Barclays Tax Haven ISA: Have you opened one?

alijolly

No problems at all with ours opened mine 26th March online and it was active with in 3 days dh opened his a couple of days later was opened by 9th April but backdated to correct taxyear.

thechor

applied end of March, still not open. Was assured that my interest would be back dated from the start of the year - Problem is whilie waiting for my £3600 to be transfered i (foolishly) opened the account with only £1, with the intention of filling it a coupl eof days later.
I'm now going to get a great rate of interest on £1 for a month, and by the time they finally open the account, I'll make less interest than i would have done staying with my old ISA.

Really don't know why i still bank with Barclays, coz they suck

Lokolo

thechor wrote: »

applied end of March, still not open. Was assured that my interest would be back dated from the start of the year - Problem is whilie waiting for my £3600 to be transfered i (foolishly) opened the account with only £1, with the intention of filling it a coupl eof days later.
I'm now going to get a great rate of interest on £1 for a month, and by the time they finally open the account, I'll make less interest than i would have done staying with my old ISA.

Really don't know why i still bank with Barclays, coz they suck

You could have topped it up at any time with the other £3599 without the account being opened.

See_Jay

Its 15 days since I handed my cheque to Barclays to open an ISA. The cheque hasn't been cleared. I called in at my local branch to be told it could take up to 4 weeks before the account is open!!!
Wonderful. That's a lot of money earning nothing for a long time.
Does anyone know a phone number for Barclays other than the 0845 numbers?

John_RL

We applied on 7 Apr 08 and was told that it would take 10 days to action, however the interest would start on the 7 Apr 08. After no news, we visited the bank on 28 Apr 08 only to be told that due to a backlog the ISA's would not be processed before the 5 May 08 and they would only backdate the interest for two weeks prior to this date, which is contrary to what I was told when we foolishly deposited our £7,200 (two cheques for £3,600). We intend raising a complaint once the ISA's are live. In the meantime we have been losing a great deal of interest due to their incompetence, assuming they will not honour their word to pay interest from the date of application. We would not have gone for this ISA had we been given the 'true' facts.

skooby_2

Lokolo wrote: »

You could have topped it up at any time with the other £3599 without the account being opened.

And how would that work? I suppose I could go to my nearest branch and hand over a cheque written in my name. I am not sure I can trust Barclays to add the money to my ISA when they haven't even managed to open my account yet.

skooby_2

See_Jay wrote: »

Its 15 days since I handed my cheque to Barclays to open an ISA. The cheque hasn't been cleared. I called in at my local branch to be told it could take up to 4 weeks before the account is open!!!
Wonderful. That's a lot of money earning nothing for a long time.
Does anyone know a phone number for Barclays other than the 0845 numbers?

You can call the customer care helpline on 0800 7315387 or 24 hour customer service on 01604 230230 or the ISA helpline on 01452628991 or 0800 085 8566.

Lokolo

skooby wrote: »

And how would that work? I suppose I could go to my nearest branch and hand over a cheque written in my name. I am not sure I can trust Barclays to add the money to my ISA when they haven't even managed to open my account yet.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=853593&page=3

first post on that page explains.

nathanhill69

It's disappointing to read that Barclays are yet again making a hash of their ISA applications. Last year they completely messed up both my partners and my applications (along with thousands of others), and we applied separately at different branches in first week of April. My partners application submitted was eventually opened end of June and mine was late July, early August. Throughout the whole saga they constantly gave conflicting information, never had a clue where our applications were and demonstrated a staggering level of incompetence - they felt that the excuse that they never anticipated the level of demand was sufficient (what did they expect offering a headline grabbing interest rate?).

Ultimately I was given additional compensation and both our interest payments were backdated (although my partner recently had to prompt them to even do this). For this reason I have avoided Barclays as it really wasn't worth the hassle and numerous phone calls.

midnite

Applied for one account on the 6th April and a second applied for by my wife on the 16th. Have received ackowledgement letters but accounts still not opened and money still sitting in my not so great interest paying Barclays current account.

Not particularlay impressed with the delay. Did they not consider that with such an offer they would have lots of applications and therefore may have staffed up to deal with them, or maybe I'm just being unfair but I dont think so!