Cahoot - great 4.31 rate but very poor website design, not updated (since launch?)

arjaydavis

Wonder what your thoughts are, would enjoy counter viewpoints and any thing I didn’t know.

I've searched around the forums here with "Cahoot" and not found similar experience.

Having been a customer of Cahoot for their good rate on a savings account many years ago, I’ve signed up again for a Cahoot account with the 4.31% rate including bonus for 12 months. I'm happy now things have been straightened out because of some admin hurdles being a former customer as I detail below.

Backed by Santander, a well known bank, helps with the appeal, along with FSCS as with other savings accounts.

I suffer the design of the website for the good rate. Yes site the site is functional but some observations

• Cannot see some of own current details such as address, can only change them

• Home phone number and mobile number are partially obscured with asterisks, for security reasons it would seem. Why would they do that? Myself has logged in, gone through their two-factor authentication - where they text a code to enter after logging in with pin code and username. I can see the amount in the bank, why would they hide the ‘phone numbers. Inconsistent approach. Other online savings providers show your details.

• Cannot determine whether interest is paid monthly or yearly. Would have signed up for one or the other, but a reminder would be handy. Other online savings providers show this.

• If you had an account before, when Cahoot had a favourable rate at launch or a bit after, and closed it,  if you then “come in from the cold” as a new customer, they may match your details in your new application with what they still hold from your previous account. As they did with me. I closed my fist account account with them in 2017 as the bonus ended. When they sent me login details for the new account they were actually the old login details, which I kept. Logging in I could see all my old private messages, routine notices, account closure in 2017 ones. Sure enough, the login now access the new savings account at 4.31, but all the old stuff is there. Is GDPR compliant? It would have happened before the law came into effect in 2018, but surely they would need to apply the rules to any data no matter how old?

• Having a previous account before can make signing up for a new one have extra hurdles I had found. They asked me to update my details. My address hasn’t changed since the old account, but they were picking up the fact that the old address had my flat number (without the word ‘flat, everything else the same). My current address consists of “Flat xx, My Building name, yy My Road, My Town, My Post Code”. They had “xx, My Building name, yy My Road, My Town, My Post Code”. The street address of the entire block of flats building is still “yy My Road” in both cases, where “yy” is a number. So it wasn’t a chance of different address being used as both “xx” - my flat number and “yy” - my street number were on the address. It was likely done by their automatic postcode lookup in both cases - I would never manually enter my flat number “yy” on its own if I had to, without prefixing it with “Flat”, unless they forced this way of entering.

• So they ask me to update these details, by telling me to download a form, print it off, fill it out and post it to them. How is this more secure and official than doing it all online? In 2025?!  Fortunately I had kept old letters from them so I knew what I had to put for my “old” address (without the “Flat” word), as I’m sure they might have rejected this form if I didn’t know myself what they knew I had put down as my address for my original old account. Talk about old fashioned. Some other savings services use face id, upload of id etc.

• Also I couldn’t remove my home phone landline number from my old account, if I cleared the input field and clicked save on their update details page, it would refuse, highlighting the field in red as mandatory. Modern times, less are having landlines - all my contacts are on my mobile phone, all in one place, synced to the cloud. A landline doesn’t have as value without all of that now.

• Cahoot are celebrating 25 years since launch. It would appear that the website hasn’t changed in all that time. One could say, a bit "Craphoot" The interface is dated by design and lifestyles as well as missing things like display of personal information.

I suppose the saving they’ve made in not updating the site for 25 years has made it possible to give us this good rate.

I’ve included all these thoughts as a letter along with my “update details” form as a complaint/feedback I posed to them.

Presumably they’ve applied security updates in the front end of the site and backend, back office over the years while preserving that classic look, haha. One might worry that if they hadn’t updated the site, then what else hadn’t been updated.

Breaches can happen to the best: look at some well known retailers, car makers and national institutions…

So overall, would I recommend Cahoot? 

Yes, I would: great rate at 4.31% (with bonus) backed by a large well known bank, Santander. The site is functional with the basics but that's it. Be ready to tolerate the ancient interface.

Or have I missed something, is there another way to service your Cahoot account. I looked at open banking options including the Santander app - went to the open banking (or by another name, can’t remember section), it said something like your other banks will appear hear, but gave no option to ADD another bank.

gt94sss2

Cahoots internet banking site is effectively the same as that of Santander who own them. 

Santander also partially obscure customers contact details with asterisks and are not the only bank to do so. A quick check confirms both NatWest and HSBC also do the same

If you click on one of your accounts and view your transactions,near the top of the account selector, it lists your product name, date you opened your account and if you opted for interest annually - which is what the (A) represents.

For example:

Product name: CAHOOT SUNNY DAY SAVER (ISSUE 5) (A)

Cahoot displaying old secure messages and/or keeping details of old accounts/login details you had with them is not a breach of GDPR. Again lots of other banks do the same.

Kryten_the_Titan

I had a Santander credit card a few years ago and if the website interface has changed little since then (if one considers the Cahoot website uses a similar functionality to Santander credit card) - I could relate to some of the website interface qualities raised by the OP.  Ultimately, I was glad once I had closed down the Santander credit card simply due to the poor website functionality.

