Switching Bank Accounts

Davemoreton

Martin Lewis MSE states it is easy to switch bank accounts. Believe me it is not. I have switched from The Royal Bank of Scotland and had ongoing problems. I have switched to Natwest. I had initial problems as I had no photographic evidence to open the account. They said I couldn't open an account online and the Branch said they couldn't do it at Branch level as needs to be done online to get switch bonus. In the end after referring to a Manager they did open it at Branch level with letters from DWP and a Bank statement. They messed me about for days. Then they can't switch my overdraft of £100 over which I have just incase I go a little overdrawn when my pension comes in. They said the credit report was bad but my Experian report was 999 out of 999.? It is just ridiculous and I have had to refer to the Financial Obudsman to sort it out. This is still not resolved over 1 year down the line. 
Please don't think switching is easy and you get like for like cover, you don't and this is not revealed upfront. Please don't switch so many times either as your D/Ds might not go out correctly at all. Beware of this scandal.

la531983

Scandal?

No. 

A few things... 

- people who don't have photo ID will likely find things trickier in life. This is a decision you have made not to have it, not the banks. 

- the 3 digit credit score is a made up number which no lender sees and is used to try and sell you credit products. A lender looks at the data on the file and has no access to the number. Really don't see what this has to do with the Financial Ombudsman. 

- I don't believe the new bank account has any obligation to maintain the same level of overdraft as the old one. 

MikeJXE

Lots of people have lots of problems with lots of banks

The majority of people like me have no problems whatsoever even though my credit report is around 550 the only person that sees that is me.

As far as switching for an incentive is concerned I had never done it before last December, I was a one bank for 10 years person 

Now I am £1800 richer with 10 bank accounts holding limited funds except for my main bank and a secondary bank in case my main bank gets frozen for some reason, that is happening often on here but it's only a few people with a few banks the vast majority have no problem at all 

It's all been so easy and nothing complicated at all even though I'm 82 years old 

Barkin

Davemoreton said:

Martin Lewis MSE states it is easy to switch bank accounts. Believe me it is not. I have switched from The Royal Bank of Scotland and had ongoing problems. I have switched to Natwest. I had initial problems as I had no photographic evidence to open the account. They said I couldn't open an account online and the Branch said they couldn't do it at Branch level as needs to be done online to get switch bonus. In the end after referring to a Manager they did open it at Branch level with letters from DWP and a Bank statement. They messed me about for days. Then they can't switch my overdraft of £100 over which I have just incase I go a little overdrawn when my pension comes in. They said the credit report was bad but my Experian report was 999 out of 999.? It is just ridiculous and I have had to refer to the Financial Obudsman to sort it out. This is still not resolved over 1 year down the line. 
Please don't think switching is easy and you get like for like cover, you don't and this is not revealed upfront. Please don't switch so many times either as your D/Ds might not go out correctly at all. Beware of this scandal.

In summary... 

Opening the new account wasn't straightforward, as you don't have photo ID

The new bank, with whom you had no previous relationship, wouldn't give you an overdraft facility.

Scandalous! 

Petriix

It's probably a bit late for the OP but for the benefit of anyone else reading: I wouldn't advise switching your *main* bank account directly; it's always better to create a 'donor' account then switch that to gain the incentive. If that goes smoothly then you can manually switch over the direct debits you want and make the new account into your main account.

I switched a donor account into Natwest but was pleasantly surprised by the combination of reward account and credit card plus regular saver so I've switched all my spending over to them. 

Katiehound

It is very much easier to keep your real main bank and not switch that..

I have switched many different accounts over the years pretty much all of them  were straight forward... and for any that weren't I made a formal complaint (or even complaints!) which resulted in a slightly larger bonus.

I too have switched and benefited from the products on offer but when the extras become less valuable it's time to move on...

northwalesd

I've now switched many accounts (but never what I would call my main account). All went smoothly except one (HSBC) but that one bad experience doesn't make the wole process flawed.

dealyboy

MikeJXE said:

Lots of people have lots of problems with lots of banks

The majority of people like me have no problems whatsoever even though my credit report is around 550 the only person that sees that is me.

As far as switching for an incentive is concerned I had never done it before last December, I was a one bank for 10 years person 

Now I am £1800 richer with 10 bank accounts holding limited funds except for my main bank and a secondary bank in case my main bank gets frozen for some reason, that is happening often on here but it's only a few people with a few banks the vast majority have no problem at all 

It's all been so easy and nothing complicated at all even though I'm 82 years old 

I would never have guessed it ... as bright as an old penny ... 

EarthBoy

Davemoreton said:

Then they can't switch my overdraft of £100 over which I have just incase I go a little overdrawn when my pension comes in. They said the credit report was bad but my Experian report was 999 out of 999.? It is just ridiculous and I have had to refer to the Financial Obudsman to sort it out. 

The Financial Ombudsman can't force a bank to give you an overdraft.  All you can do is try a different bank.

Banksy_2

northwalesd said:

I've now switched many accounts (but never what I would call my main account). All went smoothly except one (HSBC) but that one bad experience doesn't make the wole process flawed.

Same here. HSBC simply the worst in terms of customer experience. All the rest spot on.

RobinofLocksley

I’m a newbie to bank switching and have a few questions I am hoping someone with more experience might be able to help me with.

Is it possible to switch a joint bank account and still get the switching bonus? Appreciate this may vary from bank to bank but wondered whether anyone had experience of it. 

Once you switched and have received the bonus, the logical thing to me would seem to be to use that same account to switch to another bank to get another bonus. However, people who do this talk about having several current accounts which would suggest I’m missing something and moving the same account from one bank to another to get the bonus is not the way to do it. I’d be grateful for you views on this. 

Finally, I’ve got an account I no longer use (it is effectively dormant) and I’ve now set up the requisite number of DDs to that account. Appreciate this is perhaps an elementary question, but I have emails from the organisations to which the DDs go, saying the DDs are in place - do I need to wait for a payment to be made under those DDs before I switch or is the fact I have emails saying they’re  in place sufficient. 

Any advice would be grateful received.