Withdrawing From Bath BS Regular Saver

bristolleedsfan

Anyone doing so might want to ask Bath BS to post the withdrawal cheque First Class. .....

I asked for mine to be transacted and posted on Monday 31st March so that it would clear by the end of the week.

Bath BS, transacted and posted the cheque on 31 march, was posted second class post.:mad:

baby_boomer

What course of action do you expect them to take when you leave exactly £100 in your account :rotfl:?

It doesn't exactly mark you out as qualifying for the "Friends of Bath BS" or the "Mutual supporters' group"

Cut a hard pressed mutual worker a bit of slack.

Milarky

I'm going to open a second account with them first, with the bare £100 in, and then close this RS one in the new year. (Closures are treated the same as withdrawals - only one is allowed per calender year or six months loss of interest!)

bristolleedsfan

Here u go Milarky and BB, subsequent Bath BS exchanges, Notice how quickly Bath BS appear to have responded to Februarys Base Rate decrease, compared with how long it took to respond to Base Rate increases.

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Original Message

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From: Bath BS


Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 4:13 PM
Subject: FW: 6847-03703-4


Thank you for your email in connection with your recent withdrawal, bringing to our attention the fact that your cheque was posted 2nd class. I can confirm that it is our usual practice to post out any cheque withdrawals 1st Class, although unfortunately this has not happened on this occasion for which I would ask you to accept our apology.

Unfortunately I do not have enough information from your email to confirm your account details, however if your account number ends with ***. and your withdrawal was completed on the 31st March then please confirm and I will arrange for interest to be added back to your account for the period 31st March 2008 to today, 3rd April 2008. Alternatively please advise us of your account number.

With reference to the terms and conditions of your account, there is no obligation on the Society to use 1st class post, although as previously stated it is our normal practice, and interest is earned up until the day of withdrawal. However as our service on this occasion has not been as expected we will reimburse you with interest lost on your withdrawal as indicated above.

Yours sincerely
Paul Grant
Administrations
01225 423271


Sent 4th April


My Regular Saver Account Number is exactly how it was quoted in the subject, copied from the passbook. ( Transaction was carried out on 31 March, passbook fully updated, account number unchanged)

Noting the comments where you confirm that its normal practice to send withdrawal cheques by first class post and appreciating your offer to reimburse me with some of my lost interest. ( of course the issue is not just lost interest posting second class means I cant have cleared funds on my money until at least Monday 7th April. ( difference in both interest and clearing time is that the extra day resulted in both going over a weekend of non working days )

Re: Your reference to the terms and conditions of the account : For many years the "terms and conditions" of many Building Society Savings Accounts were that interest was paid on cheque deposits from third working day following receipt. ( Building Societies didnt want to pay interest until they had received cleared funds, in addition Building Societies stopped paying interest on withdrawals from either the day prior to the withdrawal or from the day of withdrawal so that in the event of cheque withdrawals ( even ones that were being posted) the Building Society (s) retained interest on the money for several days after the BS stopped paying interest to the saver (s) even though the withdrawn money belongs to the saver not to the building society(s).

This is something ive been miffed about for years so its not personal against Bath BS.

The Office Of Fair Trading clearly agrees that such terms and conditions amounted to unfair trading, hence the "maximum" time allowed now for interest to be paid on cheques deposits into savings accounts. ( maximum of two working days after a cheque has been paid into a savings account for when interest is paid, this new maximum was a compromise rather than an ideal solution with the hope that competition would cause many Savings providers to start paying interest on cheque deposits quicker than the stated maximum, ( some were previously, many more do now)

I believe and I hope that you agree that it would be unethical for any savings provider to post out a withdrawal cheque by the slowest posssible method thus retaining interest on the monies ( and denying the saver interest on his/her monies for longer) for longer especially over the following weekend ( non working days) irrespective of what is not specifically stated in the "terms and conditions", In any event such behaviour would breach the banking code. "treating customers fairly".

While im in contact, Building Societies often like "feedback", Im a regular poster on http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/

Many posters on the forum noticed and werent impressed that when Base Rates were increasing, whilst Bath BS did increase its regular savings rate by the full 0.25% it was very slow to do so on at least some of the occasions....e.g if a Base Rate Increase occurred in the second week of August as an example, the majority of savings providers altered their savings rates on 1st September, Bath BS waited from memory until 14th September. ( whilst u may again point to the terms and conditions, such behaviour gets widely and in my opinion correctly condemned in the media)

Then on at least one (if not two) base rate decreases of 0.25%, Bath Building Society reduced its regular savings rates by 0.30%

Bath BS response to the last Base Rate decrease on 7th February 2008 appears to have occured on 15th February 2008, if only Bath BS could put its savings rates up so quickly when Base Rates increase .....

