Has anyone opened up a O/Saver account with the Post Office recently?

paye

Hi, 

Last week I opened up an  online saver account with the Post Office as they are offering 3.17%  interest on balances. 

Now that the account is opened I can't seem to deposit any money into it. 

I tried making a test deposit (£1)  from my  linked account but the money keeps being returned, 

Has anyone expereinced this problem before? 

I was going to give them a call today but they are closed. 

thanks 

poppystar

It worked fine for me when I opened the account last month. However, I made a deposit last week which still hasn’t gone through. 

paye

thanks, might have to give them a call tomorrow, sounds like a technical issue their end.  

How long does it usually take for the deposit to clear and show up on your account? 

Band7

There are many better alternatives than the PO saver which has attracted consistently bad feedback, especially about withdrawals. Perhaps it is your guardian angel trying to save you from worse issues further down the line.  

Check out these: https://moneyfactscompare.co.uk/savings-accounts/easy-access-savings-accounts/?quick-links-first=false

adindas

Search it in this forum regarding people experience when they are about to withdraw their money with PO saving account. My personal opinion they are the worst even of you compare it with small building societies. Hope you don't experience it later. The main reason people are opening the saving account with PO in the past is to pull money from an account suing DD but that is no longer the case.

Unless you have maxed otu other alternatives out there, I can not see any attraction of putting a large sum of money in their saving account. There are a lot of other better alternatives easy access saving account available in here to choose from.

https://moneyfacts.co.uk/savings-accounts/

https://www.simplysavingsaccounts.co.uk/

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6392978/top-easy-access-acs-ranked-top-of-the-pots-no-chat/p1

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest/

paye

adindas said:

Search it in this forum regarding people experience when they are about to withdraw their money with PO saving account. My personal opinion they are the worst even of you compare it with small building societies. Hope you don't experience it later. The main reason people are opening the saving account with PO in the past is to pull money from an account suing DD but that is no longer the case.

Unless you have maxed otu other alternatives out there, I can not see any attraction of putting a large sum of money in their saving account. There are a lot of other better alternatives easy access saving account available in here to choose from.

https://moneyfacts.co.uk/savings-accounts/

https://www.simplysavingsaccounts.co.uk/

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6392978/top-easy-access-acs-ranked-top-of-the-pots-no-chat/p1

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest/

Thanks for the heads up, 

Think I'll take your point on board and look for better account. 
 

cing0

Could any online saver customers tell me if they have used the secure messaging platform within online account mentioned at https://www.postoffice.co.uk/help-support/online-saver and how?

I'm presuming there are 2 different services depending on when you opened your account as my very old account does not have this option?

Stubod

..got my fingers burnt once, so I would NEVER put any money into the PO...loads of problems and non existent customer service!

refluxer

cing0 said:

Could any online saver customers tell me if they have used the secure messaging platform within online account mentioned at https://www.postoffice.co.uk/help-support/online-saver and how?

I'm presuming there are 2 different services depending on when you opened your account as my very old account does not have this option?

I had a couple of Online Savers a few years ago and do still have one of them open with £1 in and when I needed to contact them recently (for an annual interest summary for the previous, closed account), I couldn't find any way of doing that via internet banking (no online chat or secure messaging) so I rang them, got through to someone pretty quickly and received the statement through the post just over a week later... which was fair enough considering (a) the current state of the postal service and (b) that it came from Ireland.

Edit - I was curious to check I hadn't missed anything, so just logged back in and there is definitely no 'secure messaging platform' within their online banking site and there hasn't been since I opened the first of those accounts back in 2020. FWIW, I have issue 50 of the Online Saver but the version you have shouldn't make a difference, as secure messaging (if it existed) would just be one of the general facilities offered by their online banking site I would imagine.

Section62

Heads up to anyone who has an old PO Online Saver (perhaps from the DD days) and still has money in it - PO savings are emailing out to customers with a small balance in the account which hasn't changed for 12 months to the effect 1) they are changing the T&C's to allow them to give 30 days notice of account closure where the balance has been £20 or less for the preceeding 12 months and 2) To give 30 days notice of account closure if that condition has been met.

You can request the account stays open, or ask for the money to be returned to you.  But the default action if you don't respond is for the balance to be transferred to an "independent charitable foundation who will manage and invest it". (you can still reclaim the original balance)

So if you want your account to stay open, or you want your money back, keep your eye out for the email (or possibly a letter, not sure whether they send those as well) - mine initially went to spam.

I'd guess that paying in enough to take the balance over £20 for a few days might be enough to reset the 12m clock... time will tell.