Hanley Economic Building Society - Closing Account

Growingold

Just to say I sent a letter, enclosing my passbook,  requesting closure of my Branch Saver account by First Class post on Wednesday with the closing balance to be paid  to my previously nominated account.  They would have received this on Thursday.  Email received on Friday stating amount paid out.  This money was received in my nominated account Friday afternoon.
A quick turnaround.  Well done to them.  

Bridlington1

Growingold said:

Just to say I sent a letter, enclosing my passbook,  requesting closure of my Branch Saver account by First Class post on Wednesday with the closing balance to be paid  to my previously nominated account.  They would have received this on Thursday.  Email received on Friday stating amount paid out.  This money was received in my nominated account Friday afternoon.
A quick turnaround.  Well done to them.  

I know it's not much use to you now but HEBS do also have a freepost address you could've sent it to. I closed one of my HEBS accounts by post using the freepost address last year and also achieved a quick turnaround.

Growingold

Bridlington1 said:

Growingold said:

Just to say I sent a letter, enclosing my passbook,  requesting closure of my Branch Saver account by First Class post on Wednesday with the closing balance to be paid  to my previously nominated account.  They would have received this on Thursday.  Email received on Friday stating amount paid out.  This money was received in my nominated account Friday afternoon.
A quick turnaround.  Well done to them.  

I know it's not much use to you now but HEBS do also have a freepost address you could've sent it to. I closed one of my HEBS accounts by post using the freepost address last year and also achieved a quick turnaround.

Didn't know that,  would have saved me a stamp.  Will bear in mind for the future.  Good to hear you had a good experience when closing too.

nottsphil

If they received your letter on the Thursday but didn't make the faster payment until the Friday afternoon, I'd say that's unworthy of a complementary thread! 

Growingold

nottsphil said:

If they received your letter on the Thursday but didn't make the faster payment until the Friday afternoon, I'd say that's unworthy of a complementary thread! 

  Well I thought it was a quick turnaround and I thought others with accounts with them might be interested to know withdrawal timescales.  If as I presumed the letter was received by them on the Thursday who knows what time they open their mail and action it.    Maybe after their cut off run for Thursday.

Bridlington1

Growingold said:

nottsphil said:

If they received your letter on the Thursday but didn't make the faster payment until the Friday afternoon, I'd say that's unworthy of a complementary thread! 

  Well I thought it was a quick turnaround and I thought others with accounts with them might be interested to know withdrawal timescales.  If as I presumed the letter was received by them on the Thursday who knows what time they open their mail and action it.    Maybe after their cut off run for Thursday.

Off the top of my head HEBS have a 3pm (?) cut off for making faster payments, if they received the letter after shortly before or after this time on the Thursday it would've been treated as having been received on Friday.

Even then there's no guarantee the letter arrived on the Thursday, even though it was sent 1st class it may well have not arrived till the Friday.

Personally I think 2 days is a reasonably quick turn around from posting letter to faster payment arrived when making withdrawals from savings accounts by post.

Kim_13

Bridlington1 said:

Growingold said:

nottsphil said:

If they received your letter on the Thursday but didn't make the faster payment until the Friday afternoon, I'd say that's unworthy of a complementary thread! 

  Well I thought it was a quick turnaround and I thought others with accounts with them might be interested to know withdrawal timescales.  If as I presumed the letter was received by them on the Thursday who knows what time they open their mail and action it.    Maybe after their cut off run for Thursday.

Off the top of my head HEBS have a 3pm (?) cut off for making faster payments, if they received the letter after shortly before or after this time on the Thursday it would've been treated as having been received on Friday.

Even then there's no guarantee the letter arrived on the Thursday, even though it was sent 1st class it may well have not arrived till the Friday.

Personally I think 2 days is a reasonably quick turn around from posting letter to faster payment arrived when making withdrawals from savings accounts by post.

Agree. Also, you don’t know how many letters they receive per day and where OPs was in the pile. They are a small society so I would consider a turnaround of a few days impressive.

I’d much sooner wait for something than be postcode restricted out, which is the alternative. No one has to apply for a postal account if they don’t want but it’s good for savers to have the choice.

refluxer

A 2 day turn-around for closing a branch-based account that includes posting a passbook is definitely impressive. For comparison, this is the same amount of time that Santander typically takes to close one of their online accounts via their chat-bot and that is wholly online, with no postal involvement.

The days of first class post always arriving the next day are long gone, sadly. First class post I send or receive can take anything from 2-3 days up to a week in my hometown and I don't live anywhere remote, either. With that in mind, it's entirely feasible that the passbook wasn't received until the Friday and the closure actioned on the same day.  Impressive either way, though.