Heads up. Santander 123 fee increase: £2>£5 a month

With the Halifax and 1st direct offers, do you have to use the automated account switching service and close the old current account?

Or can you just set up an account with them (online or by phone) and manually change D/D's etc to meet the criteria
 
Jez said:
Not the case according to the literature, i was hoping that select might be different too.
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Just checked with them again - it's @ the account managers discretion whether they waive fees, which they are doing for us (in fact, I've never paid the £2 either).
 
Pawnless Endgame said:
The rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer.jpg

I have a Santander account but not 123. The £500 per month income is no problem because I take home about £950/month, but the t&c's state that you need to maintain £1000+ balance for interest. When I only ever see about £450 of that £950 (because of mortgage/bills), then fat chance of hitting remotely a 4-figure balance!

santpound1000_zps8x51wpzj.png
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Under a 2k balance there are better accounts to have anyways (some are 5%). You only get 3% on balances over 3k
 
I was annoyed when I received the letter about the fee increase, but after re-checking the cashback calculator I found I still get more in return, so will be sticking with the account for now. I have a mortgage with them, which bumps up the cashback.
 
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Freakbro said:
With the Halifax and 1st direct offers, do you have to use the automated account switching service and close the old current account?

Or can you just set up an account with them (online or by phone) and manually change D/D's etc to meet the criteria
Click to expand...

Usually have to switch and close the old account to receive the switching offers.
 
I moved to this not so long ago and closed my ISA to put my money in there because even with the interest taking off it worked off better than most ISAs it seemed. I don't think this will affect me to much, I actually don't make much on the cashback anyway as I have no utilities coming out from my account.
 
amigafan2003 said:
Just checked with them again - it's @ the account managers discretion whether they waive fees, which they are doing for us (in fact, I've never paid the £2 either).
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I just called Santander Select...i pressed the issue. They were adamant that the fee is corporate policy and they have no discretion to change it regardless of customer status or holdings with the bank (i pressed that i have significant products with them).

I believe them, i am fairly good at being persuasive and this wasn't one of those blaggy situations as you get with something like an internet provider....
 
Internet forum poster in one-upmanship BS shocker. I'm sure the story will change yet again now.

I called too and they won't waive it for me. I have a mortgage, credit card and two accounts with them.
 
Martin Lewis' review basically contains all the essentials, if you've over a certain amount of cash in the account it's still the market leader. I'm over the £8000-ish threshold so i'm keeping hold of it. The only way you're going to trump the rates with the amount of cash concerned is via peer-to-peer lending accounts, although technically they aren't true savings accounts in the traditional sense. Luckily my Funding circle account is netting me 8.1% average at the moment. I've got significantly less in that at the mo but i'm still coming out with the same cash return per month simply because of the higher rates.

The new peer to peer ISA that is coming round the corner could potentially be mega. Looking forward to it.
 
Meh, I'll just add another £3 to the money laundering looking multiple transactions flying around my 3 Santander accounts each month and continue to use them as savings accounts.

Unless there's someone else out there offering 2.5% interest?
 
Hxc said:
I'm peeved at this but even more peeved that due to bloody independence rules I have to switch anyway. When you work in big4 audit with all of the banks it makes it very frustrating to actually have decent accounts!!
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Have you checked with your firm's independence team? Because the actual rules wouldn't prevent you having a commercially available current account with an audit client, especially when you are a graduate trainee.
 
and now the interest rate is dropping to 1.5%....:(

Brilliant.

That is us a over £500 worse off over the year.
 
This is the 1st thing I thought of when the BoE announced the cut to interest a few weeks ago. Going to plow a large chunk of it into paying off mortgage now there's no point saving anything.
 
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