Co-operative bank refusing to pay £125 refer-a-friend offer FOS case

Section62

SwiftSuzie said:

It completely mystifies me why obviously intelligent people invest so much time and effort into pulling a flanker which is an obvious abuse of an incentive offer aimed at securing serious long-term account holders by ducking and diving, closing accounts one day, reopening them the next etc. and then coming over all indignant when knocked back. What a faff. I could understand it more if thousands of pounds were involved but for buttons like £50 or even £125 ? Goodness me, life's too short. I can just imagine the "Oh God. We've got another one." reaction at the FOS.

This is the moneysavingexpert website - where some of the ideas 'officially' put forward only have the potential to save a pound or two.

You might feel £125 is "buttons", but for a lot of forum members it is a decent amount of money.  For some it is the difference between heating and eating, or shivering and going hungry.  Being quite so dismissive of other people's moneysaving approach was unnecessary.

SwiftSuzie

Section62 said:

SwiftSuzie said:

It completely mystifies me why obviously intelligent people invest so much time and effort into pulling a flanker which is an obvious abuse of an incentive offer aimed at securing serious long-term account holders by ducking and diving, closing accounts one day, reopening them the next etc. and then coming over all indignant when knocked back. What a faff. I could understand it more if thousands of pounds were involved but for buttons like £50 or even £125 ? Goodness me, life's too short. I can just imagine the "Oh God. We've got another one." reaction at the FOS.

This is the moneysavingexpert website - where some of the ideas 'officially' put forward only have the potential to save a pound or two.

You might feel £125 is "buttons", but for a lot of forum members it is a decent amount of money.  For some it is the difference between heating and eating, or shivering and going hungry.  Being quite so dismissive of other people's moneysaving approach was unnecessary.

Take your point, but the impression given is that people are having a bit of sport around the margins of the system which is clearly not intended to be manipulated in this manner. And I would add that the costs involved in dealing with complaints and appeals that prove to be vexatious will be borne by all of us in the end.

Section62

SwiftSuzie said:

Take your point, but the impression given is that people are having a bit of sport around the margins of the system which is clearly not intended to be manipulated in this manner. And I would add that the costs involved in dealing with complaints and appeals that prove to be vexatious will be borne by all of us in the end.

The simple solution would be for banks to get their T&C's correct and make fewer mistakes.  And when they do make a mistake, to fess up, rather than wriggling around reinventing facts.  (a general comment about banks, not any one in particular)

None of the issues raised in this thread appear to be "vexatious" complaints, we should be careful not to tar people with the "vexatious" brush when they have a reasonable and justifiable complaint.  Making a complaint which isn't upheld doesn't automatically mean the complaint is vexatious.

Rudyson

SwiftSuzie said:

Section62 said:

SwiftSuzie said:

It completely mystifies me why obviously intelligent people invest so much time and effort into pulling a flanker which is an obvious abuse of an incentive offer aimed at securing serious long-term account holders by ducking and diving, closing accounts one day, reopening them the next etc. and then coming over all indignant when knocked back. What a faff. I could understand it more if thousands of pounds were involved but for buttons like £50 or even £125 ? Goodness me, life's too short. I can just imagine the "Oh God. We've got another one." reaction at the FOS.

This is the moneysavingexpert website - where some of the ideas 'officially' put forward only have the potential to save a pound or two.

You might feel £125 is "buttons", but for a lot of forum members it is a decent amount of money.  For some it is the difference between heating and eating, or shivering and going hungry.  Being quite so dismissive of other people's moneysaving approach was unnecessary.

Take your point, but the impression given is that people are having a bit of sport around the margins of the system which is clearly not intended to be manipulated in this manner. And I would add that the costs involved in dealing with complaints and appeals that prove to be vexatious will be borne by all of us in the end.

Also it takes up time that could be used investigating far more serious breaches, where people have lost significant amounts, rather than failing to get a bonus.
 

WillPS

Rudyson said:

SwiftSuzie said:

Section62 said:

SwiftSuzie said:

It completely mystifies me why obviously intelligent people invest so much time and effort into pulling a flanker which is an obvious abuse of an incentive offer aimed at securing serious long-term account holders by ducking and diving, closing accounts one day, reopening them the next etc. and then coming over all indignant when knocked back. What a faff. I could understand it more if thousands of pounds were involved but for buttons like £50 or even £125 ? Goodness me, life's too short. I can just imagine the "Oh God. We've got another one." reaction at the FOS.

This is the moneysavingexpert website - where some of the ideas 'officially' put forward only have the potential to save a pound or two.

You might feel £125 is "buttons", but for a lot of forum members it is a decent amount of money.  For some it is the difference between heating and eating, or shivering and going hungry.  Being quite so dismissive of other people's moneysaving approach was unnecessary.

Take your point, but the impression given is that people are having a bit of sport around the margins of the system which is clearly not intended to be manipulated in this manner. And I would add that the costs involved in dealing with complaints and appeals that prove to be vexatious will be borne by all of us in the end.

Also it takes up time that could be used investigating far more serious breaches, where people have lost significant amounts, rather than failing to get a bonus.
 

This is a very poor argument in my view, it's akin to saying Police should not spend time dealing with burglars when their time could be spent dealing with rapists and murderers.

Section62

Rudyson said:

SwiftSuzie said:

Section62 said:

SwiftSuzie said:

It completely mystifies me why obviously intelligent people invest so much time and effort into pulling a flanker which is an obvious abuse of an incentive offer aimed at securing serious long-term account holders by ducking and diving, closing accounts one day, reopening them the next etc. and then coming over all indignant when knocked back. What a faff. I could understand it more if thousands of pounds were involved but for buttons like £50 or even £125 ? Goodness me, life's too short. I can just imagine the "Oh God. We've got another one." reaction at the FOS.

