Packaged Account Fees

[leclerc]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

I see that they now have to pay for the account. Well, staff that worked with me said "we would never have the account if we had to pay for it !!"

[Ruby]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

In my case its worth me having a packaged account with LTSB. Its like another insurance policy in parts. You hope you never need it, but just in case you do. As I said before it is a choice that customers are given and can always say no thank you. They are also sent a welcome pack which very clearly sets out the benefits. If people don't bother to read the welcome pack and are not aware of the benefits that they have ................ what can I say?

[leclerc]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

In my case its worth me having a packaged account with LTSB. Its like another insurance policy in parts. You hope you never need it, but just in case you do. As I said before it is a choice that customers are given and can always say no thank you. They are also sent a welcome pack which very clearly sets out the benefits. If people don't bother to read the welcome pack and are not aware of the benefits that they have ................ what can I say?

Ok, I need to state from the off that I am 100% anti packaged accounts and it's probably because I have seen SOOOOOO many missold accounts in my time. People who have had two packaged accounts on their joint account and sole accounts, people who have been asked to sing this for information and were upgraded. Stories of a manager who asked that accounts be upgraded and that the phone call be made the following day because at that time there was no, clawback. Ones in which people have been told that if they downgraded that the preferential loan rate that they had for their loan would have to be renogiated(that was a blatanat lie btw). Packaged accounts where clearly the benefits of the product were either poorly explained or never explained. I worked in a branch where we told overseas students that the only account we offered them was one where there was a monthly fee. We exploited them. Accounts upgraded when someone was away abroad for a period of time, dormant accounts upgraded(a lot of these were before clawback).
For me personally, I cannot afford to travel so travel insurance perks are worthless. I have a car but I pay £36.00 to the AA for basic roadside assistance because I make sure every year to make sure that they will price match their online price or I will take my business elsewhere. The mobile phone insurance is useless as I have a thickie phone and not a smart phone . As for the ID protection, well, you have to be a thickie to have to need it(purely my own opinion on that one). A packaged account for me makes no economic sense and these days banks market accounts that will benefit them and them alone. The only loss making account that the bank will offer is a student account but that is on the basis that in the long term, they will make money from them from mortgages, loans, packaged accounts and the use of the overdraft(another thing I do not use either since LTSB charge you £5 for using your agreed overdraft excluding the package account fee).

It may be horses for courses but the banks did not have a requirement to make sure that the account was suitable until just 3 days ago. For me packaged account misselling will be rife and the banks will attempt to get out of repaying what they owe on the basis that you might have benefitted from one single benefit. That's misselling an account.

[FlySi]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Basic benefits that Lloyds offered on their 'packaged' accounts were:

AA/Rac breakdown cover
mobile phone insurance
sentinel card protection
travel insurance

Their Platinum/Premier Accounts offer:-

Top grade AA breakdown cover
Full family travel insurance
Insuring family mobile phones (as long as they lived in the same house as you).

Yes, staff were paid commission to upgrade accounts however there was a lot of strict protocol too.

Hope this helps. I cannot see how this would fall under the 'mis selling umbrella' like PPI, but that is just my opinion.

As I explained in my post a little earlier (see here) IF the account benefits included a) AA Breakdown Cover and b) Mobile Phone Insurance it is clearly a case of mis-selling. I did not have a driver's licence (ergo, no car, no need for breakdown cover) and I did not have a mobile phone. Certainly I was being charged £4 per month in September 2001 for an account that presumably included these 'benefits'.

Re. travel insurance - given I was as student at the time I know that I bought travel insurance through the student union at the time for relatively little.

[leclerc]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

As I explained in my post a little earlier (see here) IF the account benefits included a) AA Breakdown Cover and b) Mobile Phone Insurance it is clearly a case of mis-selling. I did not have a driver's licence (ergo, no car, no need for breakdown cover) and I did not have a mobile phone. Certainly I was being charged £4 per month in September 2001 for an account that presumably included these 'benefits'.

Re. travel insurance - given I was as student at the time I know that I bought travel insurance through the student union at the time for relatively little.

That is interesting as I thought packaged account came out in April 2007.....time to dig up some more stuff

[FlySi]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

That is interesting as I thought packaged account came out in April 2007.....time to dig up some more stuff

Have a read of this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010...urrent-account
Third paragraph from the bottom refers to Lloyds starting to sell packaged accounts in 1997

[leclerc]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Have a read of this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010...urrent-account
Third paragraph from the bottom refers to Lloyds starting to sell packaged accounts in 1997

That's a very good find so clearly it is 1997. I know other banks would have been similar because if one bank does it then they all follow suit .

[leclerc]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...o-1183206.html

Article from 1998 which talks about accounts with extras and only mentions barclays accounts

[FlySi]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Another article from the Telegraph regarding the introduction of Platinum account at Lloyds

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/p...-platinum.html

Dated March 2001

[FlySi]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Although I came here asking for help I'm able to offer just as much in return! If you have the time, patience and inclination you might want to try the Wayback Machine: Internet Archive. It has a cache of websites dating back to the birth of world wide web. I've just had a look at the Lloyds TSB website from 2000 and it makes for interesting reading. On 18th October 2000:

• The Classic account was free
• The Select account was £4 a month and included a Home Shopping Service, commission-free traveller's cheques, Green Flag Roadside Assistance and £500 off a new car
• The Gold account included much the same, including travel insurance, medical insurance when travelling (which any self-respecting travel insurance would include anyway)

Hope this site offers some help to everybody...! The address is http://web.archive.org/

[Ruby]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

If you had no need for the product then you should not have been sold it. Clear and simple.

Sorry to be blunt but this goes far beyond selling packaged accounts.

[FlySi]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

If you had no need for the product then you should not have been sold it. Clear and simple.

As I recall Lloyds offered an account to people between the ages of 12 and 18 at that time. When I turned 18 the account was upgraded automatically. This would date it to 1998 (a year after Lloyds introduced packaged accounts). Therefore the idea of whether or not I should have been offered it in the first place is moot: it was done automatically and therefore played no part in the decision.

Sorry to be blunt but this goes far beyond selling packaged accounts.

I'm curious - what do you mean by this statement?

[Ruby]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Examples of what I mean are:- Mis selling of PPI, mis selling of mortgage products, I can go on and on and on .......

I do agree with you that you should not have been automatically upgraded to a fee paying account. I do think that practice has changed now. Much the same as you don't automatically get credit increases on your credit card these days unless you ask. There is no doubt the financial industry has become more cautious these days. They have been bitten with all the fines they have received for mis selling products. I am also fairly certain that the era of banks being fined is not over yet either.

[leclerc]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

If you had no need for the product then you should not have been sold it. Clear and simple.

Sorry to be blunt but this goes far beyond selling packaged accounts.

I totally agree with you but they were sold on the basis that one single benefit meant that the package was worth it. It was in terms of branch performance and in terms of personal performance of the seller.

[Ruby]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

It depends, if the one single benefit would cost you less by upgrading your account.

Eg. If you were paying £110 for AA breakdown cover but with upgrading your account it only cost £5 per month costing only £60 a year. Saving £50.

One size does not fit all. May I reiterate that these accounts do have real benefits for some BUT not for others.

It is important for us to make adult and educated decisions about our finances and not get fooled into sales talk. As a parent I am training my children in financial matters as I don't believe the schools go far enough in preparing them for the 'real' world. What I am teaching them is from my own personal experience and I have had my fair share of knocks!