Yorkshire Building Society

mumsrevenge

Hello Everyone,
This is the first time I have posted and I'm wondering if anyone would have some good advice for me.....I opened up a Regular Saver account almost a year ago as recommended on this site.Today I went into my local branch to see how my little nest egg was developing to be told that as I would not be entitiled to the end of year bonus!!!! The reason they say is because I had two payments going in the first month of opening the account.....one was the £10 they told me I had to pay in to open the account and at the end of the month my direct debits started, nobody in the branch told me this would affect the bonus at the end of the year.They will only be paying me 3.10% instead of my 6.60% I was expecting. This is less than the interest they pay on a 30 day notice account and I have kept it in for a year! I have complained and someone is supposed to be ringing me (I won't be holding my breath!) Any good ideas anyone.....!!!!!!!

moneyandmountains

It is always best to complain in writing. State what bank staff told you at account opening, and then what was recently said.

mumsrevenge

Thank you,now I have calmed down a bit this is clearly what I need to do.....of to write a letter!!!!!

exel1966

But with this account you are permitted to make numerous monthly payments into it providing it doesn't exceed the £500 maximum pm. You must also deposit funds in 11 out of 12 months and make no more than one part withdrawl.

RayWolfe

exel1966 is correct. Did your £10 plus your first SO payment exceed £500?
Another scenario might be that the person in the branch was not aware that the interest and the bonus interest appear as two separate entries, the bonus not being known until the end of the investing year.

mumsrevenge

Thank you for the replies, I do appreciate them. In the first month of opening the account I was told I had to put in £10 to open it and then at the end of the month the direct debit was for £500 so it went over the £500 threshold (they didn't tell me this would be a problem at the end of the year!)

ukdutypaid

I've been burnt with this little b*gger as well... Bank holiday, BACS payments madness.... Had to close it down and start again.... Another reason why I'm not a huge fan of these regular saver things...

I was only three, or four months in, as well... They must love the amount of failures.... You're slightly diff though, cos mine was a !!!!-up... If you've got the proof then it should go ok for you, if you ain't then, I wish you luck...

Milarky

mumsrevenge wrote: »

I was told I had to put in £10 to open it and then at the end of the month the direct debit was for £500 so it went over the £500 threshold (they didn't tell me this would be a problem at the end of the year!)

That can't be 'direct debit' surely? You mean 'standing order', I assume - a direct debit is drawn from your account and if it was 'DD' Yorkshire BS becomes responsible for the timing of any collection (and you are off the hook)

It sounds to me, though, that YBS should waive any 'chuk up' as you were entitled to put £490 in anyway - so for the sake of £10 which anyone could have overlooked they can justify paying the bonus interest. Similar accounts (eg Scarborough) actually say they will 'sweep back' any overpayment via the BACS system and not penalise the customer as a result.

mumsrevenge

Oh! I need to check if it's a DD or SO, keeping my fingers crossed! I will quote the other building societies sweep back system to see if they will play ball too. It seems a really mean thing to do for the sake of £10

baby_boomer

It's a SO.

This account is costing them dear - so they are taking a tough line.

It wouldn't be that difficult to set up a system that alerted people when they had overpaid in any single month so that they were aware of the situation and could act accordingly. That would have been the fairest thing to do.

If you have messed up by overpaying and are near the end of your first year it might still be worth keeping the account open as I believe the entire balance would qualify for the Year 2 bonus after 24 months. I would get this in writing, though. Don't forget that the really big money on these regular savers is earned in year 2 ( which is why most of them last only 12 months).

A further question, though, is whether the YBS interest rate will have collapsed by then as people like bristolleedsfan start to get closer to £20K in the account.

BTW it's not clear to me from the OP's posts who actually suggested the first £500 SO to go on top of the £10 to open. Does that mean it was actually the OP's decision rather than YBS's inaccurate guidance?

bristolleedsfan

baby_boomer wrote: »

12 months).

A further question, though, is whether the YBS interest rate will have collapsed by then as people like bristolleedsfan start to get closer to £20K in the account.

quote]


:laugh: I moved most of mine out in January into Chelsea BS 6.9% fixed rate lasting 14 months. I just pay 10.00 a month into it now. :wave:

I have Loughborough RS + x 3 though BB with maximum investments now having entered that lovely second year which you described. :cheesy:

Loughborough passbooks were returned to me today fully updated with interest, was posted first class, I was lucky not to incur excess postage as only small letter rate was paid when large letter rate should have been paid. :wall:

As always another excellent post from BB. :T

Back to the topic, my opinion is that Yorkshire BS should have made the O/P aware at an early stage that she/he was not going to qualify for the bonus due to ...............

As a further example of where societies do this I cancelled one of my Monmouth Reg saver direct debits, Monmouth wrote to me immediately pointing out the benefit of the bonus conditions being met.

BB, u might not be suprised that the reason ive now closed Monmouth Reg saver is because i also have Santa Saver of which having put an initial 100.00 into it, i now subscribe 1.00 a month as opposed to the 20.00 minimum monthly requirement of its other regular saver.