This is the moneysavingexpert website - where some of the ideas 'officially' put forward only have the potential to save a pound or two.

You might feel £125 is "buttons", but for a lot of forum members it is a decent amount of money.  For some it is the difference between heating and eating, or shivering and going hungry.  Being quite so dismissive of other people's moneysaving approach was unnecessary.

Take your point, but the impression given is that people are having a bit of sport around the margins of the system which is clearly not intended to be manipulated in this manner. And I would add that the costs involved in dealing with complaints and appeals that prove to be vexatious will be borne by all of us in the end.

Also it takes up time that could be used investigating far more serious breaches, where people have lost significant amounts, rather than failing to get a bonus.
 

Not sure what you mean.

If it is about the Financial Ombudsman Service "investigating far more serious breaches" then that isn't their role.  Their remit is to help people achieve a fair outcome where a financial services organisation has not upheld a complaint.  They don't "investigate...breaches".

The amount someone may have lost isn't necessarily indicative of the unfairness of what has happened.  For example, the case where somone had their car insurance cancelled because the telematics said they drove at 125mph probably had a loss of only a few hundred pounds or so.  The unfairness of having their policy cancelled because of a false claim they were driving at 125mph (especially as their car was only capable of 112mph) is the thing that really mattered.  If only the cases where people who'd lost significant amounts got looked at then the system wouldn't be fair.

Whether it is the banks or the FOS you refer to, if there is a shortage of time to consider complaint cases then the simple option is to employ more staff to do the investigations.  Or for the banks to make fewer mistakes, or resolve customer complaints at a much earlier stage.

Alex9384

SwiftSuzie said:

This is a flawed analogy. A more accurate one would be Roger Federer winning the prize money and then coming back the following week, running out onto Centre Court and demanding they pay him again. 

It completely mystifies me why obviously intelligent people invest so much time and effort into pulling a flanker which is an obvious abuse of an incentive offer ...

Your analogy is flawed too.
People are not demanding money for the same switch (analogy to already winning the prize).
It's for a new switch to a new account and Coop T&C were written very ambiguously. Yes, so ambiguously that even intelligent people were not able to tell exactly what means what. So ambiguously, that different FOS investigators come up with different outcomes for the same issue.

And no, it's not an obvious abuse of an incentive offer. I received 2 switch incentives from Halifax and I know for sure some other banks will pay you more than once. I only tried it with Coop because I genuinely believed I was eligible. I even asked on this forum before I decided to come back to Coop and no one could see any reason why I shouldn't get another bonus.

Only after lots of internal Coop info (not in their public T&C) has been posted on this forum, everyone is an expert now.

TheBanker

Rudyson said:

SwiftSuzie said:

Section62 said:

SwiftSuzie said:

It completely mystifies me why obviously intelligent people invest so much time and effort into pulling a flanker which is an obvious abuse of an incentive offer aimed at securing serious long-term account holders by ducking and diving, closing accounts one day, reopening them the next etc. and then coming over all indignant when knocked back. What a faff. I could understand it more if thousands of pounds were involved but for buttons like £50 or even £125 ? Goodness me, life's too short. I can just imagine the "Oh God. We've got another one." reaction at the FOS.

This is the moneysavingexpert website - where some of the ideas 'officially' put forward only have the potential to save a pound or two.

You might feel £125 is "buttons", but for a lot of forum members it is a decent amount of money.  For some it is the difference between heating and eating, or shivering and going hungry.  Being quite so dismissive of other people's moneysaving approach was unnecessary.

Take your point, but the impression given is that people are having a bit of sport around the margins of the system which is clearly not intended to be manipulated in this manner. And I would add that the costs involved in dealing with complaints and appeals that prove to be vexatious will be borne by all of us in the end.

Also it takes up time that could be used investigating far more serious breaches, where people have lost significant amounts, rather than failing to get a bonus.
 

Unfortunately it wouldn't. If the FOS had fewer cases, they would have less income. If they had less income they would have to make some staff redundant. There would not be any capacity freed up to spend more time on other complaints.

Alex9384

Rudyson said:

Also it takes up time that could be used investigating far more serious breaches, where people have lost significant amounts, rather than failing to get a bonus.
 

It's Coop to blame. Even after all those complaints, they still didn't rewrite their T&C.

For example:
Coop Feb offer T&C: The Recommended Friend is entitled to only one payment
Coop May offer T&C: The Recommended Friend is entitled to only one incentive payment

Still no mention of "once in a lifetime" or "you can't have ever had switch bonus from Coop".

How hard is it to add a few words like that?

They obviously went through their T&C and added the word "incentive" but they decided not to change the ambiguous parts, so they can keep avoiding future pay outs to people who switch to them but have had a bonus from Coop long time ago. Coop still reports new customers switching to them from another bank, so their stats look better.

Do all Coop defenders in this thread want to tell me that they immediately knew what is meant by "one payment"? For comparison, other banks also mention "one payment" in their T&Cs, but you can still get more than one switch bonus from them after a certain time period. Those banks who only pay you once in a lifetime, state it clearly in their T&C. Except Coop.

SwiftSuzie

I think it stands to reason. They want you to join them and they will pay you an incentive to do so. Clearly, they are not looking for that to repeat periodically. What happens if you are successful the 2nd time? Does that give licence for a 3rd attempt? And so on? This will create expense for these businesses that will be paid for by everyone.