Barclays Meeting with Customer advisor

msdl28712

Ive been asked to pop into bank on wednesday to see the customer advisor.

She says that my money isnt earning enough intrest in the account its in.

Its in a old savings account.

I have about £8000 in at the moment and prob save about £900 a month from my wages.

I Like access to it all the time i take a little out each week

What is she likely to offer me or what should i ask for.

Will she try and offer me something that sounds good but isnt.

I'd like a little heads up before i go so i can sound if i know what im talking about.

Cheers

Marc

nicko33

see
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=725821

chesky369

She'll want to sell you their savings/insurance/ISA products. Take notes. make no decisions - tell her you want to think things over and compare Barclays products to others. Do you have ISAs? If you don't you should but you probably shouldn't have Barclays. Ask her what the cash ISA interest rate is and then come back here and compare it on the ISA threads.
Ask her if there is a Barclays savings account which compares to ICICI (I think 6.7 but could be wrong - you check). You also sound to me as though you could do with a regular monthly saver, so you could ask her what Barclays rates are for this. When she's given you the info say you'll let her know - believe me, there is nothing she can offer which can't be bettered.

msdl28712

No i currently dont have isa's

Def will not make any decision there learnt that from my time here at mse

Also i will take notes and come back here so the good ppl here can mull it over and give me proper unbiased advice.

Cheers

Marc

Jonbvn

msdl28712 wrote: »

No i currently dont have isa's

You must like paying tax on your interest!

Generally speaking Barclays do not offer the best savings products. Therefore, you can listen to what they have to say, but don't invest in their products. Personally, I wouldn't waste my time with them, since you can better unbiased info on this site.

DocProc

If you aren't getting a cracking rate of interest with Barclays, I can think of

1. A Cash ISA

2. An Internet 'easy access, no notice' savings account with:

a) ICICI Bank UK plc in their HiSAVE account
or
b) Landsbanki bank's Icesave account

Before you make any decisions, have a look at the FSA's own site, particularly the Guides and Useful tools sections:

http://www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk/guides/guides.html

The Useful tools section (see the 'tab' at the top of the page) has some great comparison facilities to help you choose the best rates.

Here's the specific link on that site for the Comparison Tables. You will need to pick Savings:

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/tables

dunstonh

They also do not offer the best (or anywhere near the best) insurance or investment products. Some of their products are rebadged L&G products or more expensive versions of the L&G product. There is nothing Barclays offer that you cannot get better and/or cheaper from the "whole of market" route.

meester

you are wasting your time going to see the salesman.

That said these calls are sometimes a good reminder to do it yourself.

There's a handy section of 'Banking Saving' linked to on the top of each page

Calchas

I think some of you are being slightly unfair to Barclays.

Barclays are a world leader when it comes to offering mediocrity!!!:D

There has been quite a lot of national press recently about the "big four" high street banks not being competitive and relying on both their reputations and customer apathy in order to retain business.

Are Barclays starting to lose a few customers I wonder? :T

Are the peasants really revolting?

msdl28712

OK went to the meeting both wed and fri

Must say i was pleasantly suprised no hard sell of any kind and was a good couple of hours out of my weeks holiday put to good use.

She asked us what we wanted to do only having a old saving account (and was told that we could not add any more dd to it we needed a current account).

Which she happily set up for us and then quickly mentioned the additions on it. She also said that she would transfer our dd from the old saving account over to the current account gradually through out the month until our wages have been changed to be paid into the new account as there are saving and money in the savings account to pay for the dd she said she would make sure they are first taken from the old saving account which is funded at the moment then transfer them over.

She also transfeered £1000 over to the new account so we have money in both at the moment and when all dd and wages are sorted the remaining savings will be sent over to the current account.

Also set up 2 isa for me and my wife she mentioned on wed that the rate would be changing as of monday 3rd so hold fire and if she had any more info on the friday when we had to go back she'd let me know.

She did and said the magic 6.3 which i was happy and showed me the new leaflets on the isa couldnt take one home as she said they couldnt be given out till monday..

So we filled in the forms on friday but she told us not to date them and on monday she would date and set them up to take into account the new rate.

We did discuss a high intrest saving account but because i had funded the two isa with £6000 that left a couple of grand and also my savings that will add up until april which will go straight into funding the 08's isa's and then top them up monthly through out the year till they reach there max and then when i have savings again i will then look into a high intrest saving account.

But overall what im trying to say is overall i beleive that the meeting was in our best intrest and didnt get one bit of hard selling.

So i personally would give a big thumbs up to barclays (well claire at the langley branch)

MrDT

Wow, Barclays really getting a bum rap in this thread!

Is it really true that anything Barclays offer can be beaten elsewhere? I had a 12.5% (10% after lower rate tax) regular saver account with them last year, would have been hard pressed to find better. In fact, I tried, hard as I could, but failed

I've just signed up for an ISA with Barclays today too, and not because of 'loyalty'. 6.5% aer, simple as (admittedly 1% bonus rate for 12 months, but I'll be chasing the best deal again in 12 months so no loss there). Another pretty good deal I think?

And to cap it all, Barclays online banking is great, and customer service in the branches I've used is usually top notch (I say usually as there was one numpty new boy that wasn't up to much once, but I'm sure you could say the same of most places). I'm not affiliated with them in any way, don't own any stock, don't work there, just felt like speaking out as so many people seem to dismiss the high street banks out of hand when they can actually be pretty good.

So long as you don't pay over the odds for their products (I have 100% free banking), or fall into the mortgage trap of paying more to be with your bank because you 'know' them, then where's the harm in letting them give you lovely lovely interest?