Regular Reviews
I went in to my local Halifax branch for a regular bank account review. These are worth doing every couple of years (at the least) to ensure I'm on the right accounts and not missing out on any potential extras. In this case I had been remiss with getting married in 2008, and had skipped a year of review so this was overdue. Most banks have reasonably standard terms and conditions now, so you look to see what benefits you most.If you're maximising, it still requires a lot of effort to ensure you're not missing something too - especially when having a review like this. If you're in debt, it requires twice the effort to read the fine print to ensure they're not screwing you over.
We hold three current accounts; mine, good lady wife, aka She Who Must Be Obeyed (SWMBO) and a joint one; this is key to the next stage.
Upgrades
The lady reviewing my details immediately recommended I upgrade my extremely basic current account to their vanilla Reward Account, which magically gives me £5/month just for paying in £1000/month. They've dropped the concept of paying you an interest rate, and indeed the same applies to penalties too (which aren't pretty reading) but it was the reward bit which interested me obviously. At this point I'm now up £5/month on my previous account's interest rate of 0.0000005% so that's quite a profit in comparison.
SWMBO upgrades her own current account to the same package, so now we're up £10/month. This must be how blackjack players in Vegas feel when its going their way! Practically giddy with excitement at making money now. I wonder if Michael Douglas felt like this when he skipped lunch in Wall Street.
Fun Part
Now the fun part ... our advisor then mentioned their Ultimate Reward Account too. By this point you've now clicked the link and glanced through the various benefits and costs yeah? Note, this account costs you. They're taking my money away! £12.50 a month for this racket! Clearly you can imagine my inflated sense of worth and indignation rising at this point. Then I stopped and had another good look over the details again ...
The account's £12.50/month, but they'll also pay me £5 for paying in £1000/month. So now it's down to £7.50/month,. In addition to this, they give the account owner(s) travel insurance, breakdown cover, mobile phone insurance, credit card cover and home emergency cover for good measure. I checked the wording again, and then it clicked ... if we got this account for the joint account, then we're both covered by this policy for the price of just one account! The first two items on their own from that list cost us in the region of £15/month usually, so now we can cancel our other policies.
By this point, we're now receiving £15/month on three accounts simply by virtue of not being overdraft and having regular salaries. We're paying out £12.50/month, which leaves us a net profit of £2.50/month but we've also saved £15/month on travel insurance and breakdown cover so we're back up to £17.50/month profit for approximately twenty minutes work on a Saturday morning. Okay, it doesn't sound like a huge amount but in the coming year that means there's an extra £210 in our budget which we didn't have before that meeting. I don't know anywho who'd refuse that amount of money should they be offered it.
How happy am I? It's fair to say I'm chuffed. Very chuffed. Happier than the gentleman with bendy glowsticks in the picture on the left.* From a simple account review, they've saved me a considerable chunk of money and won my loyalty for a couple of years; not to mention my recommendation of their services.
* Gentleman is actually known to me, but lets be honest ... this could be a very random photo pulled from the Internet of any crazy person with bendy glowsticks at their disposal in a whisky bar in Stockholm.
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3 comments:
Well that is wonderful news. Certainly beats the hell out of Barclays, who shall remain nameless.
When trying to change my address after dear old Pa moved house (me permanent address being registered there), I was greeted with the following:
Me: Change addy plx!
Halfwit: We'll have to send you a code to do that.
Me: Oh, but my parents don't live there anymore. They moved house a couple of months back, I was slow to update.
Halfwit: Oh, well then you can come into a high street branch then.
Me: In Japan. Not happening.
Halfwit: Oh, then you can send us a letter explaining the circumstances.
Me:...OK, I guess.
(Send letter)
(2 weeks late)
Me: So I sent this letter and such.
Halfwit: Oh yes, we got it. It was rejected.
Me: Eh? Why?
Halfwit: Because your signature doesn't match our records.
Me: It should do. But bear in mind I was 8 when I opened that account, there may have been some deviation.
Halfwit:Oh, well then come into a high street branch and ....
Me: KILLYOUKILLYOUKILLYOU!!!
There does seem to be a reluctance from the UK banking institutions to move forward into even perhaps the 20th century when it comes to identity verification. You could probably have your consulate confirm you are indeed you, then have that sent to the bank. It worked for a friend.
Costs less in airfares than going on a killing spree through your local Barclays, considering that's a few thousand miles away ...
Funny I just dumped them (well in their if.com guise) for being utterly useless and so lucking in customer care as to move my mortgage even though it was at a blinding "old" rate just to get away from them.
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