update our website with the final switching date on which we will honour any payments’.

 

As explained in my view, I can’t see that the offer was withdrawn until December 2022 so I can’t find that it was two separate offers.

 

I’ve also seen the documents you sent on Santander however the only relevant documents I can consider are the terms and conditions relating to the Co-operative Bank which is where you opened your account and sought to partake in their offer.

 

In view of this, my view remains the same.

 

Please note that the ombudsman can only consider the complaint as was made to the Co-operative Bank so we won’t be considering your new request to look at the £125 refer-a-friend offer for the person who referred you. This will need to be raised with the Co-operative Bank by the person themselves.

 

An ombudsman will review this complaint

Because you didn’t agree, an ombudsman will review the complaint and make a decision. That means:

• An ombudsman will look at everything that’s been provided and make an independent decision. They’ll put the decision in writing to both you and Co-operative Bank, and explain their reasoning within the decision.
• If the ombudsman’s conclusions are different from mine, they will explain why and let you reply before they give you their decision. Otherwise, they won’t usually get in touch before issuing their decision unless they need more information.
• The ombudsman’s final decision will be binding on both you and Co-operative Bank if you accept it before the deadline they give you. So if the ombudsman tells the business to do something – and you accept the decision – the business will have to do it.
• We publish final decisions by our ombudsmen on our website. But your name won’t appear in the published decision – so you can’t be identified.

 

We should already have all the information the ombudsman needs to reach a decision. But if we need anything more from you, we’ll let you know.

What you need to do now

All of your previous and new submissions will be considered but if you still have any further points or information you’d like the ombudsman to consider, please send these to me by 1 May 2023. Please pay attention to the deadline.

If you need more time to reply, please let me know before this date. If I don’t hear from you, I will assume you do not want to add anything.

We will keep you up to date with our progress – but please get in touch if you have any questions.

If anyone has had both the £50 and the £125 payments from the refer a friend offers who hasn't already posted this in this thread I would be very grateful if you could post this as I feel the more evidence I can get my hands on the better.

Also any suggestions as to what more I should include in my complaint would be much appreciated.

Alex9384

Bridlington1 said:

If anyone has had both the £50 and the £125 payments from the refer a friend offers who hasn't already posted this in this thread I would be very grateful if you could post this as I feel the more evidence I can get my hands on the better.

Also any suggestions as to what more I should include in my complaint would be much appreciated.

This whole Coop complaint thing should be a separate thread. Many people don't ever click on this one again because they've seen it before when it was just related to switch. They are not interested anymore. If we started a new one, something like "Coop refusing to pay out their switch bonus", that would possibly attract many more people. What do you think?

Dustybee

@Bridlington1 I hope you get other posters that can help with the complaint.

@Alex9384 I think that is a good idea.  The referral thread will get missed by some members.