Barclays Tax Haven ISA: Have you opened one?

MABLE

MABLE wrote: »

You have my every sympathy. I opened up a Tax Haven isa. Deposited £1.00 and then about 6 weeks deposited a further £3599.00. Credit on the 5 June to the ISA and on the 6 June transferred back to my Barclays Currant account and account closed.

Phoned them and they do not have a reason why this happened and as such as complaint has now been registered.

They are bl...dy USELESS.

UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE.

Well I received a goodwill payment of £220.00 for the error caused by Barclays. I declined to accept it and have now received an offer of £300.00.
Considering the money has been invested with another financial institution for the last 6 months and earning good interest I will now not take the matter any further.

-rt-

I tried to open the ISA in the first week of April and my money finally entered the account 3 months later. They opened the account within a fortnight but had lost my cheque in the meantime so I spent a long time with a nil balance - which they didn't question.

I doubt if the interest rate on offer is achievable in practice as it takes them so long (on their own estimations) to open the accounts. Opening ISAs should be trivial, surely? Barclays seem to behave as though transport and technology haven't moved on since the opening of the canals and turnpikes.

MrAnalogy

We have now transferred our ISAs elsewhere (after ensuring that we got every penny of interest due, + £40 each "compensation").

The final statement was interesting. Apparently this multi-billion pound multi-national cannot produce the software for interest calculations that can handle tax-free investments (i.e. ISAs).

They seem to have to add an amount on to the gross interest (25%?) so that when the 20% tax is deducted the figures come out right!

As an IT professional for 25 years this really offends me - I would be embarrassed to use this solution for a one-man band!

Glad we have escaped, and beaten the rush!

Magnets_2

I was just looking for somewhere to move my ISA (from Natwest 4.6%) and Barclays sounded good, but after reading these last few posts I am thinking twice, It's absolutly shocking!
Has anyone opened or transferred an ISA to Barclays recently? I assume most of the problems everyone had would have been due to the annual rush?

Lokolo

Barclays Tax Haven ISA doesn't allow transfers in.

Baldur

Magnets wrote: »

I was just looking for somewhere to move my ISA (from Natwest 4.6%) and Barclays sounded good, but after reading these last few posts I am thinking twice, It's absolutly shocking!
Has anyone opened or transferred an ISA to Barclays recently? I assume most of the problems everyone had would have been due to the annual rush?

The Post Office Cash ISA is offering the same 6.25% rate as Barclays Tax Haven ISA and permits transfers in, which the Tax Haven does not - it's 'new cash only'.

Magnets_2

Doh, never noticed that, thanks.

tiptoe_mouse

Magnets wrote: »

I was just looking for somewhere to move my ISA (from Natwest 4.6%) and Barclays sounded good, but after reading these last few posts I am thinking twice, It's absolutly shocking!
Has anyone opened or transferred an ISA to Barclays recently? I assume most of the problems everyone had would have been due to the annual rush?

As others have said, Barclays don't accept transfers in. The Post office does, at a particularly good rate, but as it's a new account we don't yet know if they will be any better at admin than barclays (some would argue they could hardly be worse...). Plus the rate drops by 1.5% after a year.

If you have a large amount to transfer, Natwest are offering a good rate (http://www.natwest.com/personal/savings/g2/isas/cash-isa.ashx#tabs=section2) but that's not without it's complications (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1168679) and the rate drops by 2% after one year.

If you want a hassle free transfer, and a straightforward account, you could do worse than try Icesave (6.1%). I transferred two ISAs at once to them, and it took under two weeks. Mind you, I was transferring from kent reliance bs and NS&I, so maybe some of the credit should go to them for acting promptly on Icesave's request.

tiptoe

PS I have a Barclays ISA as well - they managed to open mine within a month, so I did rather well it seems. I was an existing current account customer, though, so maybe that made a difference. Mind you, I'm still frustrated that I can't move money between my current account and my ISA using their online banking- apparently I have to ring them instead.

XXXX

Barclays is an absolute nightmare, I had an ISA with them last and this year, both been messed up by them terribly, lost cheque and months delay.

Never again!

mervyncp

Barclays made a right hash of our applications last year. Mine took weeks and they managed to lose my wife's application completely, even though they were sent in the same envelope!!!!
Credit where it's due though, they were brilliant at sorting out the lost application and my wife's interest was backdated further than mine.

I just hope they are better at dealing with transfers, as we have both submitted transer forms to the NatWest this morning.