First Direct bank unsupportve/unhelpfull

quintain

First Direct bank are not allowing my wife to transfer her account (£40k) to a-n-other.

A short while ago my wife (since 1966) requested that I set up a new bank account for her, she had been advise by  a loving neice that at our 80+ yrs ages my wife should have her own seperate bank account for the time I died.

At the request of my wife I set up an account in her name with First Direct (Moneysaving expert recommended them)..she does not have the abilty to do this online type of work, she also has very poor eyesight AND in any case it has been my job for all our married life to do all this type of work.

We downloaded the smartphone app to register to go online with the account.

The app opens at the year 2020 and we need to go back month at  a time to 1938. The app on the phone always go faulty after about 20 back clicks. There is no other way of putting in her date of birth other than using this calendar on the phone screen.

First Direct personnell when we phone them cannot talk with her and me together, they say for security checks they can only talk with her. She tried to talk with them very recently and did so for 40++ minutes to different FD personnel but they still did not accept it was her wish to transfer her account. She was exhausted and I, on her behalf was very annoyed.

My wife cannot deal with these conversations. She is somewhat deaf and is not used to dealing with unhelpful indeed perhaps deliberately evasive bureaucracy.

Both she and I are frustrated at this procedure.

She with my help has emailed FD asking & giving all the above information and asking for help. She never recieves any constructive assistance but she does recieve the Marketing BS frequently "We value you as  a customer etc etc"

We considered trying to talk with Chris Pitt Chief Executive Officer or his team at first direct but the FD personnel cannot transfer us to him or his team. Does Pitt really exist, is he interested in his customers, does he want to help. does he support the unhelpful bureaucracy, Does he really exist?????

We aso sent a Linkedin message to him but again got no reply.

Has First Direct Bank decided they can hold onto £40k ++ and never allow my wife to be able to accesss it. Is this deliberate corporate theft.

We welcome any and all advice from this forum..."what can we do"

flaneurs_lobster

What is your current situation with bank accounts?

Do you have a single bank account that is just in your name? 

Do you have a branch of your current bank that you and your wife are able to visit?

I don't think that legally you can set up a bank account for another adult unless you have a Power of Attorney in place for them.

Other than a recommendation from MSE, is there any particular reason for choosing FD as your new bank? 

If using the FD app is proving problematic are you able to access FD on a computer instead?

grumpy_codger

Well, they want to make sure that your wife is who she says she is, but cannot do this. What do expect from them?

Do you not have a PC? If you do, you don't need an app that indeed is absolutely unfit for elderly people and you can use their physical Sequre Key instead that is available in a bigger format and with a speaker - specially for elderly customers.

And if your wife is in such poor physical form that she cannot coomunicate with the bank, she definitely needs somebody with Power of Attorney. And you should have opened a joint account, not a sole one in the first place.

What do you mean by "transfer her account"? Is it just to transfer £40K to some other account (and keep her FD account) or to switch her account with £40K balance  to another bank and close the FD account? If the latter, you normally deal with the new bank, not the old one.

Voyager2002

It sounds as if the OP and wife already have a joint account. So I cannot understand the phrase "transfer her account". What is needed is, firstly for her to open an account, and secondly to transfer money from the existing joint account to the new sole account. (That is, if I have correctly understood what the OP is trying to do.)

eskbanker

Voyager2002 said:

It sounds as if the OP and wife already have a joint account. So I cannot understand the phrase "transfer her account". What is needed is, firstly for her to open an account, and secondly to transfer money from the existing joint account to the new sole account. (That is, if I have correctly understood what the OP is trying to do.)

If OP and wife do have a joint account then there's no need for her to "have her own seperate bank account for the time I died", as the death of one joint account-holder doesn't impinge on the ability of the other to access it.  That's not to say that having her own account isn't a good idea anyway, but it's not necessary if the objective is to have access to funds on OP's death (and they already have a joint account)....

lr1277

Why not a joint account or more than one?

My parents had joint accounts for both current and savings accounts.

When my dad died, all these accounts reverted to my mum very easily on informing the bank's bereavement department about my dad's death.

Actually there is a bank death notification service which we used, but in one or two cases, we contacted a bank's bereavement department. In my experience of the departments we contacted the staff were empathetic, helpful and in some ways more empowered than regular CS staff. But obviously a person has to have an account with them first, before the bank can be told about any death.

As DD's and SO's had come out of the joint current account, after my dad's death, the current account continued in my mum's name. So the DD's and SO's continued to be paid.

BTW: the savings accounts also just reverted to being in mum's name.

The only individual accounts they had were ISA's which have to be 'owned' by an individual.

p00hsticks

eskbanker said:

Voyager2002 said:

It sounds as if the OP and wife already have a joint account. So I cannot understand the phrase "transfer her account". What is needed is, firstly for her to open an account, and secondly to transfer money from the existing joint account to the new sole account. (That is, if I have correctly understood what the OP is trying to do.)

