I leaving First Direct after nearly 40 years

gropes

I'd used First Direct's international transfer service before without issue, despite its clunky last-century approach — taking 2-3 days, communication via letters (!), no real-time confirmation, no way of knowing whether you'd entered all the details correctly.

This time it went wrong. Nearly 21% of my transfer — one pound in every five — was swallowed by an intermediary correspondent bank with no prior warning. What appeared in my account was a credit with a string of code underneath it. The letter explaining what had happened never arrived.

I subsequently made the identical transfer through Wise. It went through in seconds. Any errors flagged instantly. The recipient received exactly what I intended to send.

When I complained, First Direct's position was simple: not our fault.

A rant on Trustpilot prompted a response inviting me to make contact — performative, as it turned out. Customer service repeated the same position, refused to engage with the evidence, and left me no choice but to end the call.

Wrote to CEO, stressing I'm not after the money but a sign of goodwill. He replied within hours, first name bonhomie and all, as if we were old friends — promising a personal response within five working days.

The next day I got a message from the same people who'd already fobbed me off, with the same response, this time with his rubber stamp: nothing further to add.

40 years. No trouble. One reasonable expectation of basic decency. Nothing further to add.

Will be reporting to the Ombudsman but they'll probably side with FD as customer service isn't exactly their remit.

Closing account.

Then I'll write to the CEO, first-name bonhomie and all, to tell him what I think of him and his bank.

flaneurs_lobster

Just on the complaint process, you'll need to raise a formal complaint with FD (unless you've already addressed your complaint as this). They then have 8 weeks to resolve to mutual agreement or to formally acknowledge deadlock.

At that point you can take your complaint to the FOS.

PS why are you using Trustpilot as an intermediary? Is it just as a venting platform?

UserX90210

Definitely complain, they can't get away with this. I used to have a FD account a few years ago and agree with everything you said (clunky, last-century, etc). In future, I would stick to Wise for international transfers. I have been using them for years and can't fault them.

masonic

The general advice would be not to use a bank to do such a transfer, but rather use Wise as you can avoid the intermediary fees and get better FX rates and lower overall cost.

Without details of the transfer destination, currency, and amount, its hard to say whether the "21%" quoted figure was typical or not. Intermediary fees can be a mixture flat rate and percentage based. So on a £150 transfer, 21% could be within the expected range, whereas for a £1,500 transfer it would be implausibly high.

FD has its info about international payments at https://www.firstdirect.com/travel-and-international/international-payments/

They do mention that payments may incur intermediary fees whether you are sending to the EEA or beyond. Beyond the EEA, there are options you have to pay the fees separately so that the payee gets the full amount transferred.

As a FD customer, this is not a service I would consider using.

gropes

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82118863#Comment_82118863

Ha, the customer service manager rubber-stamped by the CEO stated that I'd reached the end of the road.

gropes

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82118880#Comment_82118880

It was about £200, so it was under £40 dead loss. Is that considered reasonable?? FD themselves charged £5, which is about 5 times what Wise charges.

gropes

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82118852#Comment_82118852

Trust Pilot was a knee jerk vent

Albermarle

This thread would be better in this forum

Budgeting & bank accounts — MoneySavingExpert Forum

As it is unrelated to 'Saving & Investments'

masonic

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82118885#Comment_82118885

Typical intermediary/correspondent bank fees are around £10-30 per handling bank, so that's not a surprising level of fee to pay when sending via a bank rather than specialist service like Wise.

gropes

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82118895#Comment_82118895

Previous successful transfer only cost what FD charged. This time it didn't get through and I got charge £40 for the privilege. Nice work if you can get it!

masonic

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82118899#Comment_82118899

It's the intermediary bank that took the money. It's generally a flat fee, so if you are sending £10,000 and paying £40 for the return transfer, it amounts to 0.4%. Even then, it is better not to use a bank to make such a transaction.