Hope Bath BS find the feedback productive.

Speculator

Thank you for your email in connection with your recent withdrawal, bringing to our attention the fact that your cheque was posted 2nd class. I can confirm that it is our usual practice to post out any cheque withdrawals 1st Class, although unfortunately this has not happened on this occasion for which I would ask you to accept our apology.

Incorrect, they posted my cheque 2nd class as well.

Speculator

Here's their reponse to my query..

Thank you for your email.

The majority of our mail goes 2nd class, however when cheques are being posted it is normal practice to use 1st Class Mail, and I am sorry that this did not happen on completion of your withdrawal. However there is no obligation under the terms and conditions of our accounts to use 1st class mail.

The Society pays interest from the day a cheque is placed with us, not the day cleared funds are received, which is normal practice, and I am sorry if this does not happen in your case.

bristolleedsfan

Speculator wrote: »

Here's their reponse to my query..

However there is no obligation under the terms and conditions of our accounts to use 1st class mail.

quote]

My response to them re the above was that not posting cheque withdrawals first class was in breach of the banking code. : not treating customers fairly, being as they stop paying interest on cheque withdrawals as soon as the transaction occurs, posting by slowest method possible is not by any definition "fair".

Bath BS did offer to pay me interest for a few extra days, i told them not to bother, that it was the principle that was the issue not a few days interest on a small transaction.

Loughborough BS are "another" who posted a much larger cheque out second class post, Loughborough BS are however happy to take withdrawal cheques to a Bank/Nationwide BS in Loughborough as an alternative to posting it. :T

Whether Loughborough BS transact by BACS is not clear to me, in response to my "second class" cheque posting Loughborough replied stating that I could have requested the withdrawal to be made by BACS or "walked in" to my Bank/Nationwide BS in Loughborough, I then made another withdrawal request on another account asking for the withdrawal to be made by BACS I received a phone call saying that they dont do withdrawals by BACS but were happy to walk the cheque to Nationwide BS in Loughborough.

steady__eddie

I do not wish to appear to be "springing to the defence" of Loughborough but the following may be of interest.
I had one of their Mickey Mouse bonds (purely for membership purposes you understand) which matured on the 31st of May. In February, I transferred an ISA to them in order that my membership would be preserved at a marginally higher rate of interest when my bond matured. When I was asked in May if I wished to take advantage of further spectacularly mouth watering offers, I politely declined with a cry of GIMME ME MONEY BACK.
Saturday 31st May, bond matured, Monday 2nd June, CASH in my current a/c., it was a cleared balance which I promptly withdrew and rehoused.
Bank statement simply says "2 Jun 08 Deposit High St L'BOROUGH". Being somewhat hazy in the mechanics of modern banking methods, I leave it to you to to deduce whether they sent the office junior down the road with a carrier bag full of notes and a paying in slip or used slightly more sophisticated means ?
I realise that I missed out on 2 days interest due to the fact that the day of maturity not being a banking day but if they had posted me a cheque which I would then have to deposit, I guesstimate that it would not have cleared until the 9th thereby losing me (and profiting them) an additional week.

Speculator

I sent off two seperate withdrawal requests on Saturday by first class post, one to Scarborough BS and one to Bath BS.

Scarborough received my instructions on Monday and transferred the money by BACS to my current a/c. I was expecting to receive it by Thursday at the earliest but was surprised to see the money sitting in my current a/c this morning. (Wednesday)

Bath on the otherhand received my instructions on Monday but chosed to send the cheque by 2nd class post meaning the funds won't clear until next Monday! This is the last straw and I will be doing the same as Milarky in post no.3.

bristolleedsfan

To Steady Eddie, Loughborough CS is excellent was just unfortunate they sent one withdrawal second class post, for me it was "another" second class posting.

Do u bank with lloyds out of interest SE ?????????????????

To Speculator, yip thats the point i always send instructions for withdrawals to be made on a monday so that i receive tuesday and have cleared funds asap, cheques sent second class arent cleared till after following weekend.

Speculator

Despite what Paul Grant says, I don't believe Bath Building Society have a system of identifying envelopes containing cheques to be sent first class. They probably send everything second class to save on postage cost.