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

artyboy

Ah, yes, I just got the 'fairer share' bond email. Way to go Nationwide, fanning the flames of disgruntled long term members by putting out yet another sub-par savings rate and dressing it up as something special. 

Turd ✅
Polish ✅
Job Jobbed ✅

I freely admit that I have less money with them than I used to. But - if you can believe it - there was actually a time they offered genuinely good members bonds. Whereas now they'd rather give out bungs to a select group that simply reinforces their ambitions to be a 'real' bank rather than a true savings and loan BS. Their choice, I'm just one member amongst many, but they won't be getting any more business from me while that continues.

So to Exodi in particular, I respect your position, but we're not going to find much common ground on this.

boingy

If you want a giggle take a look at Nationwide's Trustpilot review page (I'm too new to the forum so I can't post the link...)

It's fair to say that the more hysterical end of things is on full view there. Their current rating is 1.8 / 5 with 74% of the reviews at one star but I have no idea what it was before this announcement.

Bridlington1

boingy said:

If you want a giggle take a look at Nationwide's Trustpilot review page (I'm too new to the forum so I can't post the link...)

It's fair to say that the more hysterical end of things is on full view there. Their current rating is 1.8 / 5 with 74% of the reviews at one star but I have no idea what it was before this announcement.

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.nationwide.co.uk

This is the only reason I ever look at trustpilot. Some of the reviews...

spider42

boingy said:

If you want a giggle take a look at Nationwide's Trustpilot review page (I'm too new to the forum so I can't post the link...)

It's fair to say that the more hysterical end of things is on full view there. Their current rating is 1.8 / 5 with 74% of the reviews at one star but I have no idea what it was before this announcement.

The vast majority of those reviews are before the recent announcement (at the time of writing approximately 3 pages of reviews were made since the announcement, compared to 184 pages before the announcement).

But review sites often attract an inflated number of poor reviews, since those with a gripe about something are usually more motivated to get it off their chest compared to those who are happy. Looking at some of the other ratings, Nationwide is by far the lowest amongst the building societies, but is still a bit higher than some of the high street banks!

spider42

The Nationwide "mutual bonus" isn't completely unprecedented as Skipton did one in the year 2000. The circumstances were a little different in that they had sold their share dealing subsidiary and so they wanted to distribute the proceeds, rather than because they had made too much profit as seems to be the case with Nationwide.

The way Skipton distributed theirs was based simply on the balance held on a single day (which was a couple of months before they made the announcement).

Savers were paid 4% of their balance, subject to a minimum payment of £5 and a maximum of £500. Mortgage holders got 0.4% of their mortgage balance, with no minimum and a maximum of £500. Those with savings and a mortgage got both payments, so the overall maximum payment was £1,000.

About two thirds of their members received a payment. I assume the £5 minimum was deliberately set at that level to exclude "carpetbaggers" with a balance of just £100, since you would have needed a savings balance of at least £125 to get £5. So without this restriction, I suspect pretty much all of their members would have received some payment.

ljayljay

I tried to send them some of my 'constructive feedback' unfortunately I kept getting error messages. There was no error & besides if there was it didn't highlight any incomplete boxes. Maybe just a glitch somewhere?

If only I could give some feedback on their feedback form

Feedback form

Error

All feedback will be reviewed and appropriate action taken, if needed.

IvanOpinion

boingy said:

If you want a giggle take a look at Nationwide's Trustpilot review page (I'm too new to the forum so I can't post the link...)

It's fair to say that the more hysterical end of things is on full view there. Their current rating is 1.8 / 5 with 74% of the reviews at one star but I have no idea what it was before this announcement.

What a bunch of whingers, but still a funny read.

boingy

spider42 said:

The way Skipton distributed theirs...  <snip> 

About two thirds of their members received a payment.

I think that is where Nationwide have gone wrong. They are rewarding only about a fifth of their members when they should really have been aiming to reward well over half of them. Anyway, according to Facebook and Trustpilot everyone will leave Nationwide, just after voting out their entire board at the next AGM.... 

As for sending them feedback you can always email the CEO's office (Google it) or make a complaint, which they will reject but it will add to their internal stats.

zagfles

boingy said:

spider42 said:

The way Skipton distributed theirs...  <snip> 

About two thirds of their members received a payment.

I think that is where Nationwide have gone wrong. They are rewarding only about a fifth of their members when they should really have been aiming to reward well over half of them. Anyway, according to Facebook and Trustpilot everyone will leave Nationwide, just after voting out their entire board at the next AGM.... 

Yes, annoying the majority of your customers is never a good idea in any business. In reality, most people will just complain and not do anything, I doubt anyone would eg move their mortgage or close a long term savings account with penalties. But some who have money in easy access accounts with low/average rates of interest eg ex RS savings etc, or current accounts, may transfer out and if this becomes a significant percentage, even single digits, it could affect their capital ratios etc. They may have to offer better rates to get more money in!

NW are well behind the competition in the RS type accounts (limited monthly payments, high rates), other banks are offering higher rates and amounts than NW's trivial £50 a month at 5.25%. But they do seem to want to encourage almost a "gambling" approach, prize draws and now random bonuses based on unspecified criteria. Ironic for a bank which tries to portray itself as "responsible".

SonOfPearl

I think most people who have some kind of Nationwide product but don't qualify by the set criteria won't be annoyed or complain. They will just shrug their shoulders and forget about it. They might not even be aware that other people are getting the payment.  Outside of these forums most people just won't care.

The number of NW accounts closed by the disgruntled will be negligible. There will be more people excitedly telling their mates about the 100 quid they unexpectedly received.