Nationwide's 'Fairer Share' £100 payment for eligible members

t1redmonkey

boingy said:

Exodi said:

... their would be similar complaints that Boingy is getting a bonus, despite holding no savings, no mortgage and an unused current account.

That would be a wrong assumption. I have an active regular saver account which has over £1000 in it. My current account and normal savings account are pretty much empty because of the paltry interest they currently pay. My Nationwide mortgage was paid off a few years ago. And there are going to be members with more much active current accounts who don't meet the very arbitrary criteria. I just think they should treat all members equally. I'm also thinking that their complains department are going to be quite busy politely but firmly rejecting all the complaints!

Would be interested if anyone does actually make a formal complaint on the distribution of this money, and if so, if any of them actually get upheld.

I know on the surface of it it seems like none of them would be, but complaint handlers do have discretion to bring their own judgement into some cases; I know as I worked as a complaints handler at a financial institution for a few years. 

Looking through the thread, @BooJewels must be one of the most 'edge' cases there is where they've said they paid £1000 in the months they were looking at, yet did it in a slightly different way to what Nationwide wanted (£600 in one and £400 in another).  I wonder if in those sorts of cases if they'd give any leeway and make some sort of payment to resolve the complaint, or if they will just rigidly stick to the line of not paying out however close someone was to making the criteria.

Nebulous2

t1redmonkey said:

boingy said:

Exodi said:

... their would be similar complaints that Boingy is getting a bonus, despite holding no savings, no mortgage and an unused current account.

That would be a wrong assumption. I have an active regular saver account which has over £1000 in it. My current account and normal savings account are pretty much empty because of the paltry interest they currently pay. My Nationwide mortgage was paid off a few years ago. And there are going to be members with more much active current accounts who don't meet the very arbitrary criteria. I just think they should treat all members equally. I'm also thinking that their complains department are going to be quite busy politely but firmly rejecting all the complaints!

Would be interested if anyone does actually make a formal complaint on the distribution of this money, and if so, if any of them actually get upheld.

I know on the surface of it it seems like none of them would be, but complaint handlers do have discretion to bring their own judgement into some cases; I know as I worked as a complaints handler at a financial institution for a few years. 

Looking through the thread, @BooJewels must be one of the most 'edge' cases there is where they've said they paid £1000 in the months they were looking at, yet did it in a slightly different way to what Nationwide wanted (£600 in one and £400 in another).  I wonder if in those sorts of cases if they'd give any leeway and make some sort of payment to resolve the complaint, or if they will just rigidly stick to the line of not paying out however close someone was to making the criteria.

I paid in £11k in the 3 months - but very little in January and just over £400 in March. 

Edited to add: 

I'm not complaining though. There is precedent for the £500 a month, its what was needed for the initial 5% interest. I should have kept it going. 

Exodi

Section62 said:

Exodi said:

However I understand this topic is sour grapes for a lot of people and I do not intend to debate the vocal posters expressing their disappointment in this thread.

I find it disappointing people feel the need to use words like "sour grapes" to describe other forum members putting forward reasonable and balanced comments about how allocating £340m of money to ~20% of members of a mutual building society doesn't represent a "fairer share".

I will get the £100. So in my case it definitely isn't "sour grapes".

Some of the negativity expressed here about other Nationwide members encapsulates (to me) why Nationwide is going in the wrong direction (not just over this £100).  Such negativity shouldn't exist within a mutual membership - if we were to sum up the negativity to others as "better luck next time losers" then it might be easier to understand why some perceive what Nationwide have done to be divisive and unfair, and contrary to the principles of mutuality.

I think it depends on the lens you read these comments through. 'Reasonable and balanced comments' is certainly one interpretation, though I'd perhaps suggest that some of the recommendations have been far from reasonable, and some have dabbled into pedantry and semantics.

Though I will clarify my stance as I think we actually have far similar views than it first appears:

I agree with your core view that customers holding relatively high mortgage or savings balances with Nationwide, but not current accounts, being ineligible is an injustice.

My view is, unless the suggestion is to give every nationwide 'member' the bonus (including unused/'inactive' accounts), then you have to draw the line somewhere - and inevitably, the people on the edge (wherever the line sits) will express outrage and feel hard done by. 

