Co-operative Bank - dreadful!

gsmh

I was referred to the Co-operative Bank and have received my incentive. I fully intended to use it as my main account. I applied for a small (£300) overdraft to act as a buffer should there be an unexpected debit at the end of the month, but after a week of waiting this was declined. I have never had any credit application declined and my credit reference is squeaky clean. I attempted to transfer funds to another account in my name but the "faster" payment was not made and the transfer was labelled 'Unknown:Outcome not available, please check later.' when I attempted to query it. I called the Co-operative Bank yesterday and was on hold for 62 minutes before an operator answered, sounding like she was on a mobile phone well away from any cell tower. The call failed, but she did call me back - by that time I decided to switch to another bank. I called again this morning and was told I would have to wait until the fraud department contacted me. Eventually the transfer happened at lunchtime today.

I opened a Starling account in just a few minutes and the debit card was immediately available to add to Apple Wallet. I applied for a £300 overdraft and my request was accepted and agreed within minutes. My switch date is next week, exactly 7 days from opening the Starling account.

I set up a payment to my Atom Bank account and transferred £2,500 - I was asked a few questions and the transfer was accepted within about 10 minutes.

An example of how things should be done.

pfpf

you got an account, its better than where i am now after over a month and 2 separate lots of certified ID.

Snapdragon

pfpf said:

you got an account, its better than where i am now after over a month and 2 separate lots of certified ID.

I waited more than 3 months for them to set up a new account, complained, got a bit of compensation and decided they were such a complete disaster I wouldn't trust using them, so used the account for a switch! Would never go near them again.

pfpf

tbf, the £500 on offer for me, OH and a family referrer is the only reason to be persisting at this point. come on coop.

AmityNeon

Like TSB, good for referral/switch offers, sometimes even monthly rewards, but comparatively poor for general banking.

wmb194

Co-op Bank has always been third rate. I'm surprised you're surprised.

WillPS

gsmh said:

 I applied for a small (£300) overdraft to act as a buffer should there be an unexpected debit at the end of the month, but after a week of waiting this was declined.

Did you not apply for an overdraft at point of application? I've had it with banks before that once you've applied you can't apply for an overdraft (or a larger one if you have one) for 6 months.

I recall with HSBC I was even offered one at point of application which I declined, but then decided to actually use it as a main account so thought the overdraft would be helpful, but they wouldn't allow it. Tesco was another, except IIRC their policy was no overdraft at all if you declined during application.

In any case try not to take declines personally. It's all down to an algorithm ultimately, and even if it gets referred manually the human making the decision will be doing so according to a decision tree.

That said Co-op Bank's functionality is rubbish and I think you were mad for even trying to use it as a main account personally!

gsmh

WillPS said:

That said Co-op Bank's functionality is rubbish and I think you were mad for even trying to use it as a main account personally!

Yes, I have now realised that. Thank goodness for the CASS Switching service! My account will switch over on 15 December. That's two self-proclaimed 'ethical' banks which are almost useless - Triodos and the Co-operative. Let's hope I get on better with Starling! So far, so good.

grumbler

Their quiz during registration for online banking is a disaster for serial switchers (and not only for them).

You have to select the correct date (month+year) - one out of four - when you opened one of your current accounts. And for me this went as far back as 2001 (!) with more than one month to chose from for this year. Luckily I was able to find my recent credit report.

I guess this quiz was designed by some idiot incapable of imagining that some people can have more than one-two current accounts during their life. And this idiot believes that all people have to remember the month when they opened some account 20 years ago.

gsmh

I use an app on my Mac and iPhone, NoteStation, hosted locally on my NAS. I keep records of everything and for bank accounts, loans and credit cards I always record the date I opened the account. It's probably worth trawling through your credit references to find the information and noting it somewhere. I have been asked such questions on quite a few occasions for one thing or another. Apple Notes, Google Keep, Evernote or Microsoft OneNote are simple alternatives.

subjecttocontract

I've had a Co-Op everyday extra account for a couple of years now. I only opened it because it provides travel, phone and car breakdown insurance at a reasonable price for us. We pay just enough in every month to cover 3 direct debits and the monthly fee. Works great for us but I wouldn't want to use it as a main bank account.