Beehive customer service suboptimal

drjohn67

I set up a regular saver with Beehive - cash invested, being fixed for 12 months.
Over 13 months after opening, I have not received interest - it was supposed to be 6%.
Trawled through the App Help section, chatbot then customer services.

Wait 24 hours for a response x2.
Interest is paid 1 July 2024.
Despite my email stating that I had not received interest very clearly, and my account demonstrating that I had not been paid interest - the response said “interest is paid on 1 July 2024”, “case closed”.

Telephone call tomorrow will hopefully solve it. 

It has put me off investing my tax free pension lump sum with them. The other providers that I have used alongside this account have been more reliable. 

masonic

Beehive doesn't seem to be very timely in getting things done. My account was supposed to mature yesterday but is still sitting there unchanged this morning. I last received interest on 30th July 2023.

drjohn67

Thanks - similar situation  - not massive amount of interest due - just inconvenient - I will avoid them in future

masonic

My account has matured now with interest added. Withdrawals are next working day (with the need to leave a £10 minimum balance) and closure is 1-2 working days. Time to roll the dice...

They aren't offering anything competitive at the moment, but I would use them again if they did.

Catplan

I found them quite timely, maturity instructions carried out and interest all added as expected. Now in the 5.2% easy access, is the delay in withdrawing to nominated account, external to Beehive? Have the other 6% regular saver, uk savings week maturing end of next month so hopefully that’s the same.

Gers

My account matured - I've sent everything bar the £10.00 to my nominated account and then closed the miserly easy access account (I have another one paying much better interest). All done very easily.

masonic

Catplan said:

I found them quite timely, maturity instructions carried out and interest all added as expected. Now in the 5.2% easy access, is the delay in withdrawing to nominated account, external to Beehive? Have the other 6% regular saver, uk savings week maturing end of next month so hopefully that’s the same.

It is the app that states withdrawals are processed on the next working day and closures are processed in 1-2 working days. If the actual timescales are quicker then happy days, but it seems YMMV.

I expect withdrawals would be slower to an external nominated account than a Beehive one. The 5.2% account you mention is NLA. It's not one I'd heard of before you mentioned it.

TheWoodler

To the OP - this was always a 13 month account with a set maturity date of 31 July for everyone who opened it, with funds available 1 August.

Slightly quirky, but 13 or 14 month accounts can sometimes be the way some of the smaller operators work, in line with their accounting dates. (They give you a tiny bit of extra value by giving you a little interest on their yearly accounting date early in the life of the product, so you get a tiny bit extra at the end through compounding.)

Sometimes these are listed with the 12 month accounts in listing tables, or they’re on sale long enough for a customer to open them as a 1-year account. 

Did your correspondence actually say 1 July or express it in digits, which then should have been 01/08, and which is when the funds were to be made available? In that case that’s today, not 1 July, so your query should be resolved today. I’d check your balance as it was available for me when I checked around 8.30am - it’s normal for some BS to pay out next working day. They set payout to a new easy access by default so you can now withdraw. 

PloughmansLunch

Gers said:

My account matured - I've sent everything bar the £10.00 to my nominated account and then closed the miserly easy access account (I have another one paying much better interest). All done very easily.

Exactly the same for me - I filled out the maturity instructions a while ago. Should have the Regular Saver matured balance in my current account tomorrow and now have the minimum £10 left in a tick-over easy access in case some kind of loyalty saver is launched in future.