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Brian, I would urge you not to change to Santander, they have the worst customer service record of all banking establishments, yes you may get a little sweetener initially, but from my past experience with them (A & L actually) they are a disaster at looking after both their customers interests and money.
Only my personal opinion of course but stick with the Nationwide, even though I fully understand your discontent.
Keith
______________________________________________________________ Do unto others as they do unto you,and then **** off before the law arrives.
There are only 3 things in this world worth a solitary dime, thats old dogs, and children and watermelon wine. (Tom T Hall)
I am inclined to stick with Nationwide just for their excellent on-line banking facility. I download information on a weekly basis from Nationwide and Lloydstsb, whose website is very badly designed in comparison. To obtain similar information requires about twice as many keystrokes and a lot of scrolling.
I wonder if anyone has experience of Santander's on-line banking service. There is no easy way to find out without joining them, by which time it's too late.
Thanks for that Keith.
I am inclined to stick with Nationwide just for their excellent on-line banking facility. I download information on a weekly basis from Nationwide and Lloydstsb, whose website is very badly designed in comparison. To obtain similar information requires about twice as many keystrokes and a lot of scrolling.
I wonder if anyone has experience of Santander's on-line banking service. There is no easy way to find out without joining them, by which time it's too late.
Brian
Despite NW's considered disloyalty to it's existing customers, we too have decided to stay with them, having got a couple of quid in e-savings accounts.
However, that decision was greatly influenced by the fact that we have been N & P customers for many years, and as you already know, they "now" provide free overseas transactions/withdrawals for Gold current account holders.
Cheers,
Jock.
______________________________________________________________ For "Our Mavis."
Yes, like a lot of members, I complained in Branch & was informed that it cost £50 to issue a card to each member & that 1,000,000 ? members were depositing just enough spending money in the Bank for their annual 2wks. holiday. So Nationwide decided to start charging on Debit cards for overseas withdrawals. All purchases on their Credit Cards were still charge free.
Jackeen
I would vote yes on the proviso that flex account holders adhere to the same rules in relation to travel insurance...i.e. deposit the minimum amount on a monthly basis. Not as a lot previously did, open a flex account just prior to going abroad and then expect to use the facilties of withdrawing cash at no cost. In other words, playing the system.
It was this that led to the NW abandoning the scheme IMHO.
The few ruining for the many as per usual.
Keith
Speaking as an ex Nationwide employee, a saver, and a borrower, this is exactly right. At one time, Nationwide would happily accept customers who played the system, because it was seen as an inevitable consequence of taking the standpoint of being "the consumer's friend". You may recall their major (and successful) role in a campaign a few years back over cashpoint withdrawal charges.
However, the organisation has most definitely changed over the last 3-4 years, and profitability has become the watchword. NW needs to be more profitable to support its core business of savings and mortgages, where every other company under the sun wants a piece of the action - including all the supermarkets etc. Providing "free" services doesn't wash anymore. Not that it was ever free, of course.
Like it or not, providing a card and free overseas withdrawals always cost NW a lot of money. Just because they didn't charge their customer doesn't mean that NW didn't have to pay the transaction charges levied by the overseas bank, some of which are very high and completely outside NW's control. The upshot of that being that the cost would have to be passed on somewhere else - in lower interest rates to savers, for example.
Hence the members who didn't use the free withdrawal facility were paying for those that did. Is that fair? Well maybe it is if the members using the facility were also buying other products, thus adding to the Society's overall income, but the reality was that many people were only using the account for that one service, and only putting in enough money for their expected holiday spend.
I see many comments on this thread that confirm I am right - "it's not our main account" etc. Fine, you are fully entitled to choose where you want to bank. But don't expect me to subsidise your holidays.
I would vote yes on the proviso that flex account holders adhere to the same rules in relation to travel insurance...i.e. deposit the minimum amount on a monthly basis. Not as a lot previously did, open a flex account just prior to going abroad and then expect to use the facilties of withdrawing cash at no cost. In other words, playing the system.
It was this that led to the NW abandoning the scheme IMHO.
The few ruining for the many as per usual.
Keith
Speaking as an ex Nationwide employee, a saver, and a borrower, this is exactly right. At one time, Nationwide would happily accept customers who played the system, because it was seen as an inevitable consequence of taking the standpoint of being "the consumer's friend". You may recall their major (and successful) role in a campaign a few years back over cashpoint withdrawal charges.
