Interest rates for TheONE Account staying up

Simon22

Cosmo wrote: »

It is Virgin in name only, Branson sold up/out years ago. I don't think this development would be as he intended but I'm sure he has no control over it now.

Really, they trade under the Virgin name, but it has nothing to do with Branson ?

Amazed he would allow a company to hold the Virgin name and relinquish all control over it, doesn't sound like a Branson thing to do. Now he has a company destroying his repuation and credibility.

Cosmo

Simon22 wrote: »

Really, they trade under the Virgin name, but it has nothing to do with Branson ?

Yup: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1453013.stm

Simon22

Interesting because when you go to Virgin Money which is presumably an entirely seperate entity now, they link you to the One Account when you click on Mortgage.

I guess that was part of the deal , but again it breeds association with Branson.

setmefree2

jackarmy wrote: »

however when the last pound is paid off and you and not the financial institution owns the bricks and mortar think of that nice warm feeling in you tummy.
:beer:

Oh my, I'm dreamin of that day;):D

GrippleSpider

I too am fuming ! The promise and the spirit of the One Account was and should still be, to follow the BOE base rate, I have found a letter from 10th May 2001 crowing about the fact ! See here

Surely we should have some kind of redress. The T&C after all are not everything, often in law the spirit and promises made at the time the agreement was originally formed, take precedence.

Martin can you help us out here ?

Justin

happywarmgun

Hey - great find on that letter. The word 'promise' is a pretty strong one....

kk63

Have a look a James Duffell, the head of public relations for Virgin One, said on BBC Radio 4 INSIDE MONEY on 18th AUGUST 2001:
"We guarantee that they will always follow the Bank of England interest rate when they come down. We put them down the day that the Bank of England announces its reduction and the interest then calculated from the next day at the new rate."

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/audio_video/programmes/inside_money/transcripts/investors.txt

Cosmo

Great stuff! Keep 'em coming. :T

The more ammunition we have the better.

ico12345

What I dont understand here is that the oneaccount is a pure mortgage bank. They dont have savers as such so there are no large withdrawals of monies that require funding. The bank is unlikely to need to borrow off the current money markets because net it should be taking in funds (by way of repayments), it could stop lending. The bank would also have Collateralized the loans selling it on to other banks at a variable rate. Also they are fairly stringent in the lending criteria so unlikely to have signficant bad debts. So taking all this into account and the fact that the BOE has already given access to cheaper capital, I just dont understand why the rate rise is required. The current 3month Libor is around the 5.9%, they only have to trim their margins assuming they can get money at Libor.

What I preceive the situation to be is that here is an opportunity to get more customers so continue to lend cash, borrow of the money market at a higher rate and sting the existing customer base (to make sure new customers get a more competitive rate) who aren't going anywhere and blame it on the credit crisis.

The reputational damage this causes is immense. There needs to be a black list of these lender who through their own greed or mismangement are not able to follow the BOE base rate changes, particularly when the product is marketed in that manner. One other one that has also done this histrorically is Standard Life who some years ago increased my buy to let for no reason apart from greed.

The oneaccount in my eyes is advertisised as a base rate tracker and marketed as such, certainly gives the impression, irrespective of the small print on the Terms and Conditions. This is at least misleading the customer, perhaps some complaints to the ombudsman may help.

Its probably not even the virgin team that have made the decision more their owners RBS who probably need to show reduced losses through bad debt investments so the current managment dont get sacked.

Theres nothing much that can be done aside from complain to the ombudsman that customers were misled and hope the government legislate against these rouges who dont play fair. They can then moan about over regulation.

ico12345

Ps - everyone please call them and raise your complaint. No need to shout at them its not the opeartors fault, more communicate exactly what you think (minus obsence words) in a consice manner. Hopefully enough calls should get a message through. Reitereate the point that as many of us belive this product was certainly marketed as a base rate tracker or gave that impression