Post office online savings account - AVOID!!!

[Matthew31]

Serious problems with my online savings account.

 

I set up a post office online savings account 5 months ago because of the 1.20% interest rate.

 

From day 1 it's been a nightmare.

 

Firstly they have 2 options for depositing money.

Direct debit or payment via a debit card.

 

 

My first deposit was via direct debit and took 6 days to clear.

My other deposits were made via debit card and they usually take 3 days to clear.

 

It wasn't long back I needed to transfer some money from my savings account back to my main bank account.

I entered my details and was met with an error..... "Transfer cannot be applied at this time".

I tried multiple times a day for a week to transfer money yet had that error every single time.

 

I looked at how to contact them and no phone number was given due to it being an "online only" account.

I used the webform to contact them and after 10 days I still heard nothing back from them.

 

In those 10 days I carried on trying to withdraw money multiple times again, yet still had that error.

 

A few days ago I phoned the number which is meant for discussing non online savings accounts.

Finally I got through to someone and explained the situation.

They told me their system is updating so theres nothing they can do and that they would put me through to someone who's system wasn't updating.

I waited for 15 mins and spoke to someone else.

I explained my situation again to them and they said exactly the same thing...

That they can't do anything as their system is also "updating".

 

I put the phone down and opened a complaint with the post office yet haven't heard anything back yet.

 

I have now done research online to find out a lot of people have that error and it's the post offices fault.

If I had seen this before, I wouldn't have bothered to open the account. I just trusted the post office.

 

A warning to all thinking of getting an online savings account with them.

The interest rate may seem good but it takes ages for money to be transferred to them,

customer service is useless and of course you can't even access your money when you want it due to th

e "Transfer cannot be applied at this time" error message.

 

Anyone else had the same experience with them?

[citizenB]

Perhaps it would be worth in the first instance, making a formal complaint, in writing, to their Head Office. If you do not receive a satisfactory response with at least the offer of some compensation for your wasted time and inconvenience, then you should escalate to the Financial Ombudsman.

 

This type of delay is unacceptable.

[Matthew31]

Thank you.

 

After I posted here, I opened a complaint via their email complaints system. Also after reading your post I put in a formal complaint in writing to their head office like you said.

 

In the meantime, I had an email back (surprisingly) saying they have logged my complaint but that department is not permitted to look into my account itself. They gave me a number.... Customer service number (pffft).

 

I badly need access to that money. I put money in there to save up while I looked for somewhere new to live. I am close to finding somewhere now so I need some of that money to pay for things relevant to the move.

 

I gave it 1 final try with customer service today (hoping that there's a slim chance it could be resolved today while my complaint is looked into). No luck again though. They told me they completely admit there is an "unknown" technical error on my account. I was told to try again in 24 hours and if it still doesn't work, phone them back once again.

 

If it hasn't worked at all on each attempt I have made across 4 weeks, I doubt it will work in 24 hours

[chrislib]

I recently got the same transfer problem and after reading these posts, I phoned their customer services with some trepidation. They were very helpful and solved my problem, which I relate here so that it may help others to identify or even avoid this problem.

 

Because I was buying a house a few year's back, I set my nominated account to that of my solicitor to transfer funds, then reset it after the successful transfer. Since then I have done this a few more times to transfer money to other building societies etc. The Post Office's system remembers all these account changes (probably for security or audit trails), but only allows a finite number before needing human intervention; i.e. asking customer services to delete/reset them. Luckily I got through to someone who understood the problem, got technical services to sort it, and then waited to make sure I could complete the transaction on-line.

 

All done within 15 minutes of phoning them, and this was at midday today.

 

I will now just keep my nominated account linked to my bank and do any other transfers via my bank.

 

This might not be your specific problem, but might give you some useful info to point customers services in the right direction if they haven't checked this.

 

If you have changed your nominated account a few times, it might be worth a call to customer services anyway to ask them to delete the old information from your account.

[Matthew31]

Thank you, this was quite an old post. In the end it was an error by them. They claimed their systems could not verify my nominated account.

 

They compensated me and I was happy with the result. Even though many people have the same problem (2 family members who also had an e-saver), which in cases like that is down to a fault in the post offices systems.

 

Hopefully since they have upgraded their systems so this sort of thing doesnt happen to others

[chrislib]

Thanks for replying Matthew31, glad you got it sorted. I guess we can put this to bed now. (with our savings safely under our pillow).

Regards

[Matthew31]

The useless as ever post office are not being helpful. Still trying to get my late mothers funds from them.

 

I need to know the address where I send all ID, documents and medical records?

 

They won't tell me (literally). I sent a webform message asking if they could give me the address to send the documents to, I ticked email to be how they respond to me. Instead they phoned me while I was on a busy train and when I asked if they could send me the address via email, they guy said "unfortunately we can't do that". He asked if I had a pen and paper, which I didn't. So he told me I could just look online and find them.

 

The problem is, I see 2 addresses. I know when I had my post office savings account, the address to correspond with was

 

Post Office Savings, PO Box 520, Welwyn Garden City, Al7 9JE

 

However on the FAQ part of the post office website it says:

 

"Write to us at Post Office Money Savings, PO Box 87, Armagh, BT61 0BN"

 

So which 1 is it? Is Welwyn garden city the old address?

 

 

Thanks

[maroondevo52]

Hi,

 

More than likely you'd be better giving them a phone for the best address to use.

 

Sorry, just re-read your post and you've already tried that.

Can't see whey they have a problem giving you the address, I'd phone them again. you might get someone who has a clue.

[Matthew31]

Thanks, yeah I thought about doing that but don't get good signal here. Just tried though and after 2 cutoffs with signal problems, I finally got through to someone who confirmed it is the Armagh address.

[maroondevo52]

Just tried though and after 2 cutoffs with signal problems, I finally got through to someone who confirmed it is the Armagh address.

 

Good stuff, hopefully you will get things sorted shortly.