However, the organisation has most definitely changed over the last 3-4 years, and profitability has become the watchword. NW needs to be more profitable to support its core business of savings and mortgages, where every other company under the sun wants a piece of the action - including all the supermarkets etc. Providing "free" services doesn't wash anymore. Not that it was ever free, of course.
Like it or not, providing a card and free overseas withdrawals always cost NW a lot of money. Just because they didn't charge their customer doesn't mean that NW didn't have to pay the transaction charges levied by the overseas bank, some of which are very high and completely outside NW's control. The upshot of that being that the cost would have to be passed on somewhere else - in lower interest rates to savers, for example.
Hence the members who didn't use the free withdrawal facility were paying for those that did. Is that fair? Well maybe it is if the members using the facility were also buying other products, thus adding to the Society's overall income, but the reality was that many people were only using the account for that one service, and only putting in enough money for their expected holiday spend.
I see many comments on this thread that confirm I am right - "it's not our main account" etc. Fine, you are fully entitled to choose where you want to bank. But don't expect me to subsidise your holidays.
Yes but as i explained earlier in this thread, NW could have put rules in place to stop people doing this. See my post for examples of what they could have done. Now instead they have shot themselves in the foot with many people closing accounts etc, me included.
I would vote yes on the proviso that flex account holders adhere to the same rules in relation to travel insurance...i.e. deposit the minimum amount on a monthly basis. Not as a lot previously did, open a flex account just prior to going abroad and then expect to use the facilties of withdrawing cash at no cost. In other words, playing the system.
It was this that led to the NW abandoning the scheme IMHO.
The few ruining for the many as per usual.
Keith
Speaking as an ex Nationwide employee, a saver, and a borrower, this is exactly right. At one time, Nationwide would happily accept customers who played the system, because it was seen as an inevitable consequence of taking the standpoint of being "the consumer's friend". You may recall their major (and successful) role in a campaign a few years back over cashpoint withdrawal charges.
However, the organisation has most definitely changed over the last 3-4 years, and profitability has become the watchword. NW needs to be more profitable to support its core business of savings and mortgages, where every other company under the sun wants a piece of the action - including all the supermarkets etc. Providing "free" services doesn't wash anymore. Not that it was ever free, of course.
Like it or not, providing a card and free overseas withdrawals always cost NW a lot of money. Just because they didn't charge their customer doesn't mean that NW didn't have to pay the transaction charges levied by the overseas bank, some of which are very high and completely outside NW's control. The upshot of that being that the cost would have to be passed on somewhere else - in lower interest rates to savers, for example.
Hence the members who didn't use the free withdrawal facility were paying for those that did. Is that fair? Well maybe it is if the members using the facility were also buying other products, thus adding to the Society's overall income, but the reality was that many people were only using the account for that one service, and only putting in enough money for their expected holiday spend.
I see many comments on this thread that confirm I am right - "it's not our main account" etc. Fine, you are fully entitled to choose where you want to bank. But don't expect me to subsidise your holidays.
Yes but as i explained earlier in this thread, NW could have put rules in place to stop people doing this. See my post for examples of what they could have done. Now instead they have shot themselves in the foot with many people closing accounts etc, me included.
Paul.
Fair enough point Paul, they could have.
As I said, I am an ex employee, and it would be fair to say I never agreed with all their policy decisions on lots of things...even though I am only lucky enough to be a member of the MH community because they chose to dispense with my services! I was always outspoken if I disagreed and continue to do so now as an "ordinary" member. Perhaps why I no longer work there...
I worked at NW for almost 30 years, including during the height of the carpetbagger period when most of the building societies converted, we were resisting, and have done till now. Horrible period, we were inundated with people who only wanted to open accounts in the hope of a quick killing on conversion. None were interested in what the Society stood for, it's morals and ethics. But they didn't get their way. Hence the society is a far stronger organisation than many of its former competitors. Giving services away to people who only want to take advantage won't maintain that strength. That experience also helped cement the view of both management and staff that their way was the right way forward. Maybe it was, maybe not - but it is a strong belief in most quarters, and means that anything that threatens that status is seen as a bad thing needing to be dealt with.
