Ulster Bank - £150 free when you switch your account

Frenchtoast_2

dmxdave wrote: »

Maybe I am old fashioned at nearly 50 :rotfl: but there is no such thing as a free lunch Banks will not "give" £150 without getting much more in return!

Sound just like a wise old hector

trcooke

When I lived in England before moving over to NI I banked with Natwest which, like Ulster Bank, is part of the Royal Bank Of Scotland Group. I uncovered a rather worrying thing when one of my direct debits that I set up on the internet banking did not work properly. It turns out that when you set up one of these on the internet banking it physically prints out somewhere in Natwest for someone to manually enter the details on their system. Needless to say on this occasion they did not enter it correctly. Whether this is still the case or not I could not say but it doesn't fill me with confidence.

belfastgirl23

As an example of how rubbish the online banking is, I spent ages today trying to log on. In the end up phoned to see what was wrong. It turns out that I was trying to access internet banking through the wrong website for some reason apparently I can only access via the internet bank in the .co.uk website rather than the .ie website that comes up when you google search. Hmm. I'm glad it's me handling their money rather than vice versa.

BTW though they have def improved their branches. I left a DD mandate in this morning and they were offering people coffee and everything. When I was a student not only did they say 'what do you want' they also asked me what I thought they were there for, to tide me over between grants...I was so gutted at the time I didn't have the wit to say ...em yes that's exactly why you're here.

Bigcammy

I left the Ulster Bank 3 years ago, best thing I ever did. I found them difficult, aggressive and wholly unhelpful when I was trying to recover from bad debt.

I had the great pleasure of winning £1700 of fees back from them last year, cheered me right up!

belfastgirl23

Bigcammy wrote: »

I left the Ulster Bank 3 years ago, best thing I ever did. I found them difficult, aggressive and wholly unhelpful when I was trying to recover from bad debt.

I had the great pleasure of winning £1700 of fees back from them last year, cheered me right up!

Now there's a good news story well done :beer:

talksalot81

I did it 6 months ago without any trouble. What has been said with respect to a 'free lunch' will be correct if you are not careful. The interest paid on the accounts is very low compared to market leaders. You also have to switch and close another account (or I had to, YMMV). However, if you ensure you do not leave lots of cash lying in the account, then it represents a good return.

nosey_biatch

miserly_mum wrote: »

Both OH and me use Ulster banks internet banking. Its excellent and much better in my opinion that my previous one with First Trust

I'd say there wouldn't be much in it between the First Trust and the Northern Bank!! :rolleyes:

shaz77_2

dmxdave wrote: »

Maybe I am old fashioned at nearly 50 :rotfl: but there is no such thing as a free lunch Banks will not "give" £150 without getting much more in return!

Generally I would agree with you, however last year I signed up for this scheme, had my pay transferred into the Ulster bank account, the next week my account was credited with the £150 and the following week my account with Ulster bank was closed.

talksalot81

shaz77 wrote: »

Generally I would agree with you, however last year I signed up for this scheme, had my pay transferred into the Ulster bank account, the next week my account was credited with the £150 and the following week my account with Ulster bank was closed.

I feel that is morally empty. Admitted the banks have been willing to screw over the customer, but in this modern era where the customer is reclaiming every penny of unjustified charge, it seems to be a bit hypocritical.

shaz77_2

talksalot81 wrote: »

I feel that is morally empty. Admitted the banks have been willing to screw over the customer, but in this modern era where the customer is reclaiming every penny of unjustified charge, it seems to be a bit hypocritical.

I don't agree as I didn't do anything illegal, immoral or unjustifiable. I switched bank accounts, realised that what the bank was offering was worse than what I had initially. I had real plans to switch to this account but there was nothing of interest and when all the gloss of initiation had worn off I realised I had made a mistake.