As this is a share of profits from the past year, it's seems reasonable to share this with the demographic of members who may have materially contributed to this profit. I feel the difficulty is in where you set the goalposts. I'm not sure if you've stated your view on this (or if you'd have them?).

km1500

for me the problem with the way they have done it is that there are not just a few members 'on the edge' who have missed out - there are very very large number of members who have missed out and that is fundamentally unfair

Exodi

km1500 said:

for me the problem with the way they have done it is that there are not just a few members 'on the edge' who have missed out - there are very very large number of members who have missed out and that is fundamentally unfair

A lot of people have waded in with the view that the current terms are not fair, but very few have offered alternatives.

Where would you set the goalposts? Half the bonus, remove the current account requirement but increase the savings/mortgage balance needed to double the amount of members eligible? What about the objections from people that are £1 short of the savings requirement?

Band7

boingy said:

 . I just think they should treat all members equally. 

If all members were to be treated equally, then couldn’t all members also be reasonably expected to contribute in the same way to the profits? As this won’t ever be the case, different rewards seem to be fair. 

Note I am not saying that the chosen arrangements are fair, but giving all members the same rewards would definitely be unfair IMO

boingy

Exodi said:

km1500 said:

for me the problem with the way they have done it is that there are not just a few members 'on the edge' who have missed out - there are very very large number of members who have missed out and that is fundamentally unfair

A lot of people have waded in with the view that the current terms are not fair, but very few have offered alternatives.

Where would you set the goalposts? Half the bonus, remove the current account requirement but increase the savings/mortgage balance needed to double the amount of members eligible? What about the objections from people that are £1 short of the savings requirement?

There will always be people who miss out by a narrow margin but here NW have knowingly come up with criteria that excludes 80% of their members. I'm sure they could have done better than that. Maybe a minimum total balance across all accounts. Maybe a variable bonus based on activity or balances (yes, we'd still complain about that but less so!) Their publicity is big on the benefits of mutuality but their savings interest rates have sucked for quite some time and now they are distributing profits to a minority of members. That's the very opposite of "mutual". Why don't they keep the money and offer better rates to everyone, savers and borrowers alike?

boingy

Band7 said:

boingy said:

 . I just think they should treat all members equally. 

If all members were to be treated equally, then couldn’t all members also be reasonably expected to contribute in the same way to the profits? As this won’t ever be the case, different rewards seem to be fair. 

Note I am not saying that the chosen arrangements are fair, but giving all members the same rewards would definitely be unfair IMO

I think if the giveaway was set to benefit 80% of their members with 20% missing out then there would not be 17 pages of discussion about it on this forum.

Tom_Hendo

I've had a weird one with this, wanted to share in case anyone had the same questions.

I was eligible (Paid £700 in Jan, Feb and March each, conveniently) however I closed my account in the middle of April and now have no Nationwide account to pay into.

I called the team at Nationwide, and as I am eligible for the period they measured, they said as long as I have a current account open (New, existing or any) when they make the payment, I should still receive it into the most relevant account. 

Exodi

boingy said:

Exodi said:

km1500 said:

for me the problem with the way they have done it is that there are not just a few members 'on the edge' who have missed out - there are very very large number of members who have missed out and that is fundamentally unfair

A lot of people have waded in with the view that the current terms are not fair, but very few have offered alternatives.

Where would you set the goalposts? Half the bonus, remove the current account requirement but increase the savings/mortgage balance needed to double the amount of members eligible? What about the objections from people that are £1 short of the savings requirement?

That's the very opposite of "mutual". Why don't they keep the money and offer better rates to everyone, savers and borrowers alike?

I want to nip this point in the bud as it has been repeated throughout this thread:

I don't want to regurgitate their own press release, so I'll link it for your consumption. (https://www.nationwidemediacentre.co.uk/news/nationwide-building-society-launches-nationwide-fairer-share-to-return-greater-value-to-members ).

To summarize.

Nationwide made profits £2.2B and over £1B has been allocated to lower rates. I've no reason to doubt this as in my own experience, Nationwide has been one of the cheapest mortgage lenders for a fair few years now. They are extremely competitive giving their position as a 'high street lender' (and the associated costs of infrastructure). They are also introducing a new competitive savings bond.

So in response to your quote above, they are keeping most (about 85%) of the money to offer better rates to everyone. 

There is also no pleasing everyone. While it may please you to pay everyone £20, more active members may feel disappointed that less active users are rewarded for contributing significantly less. A thread like this would have existed, no matter what Nationwides eligibility criteria is.