So on this issue I don't really feel they had much choice. The service was introduced to provide an added benefit for existing members who were already using Flexaccounts. What then happened was lots of people opening new accounts (you only needed £1) with the express purpose of taking advantage of this service, never having any intention of using the account fully. Large cost implication as I said.
If they had introduced a load of rules to prevent this, all that would have happened would be to alienate the "good" customers, and not "convert" the newcomers. They would simply have left as this thread shows would be the case. Just like the carpetbaggers - didn't get their own way, don't want to play any more. Sadly, that probably means a few of the committed, full customers have decided to leave too - but I doubt if it would be many. And I can imagine the case load in the complaints department too...more cost implications.
I would vote yes on the proviso that flex account holders adhere to the same rules in relation to travel insurance...i.e. deposit the minimum amount on a monthly basis. Not as a lot previously did, open a flex account just prior to going abroad and then expect to use the facilties of withdrawing cash at no cost. In other words, playing the system.
It was this that led to the NW abandoning the scheme IMHO.
The few ruining for the many as per usual.
Keith
Speaking as an ex Nationwide employee, a saver, and a borrower, this is exactly right. At one time, Nationwide would happily accept customers who played the system, because it was seen as an inevitable consequence of taking the standpoint of being "the consumer's friend". You may recall their major (and successful) role in a campaign a few years back over cashpoint withdrawal charges.
However, the organisation has most definitely changed over the last 3-4 years, and profitability has become the watchword. NW needs to be more profitable to support its core business of savings and mortgages, where every other company under the sun wants a piece of the action - including all the supermarkets etc. Providing "free" services doesn't wash anymore. Not that it was ever free, of course.
Like it or not, providing a card and free overseas withdrawals always cost NW a lot of money. Just because they didn't charge their customer doesn't mean that NW didn't have to pay the transaction charges levied by the overseas bank, some of which are very high and completely outside NW's control. The upshot of that being that the cost would have to be passed on somewhere else - in lower interest rates to savers, for example.
Hence the members who didn't use the free withdrawal facility were paying for those that did. Is that fair? Well maybe it is if the members using the facility were also buying other products, thus adding to the Society's overall income, but the reality was that many people were only using the account for that one service, and only putting in enough money for their expected holiday spend.
I see many comments on this thread that confirm I am right - "it's not our main account" etc. Fine, you are fully entitled to choose where you want to bank. But don't expect me to subsidise your holidays.
Yes but as i explained earlier in this thread, NW could have put rules in place to stop people doing this. See my post for examples of what they could have done. Now instead they have shot themselves in the foot with many people closing accounts etc, me included.
Paul.
Fair enough point Paul, they could have.
As I said, I am an ex employee, and it would be fair to say I never agreed with all their policy decisions on lots of things...even though I am only lucky enough to be a member of the MH community because they chose to dispense with my services! I was always outspoken if I disagreed and continue to do so now as an "ordinary" member. Perhaps why I no longer work there...
I worked at NW for almost 30 years, including during the height of the carpetbagger period when most of the building societies converted, we were resisting, and have done till now. Horrible period, we were inundated with people who only wanted to open accounts in the hope of a quick killing on conversion. None were interested in what the Society stood for, it's morals and ethics. But they didn't get their way. Hence the society is a far stronger organisation than many of its former competitors. Giving services away to people who only want to take advantage won't maintain that strength. That experience also helped cement the view of both management and staff that their way was the right way forward. Maybe it was, maybe not - but it is a strong belief in most quarters, and means that anything that threatens that status is seen as a bad thing needing to be dealt with.
So on this issue I don't really feel they had much choice. The service was introduced to provide an added benefit for existing members who were already using Flexaccounts. What then happened was lots of people opening new accounts (you only needed £1) with the express purpose of taking advantage of this service, never having any intention of using the account fully. Large cost implication as I said.
If they had introduced a load of rules to prevent this, all that would have happened would be to alienate the "good" customers, and not "convert" the newcomers. They would simply have left as this thread shows would be the case. Just like the carpetbaggers - didn't get their own way, don't want to play any more. Sadly, that probably means a few of the committed, full customers have decided to leave too - but I doubt if it would be many. And I can imagine the case load in the complaints department too...more cost implications.
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France
For "Our Mavis."
