Monmouth Building Society is so slow

Rudyson

As an existing customer, you can make a payment when they send you the a/c number, even though the form says they need your signature first.

I received my letter on Thurs 31st, sent a payment on the day and another on the 1st, and as of Tues 5th, £1000 is showing in the A/c.

Yes, they do appear to need a wet sig for each a/c.

On a separate note, why must we criticise a company for offering what's going to be a popular a/c just because it will overwhelm them, and take them a couple of days to set everyone up? Do we really want a lower interest rate as long as it could be dealt with instantly? We should be grateful to the small societies that can't afford to spend gazillions on IT systems, but are prepared to do all the extra work, instead of giving them grief for offering good rates.

Bobblehat

Rudyson said:

As an existing customer, you can make a payment when they send you the a/c number, even though the form says they need your signature first.

I received my letter on Thurs 31st, sent a payment on the day and another on the 1st, and as of Tues 5th, £1000 is showing in the A/c.

Yes, they do appear to need a wet sig for each a/c.

On a separate note, why must we criticise a company for offering what's going to be a popular a/c just because it will overwhelm them, and take them a couple of days to set everyone up? Do we really want a lower interest rate as long as it could be dealt with instantly? We should be grateful to the small societies that can't afford to spend gazillions on IT systems, but are prepared to do all the extra work, instead of giving them grief for offering good rates.

Thanks for the payment information .... will be handy to know once I become a customer 

And for the wet signature info ... again handy to know what to expect if I open an EA too to keep my foot in the door!

No criticism from me for quill and ledger Societies ... sometimes I visit Hay-on-Wye just to get my fix of dusty book aroma. Just look at all the negative comments about VM's IT system(s) ... they must have spent a pretty penny on creating/acquiring them! TSB, anyone?

Kim_13

Rudyson said:

As an existing customer, you can make a payment when they send you the a/c number, even though the form says they need your signature first.

I received my letter on Thurs 31st, sent a payment on the day and another on the 1st, and as of Tues 5th, £1000 is showing in the A/c.

Yes, they do appear to need a wet sig for each a/c.

On a separate note, why must we criticise a company for offering what's going to be a popular a/c just because it will overwhelm them, and take them a couple of days to set everyone up? Do we really want a lower interest rate as long as it could be dealt with instantly? We should be grateful to the small societies that can't afford to spend gazillions on IT systems, but are prepared to do all the extra work, instead of giving them grief for offering good rates.

I agree. They’ve obviously invested in the app, imperfect though it is, to speed up the process. 

There’s always going to be a longer wait time as a new customer to any society. In this case, they need to get a nominated account set up and issue online credentials. I joined them for the 5.5% fixed Christmas Saver of 2022 and that was postal. In a way, it was better, as it meant they didn’t have to send a separate signature form out containing an account number that couldn’t be used yet. As soon as they cashed the cheque, the account was fully open and funded for that month.

As an existing customer, you can pay in straight away - I certainly didn’t allow enough time for the signature form to reach them for Exclusive 1 before I paid in, though I assume they would have the right to close an account if the holder didn’t return it within a reasonable time.

OrangeBlueGreen

Whilst I agree it's great that Monmouthshire Building society is offering this account, a couple of days has turned into 7 - 10+ days for some customers which seems a little too much to set up an account whichever way a customer chooses to open it, especially if done online. The society doesn't exist in isolation so to a certain extent I think it's normal that customers are comparing it to other banks and societies. The whole "we provide you with the account number but you can't pay in until you return the form and we've actioned it and sent you another letter" is a little silly from a customer experience point of view. It would make more sense to provide the account number when it's OK to pay in.

I'll give them points though for acknowledging the issue and sending the email about the 5 days delay (even though for me it ended up being longer than that), and for now withdrawing the online application route until they get things sorted. I am sure some potential customers have given up on them though.

nottsphil

Bobblehat said:

Andystriker said:

I applied online for the account on 25th July. 

I got the letter detailing my account number and asking for my signature on 31st July. 

I sent the signature back to them in their 2nd class envelope on 1st August. 

I sent the £500 first deposit to them from my Nat West Account on Sunday 3rd August.  I also went online and added the regular Saver to my list also Sunday 3rd August. 

My new account is now showing online with the credit of £500 dated 3rd August. 

I have not had any reply yet from my sending them my signature, and I do not expect one for a while. 

I am happy with the service I have had from them.

Also, if you are an existing customer, do Mon require a wet signature for every online application?

It would be very odd if it did because I didn't need to submit one even as a new customer. Also, I secured my account the same afternoon as starting the application, and the initial subscription was acknowledged by a notification within 25 minutes. I've gleaned from this thread that doing this during business hours probably helped.

dcs34

dcs34 said:

Well their app doesn't seem to allow people with hyphenated surnames to register - won't recognise the surname as legitimate with it, and doesn't recognise me as a customer without!

Have finally resolved this with their customer service agent. The solution - or rather the bodged workaround - is that they remove the hyphen from my existing user account so I can then register on the app.

I did question if this would create a problem when applying for new accounts - that they might in the future claim my ID doesn't match my account details. Let's just say the response wasn't entirely reassuring!

Seems very odd that having presumably paid a handsome sum to develop this app, MBS didn't (1) properly test it for edge name cases and (2) can't be bothered to get it patched properly, and their solution is to effectively tell their customers to commit very very minor ID fraud!

schiff

I compare my experience with Monmouth to that with Suffolk, who were brilliant. Got a quick letter with the details including the T&Cs and advice on pretty much all the questions I might have to ask in the future. Very quick deposit and confirmation of receipt. I assume they are comparable in size to Monmouth.

Ch1ll1Phlakes

schiff said:

I compare my experience with Monmouth to that with Suffolk, who were brilliant. Got a quick letter with the details including the T&Cs and advice on pretty much all the questions I might have to ask in the future. Very quick deposit and confirmation of receipt. I assume they are comparable in size to Monmouth.

Suffolk are a little smaller than Monmouthshire BS. Fewer branches and staff and only about half the assets.

masonic

dcs34 said:

Seems very odd that having presumably paid a handsome sum to develop this app, MBS didn't (1) properly test it for edge name cases and (2) can't be bothered to get tit patched properly, and their solution is to effectively tell their customers to commit very very minor ID fraud!

It's not exactly a niche thing either. Capturing a user's name is a core requirement for the majority of apps in development across many sectors, and will be well-trodden ground with all edge cases being known.

dcs34

masonic said:

dcs34 said:

Seems very odd that having presumably paid a handsome sum to develop this app, MBS didn't (1) properly test it for edge name cases and (2) can't be bothered to get tit patched properly, and their solution is to effectively tell their customers to commit very very minor ID fraud!

It's not exactly a niche thing either. Capturing a user's name is a core requirement for the majority of apps in development across many sectors, and will be well-trodden ground with all edge cases being known.

Yes - one might assume that the app developer is not starting from scratch. At the very least competent testing with a subset of anonymised existing user data should have raised the issue. Customer idenitfy is a huge issue of trust and security in the banking sector so special attention should have been paid rather than bodged work-arounds.

This blog article is an amusing exploration of the issue on a global basis: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ and the 'worked example':https://shinesolutions.com/2018/01/08/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names-with-examples/