If OP and wife do have a joint account then there's no need for her to "have her own seperate bank account for the time I died", as the death of one joint account-holder doesn't impinge on the ability of the other to access it.  That's not to say that having her own account isn't a good idea anyway, but it's not necessary if the objective is to have access to funds on OP's death (and they already have a joint account)....

And I think perhaps a more important priority, given the wife's hearing and visual impairments, and lack of experience managing the household financial affairs, online or otherwise, is to ensure that there is a suitable PoA put in in place for her (perhaps the 'loving niece' ) so that someone can immediately step in to manage all the household finances etc on her behalf if her spouse should pre-decease her or becomes incapacitated for any  reason. 

I know that in the 'olden days' there were very clear demarcation lines within married couples as to what were the husbands responsibilities and what were the wife's within the marriage, but if those lines are not blurred as we get older it does result in a lot of additional stress when one or the other dies or is uanble to continue doing what they always have done and e.g.  either the wife is left with no knowledge of how bills get paid, who the electricity supplier is etc, and the husband has no idea how to switch the oven on or how the washing machine works !

I've seen this happen with my own parents.... 

Olinda99

forget fd - open an account with eg lloyds or maybe a bank.that has a branch near you. Switch the fd account to your new provider

7sefton

Yes Chris Pitt does exist, No he wont take your call to discuss a transaction!

https://www.firstdirect.com/legals/listening/complaints-form/

If you’re really frustrated and feel wronged, make a formal complaint. That may help you get a slightly more personal service, but as others have said, you’re asking them to do something which is due to a security procedure. 

born_again

quintain said:

First Direct bank are not allowing my wife to transfer her account (£40k) to a-n-other.

A short while ago my wife (since 1966) requested that I set up a new bank account for her, she had been advise by  a loving neice that at our 80+ yrs ages my wife should have her own seperate bank account for the time I died.

At the request of my wife I set up an account in her name with First Direct (Moneysaving expert recommended them)..she does not have the abilty to do this online type of work, she also has very poor eyesight AND in any case it has been my job for all our married life to do all this type of work.

We downloaded the smartphone app to register to go online with the account.

The app opens at the year 2020 and we need to go back month at  a time to 1938. The app on the phone always go faulty after about 20 back clicks. There is no other way of putting in her date of birth other than using this calendar on the phone screen.

First Direct personnell when we phone them cannot talk with her and me together, they say for security checks they can only talk with her. She tried to talk with them very recently and did so for 40++ minutes to different FD personnel but they still did not accept it was her wish to transfer her account. She was exhausted and I, on her behalf was very annoyed.

My wife cannot deal with these conversations. She is somewhat deaf and is not used to dealing with unhelpful indeed perhaps deliberately evasive bureaucracy.

Both she and I are frustrated at this procedure.

She with my help has emailed FD asking & giving all the above information and asking for help. She never recieves any constructive assistance but she does recieve the Marketing BS frequently "We value you as  a customer etc etc"

We considered trying to talk with Chris Pitt Chief Executive Officer or his team at first direct but the FD personnel cannot transfer us to him or his team. Does Pitt really exist, is he interested in his customers, does he want to help. does he support the unhelpful bureaucracy, Does he really exist?????

We aso sent a Linkedin message to him but again got no reply.

Has First Direct Bank decided they can hold onto £40k ++ and never allow my wife to be able to accesss it. Is this deliberate corporate theft.

We welcome any and all advice from this forum..."what can we do"

Chris Pitt is a real person.

https://www.instituteofcustomerservice.com/people/chris-pitt/

CEO's do not talk to people. Neither will their team. Even if they did talk to you, they can not over ride FD's procedures.

 Why do you think he would respond to a linkedin message about a FD account?

If you wife has set up security & got through it she can ask them to speak to you. Although there is a limit on what you can do as you do not have POA.
They are not holding onto the money. They just need to talk to your wife once through security & then transfer can be sorted.


 she had been advise by  a loving neice that at our 80+ yrs ages my wife should have her own seperate bank account for the time I died.

Why? If you have a joint account now, then that is converted to a sole account in your wifes name.

From the sounds of things FD is not the best choice of a bank for your wife given her issues. 

If you do not have a joint account, then the best option is to get your sole converted to a joint account.

As well as getting POA set up for someone to assist her with banking etc, should anything happen to you. 👍

TheBanker

First Direct is an online and telephone bank. It seems a slightly odd choice for someone who has difficulty using computers/smart phones and having telephone conversations. 

Even if you can resolve the current challenge, this doesn't sound like it will be a suitable account for your wife to use going forwards. Picking a bank with branch access (if there is one nearby) might be better.