Has anything changed (improved) on Santander's website these past few years?

jaypers

It’s far from 21st century but is works. My only concern is if I lost access it’s a faff to get anything reset and you have to rely on a physical letter etc. 

mills112

i have a cahoot current account for my brother and it is very poor as you can't make payments easily.  every time you make a payment to the same person, you need to create them as a new payee as otherwise you can't change the reference of the payment, so if one was "refund", you couldn't use the same payee again and put in, "birthday present".  you therefore end up with lots of payees, who are actually just the same person.

you can't have an address that you have already had before, so when my brother moved out, he put in a new address but if he moved back in later, he can not change his address to that old one on their system, you would have to contact them.

there is no app so you can't control your debit card.  interesting that the government is bringing in user set contactless limit on debit cards, wonder how cahoot will deal with that.

they should really just move to santander as they don't really have a place in the banking structure now.  they were good when internet banking first started but they are way behind now.

i tried to open a savings account for my brother and it doesn't recognise you as an existing member, so you have to complete the savings application as if you are a new customer.

artyboy

Does the job for me. As a long term Santander customer, it's an extremely familiar desktop layout, yes no app which is a bit annoying, but easy enough to move money in and out, and it happens instantly.

Not like you really need rich functionality when it's just basic savings accounts...

arjaydavis

gt94sss2 said:

[...]

Santander also partially obscure customers contact details with asterisks and are not the only bank to do so. A quick check confirms both NatWest and HSBC also do the same

If you click on one of your accounts and view your transactions,near the top of the account selector, it lists your product name, date you opened your account and if you opted for interest annually - which is what the (A) represents.

For example:

Product name: CAHOOT SUNNY DAY SAVER (ISSUE 5) (A)

[...]

Thank you gt94sss2 for the (A) tip. I see (M), so it's monthly I would conclude on that basis, which is what I prefer.

arjaydavis

Thank you for all your comments so far.

I'm happy to continue to use my Cahoot savings at 4.31% while the bonus lasts.

When that bonus ends, I should think it would be as straightforward as the first time round when I closed the account, to move the money away.

I'm not completely comfortable with my post as I don't like to be a keyboard warrior and complain. I sent the same feedback to Cahoot themselves though so would like it to be noted for the future.

But it works as others as said.  An old building isn't necessarily less secure, from experience one can maintain the security and important things behind the scenes without a makeover. 

As I said in my original post, I'd recommend them for the rate and for the well known brand behind them, Santander. This for anyone considering them. Persevere with the interface for that great rate!

friolento

mills112 said:

i have a cahoot current account for my brother and it is very poor as you can't make payments easily.  every time you make a payment to the same person, you need to create them as a new payee as otherwise you can't change the reference of the payment, so if one was "refund", you couldn't use the same payee again and put in, "birthday present".  you therefore end up with lots of payees, who are actually just the same person.

you can't have an address that you have already had before, so when my brother moved out, he put in a new address but if he moved back in later, he can not change his address to that old one on their system, you would have to contact them.

there is no app so you can't control your debit card.  interesting that the government is bringing in user set contactless limit on debit cards, wonder how cahoot will deal with that.

they should really just move to santander as they don't really have a place in the banking structure now.  they were good when internet banking first started but they are way behind now.

i tried to open a savings account for my brother and it doesn't recognise you as an existing member, so you have to complete the savings application as if you are a new customer.

If it’s so bad, why not have your brother move to a bank he/you like better? Some pay a nice welcome bonus to switchers, e. g. Lloyds £250 at present 

friolento

artyboy said:

Does the job for me. As a long term Santander customer, it's an extremely familiar desktop layout, yes no app which is a bit annoying, but easy enough to move money in and out, and it happens instantly.

Not like you really need rich functionality when it's just basic savings accounts...

This ⬆️⬆️⬆️, 100%

Long may they pay their attractive interest rates, instead of wasting money on sexxing up their user interface 

mills112

friolento said:

mills112 said:

i have a cahoot current account for my brother and it is very poor as you can't make payments easily.  every time you make a payment to the same person, you need to create them as a new payee as otherwise you can't change the reference of the payment, so if one was "refund", you couldn't use the same payee again and put in, "birthday present".  you therefore end up with lots of payees, who are actually just the same person.

you can't have an address that you have already had before, so when my brother moved out, he put in a new address but if he moved back in later, he can not change his address to that old one on their system, you would have to contact them.

there is no app so you can't control your debit card.  interesting that the government is bringing in user set contactless limit on debit cards, wonder how cahoot will deal with that.

they should really just move to santander as they don't really have a place in the banking structure now.  they were good when internet banking first started but they are way behind now.

i tried to open a savings account for my brother and it doesn't recognise you as an existing member, so you have to complete the savings application as if you are a new customer.

If it’s so bad, why not have your brother move to a bank he/you like better? Some pay a nice welcome bonus to switchers, e. g. Lloyds £250 at present 

he isn't well so it is not easy to move banks.  i am trying to get LPA for him so I can do this for him.  he has had the cahoot current account when they were one of the first internet bank, and back in those days they were ahead of their time, but not these days.

it would be better if cahoot shuts down their current accounts and move them all to santander as they don't offer current accounts anymore but they still keep their old current account customers.