The big names that make me want to weep

MOST weeks, I sit at my desk in the good offices of The Mail on Sunday and gently weep about the personal finance world I love so passionately.

Last week, I (not my guitar as The Beatles would have it) gently wept on three occasions as leading money brands rode roughshod over their customers.

Why do they do this, I mused as I wiped a tear from my cheek? Will they ever learn? No wonder the world I love remains so reputationally smeared.

To National Savings & Investments first of all, the savings bank backed by Her Majesty’s Treasury and so offering customers the ultimate in capital security.

No worries for National Savings savers about keeping their balances within the ever-shifting safety net limits dictated by bureaucrats in Europe – £85,000 now, but £75,000 from the beginning of next year. Their savings are Government protected – a pretty rock-solid guarantee provided Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t end up at Number 10 (perish the thought) and bring the country to its knees.

While all the current buzz in the City centres around when the Bank of England will sanction a rise in interest rates, National Savings has decided to chip away at the interest rate it pays many savers.

Bizarre? Yes, especially in light of the fact that many banks and building societies have been gently tickling up savings rates in recent months in anticipation of a hike in base rate.

Unfair? Too right it is. ‘Extremely disappointing,’ was the verdict of an irate Anna Bowes, director of rate scrutineer Savings Champion, who spends her working life valiantly trying to get savers a better deal.

From November 16, Direct Isa savers with National Savings, some 400,000 strong, will see the interest they receive shaved by 0.25 percentage points – from 1.5 per cent to 1.25 per cent. This follows a similar cut in February this year when the rate stood at 1.75 per cent.

The move has been made, says National Savings, because of its requirement to ‘strike a balance between the needs of savers, taxpayers and the stability of the broader financial services sector’.

What it really means is that the Government thinks it is paying too much interest on its borrowings, so savers should be thrown to the wolves. Although Direct Isa savers do not have to take action straightaway – and some may wish to stick rather than twist given the security National Savings provides – those seeking a transfer to another Isa provider have plenty of choice.

According to Bowes, the Post Office and Virgin Money are both paying 1.51 per cent on easy access Isas. ‘Savers don’t need to stand for this treatment by National Savings,’ she adds. ‘When every penny counts, it pays to move.’

Wise advice. Move and be done with National Savings.

Santander Bank was also a trigger for tears last week as it announced a hike in the fees it charges customers who bank via its popular 123 account.

As my colleague Laura Shannon reports on the previous page, monthly charges will jump in January from £2 to £5. The cost of having a 123 credit card will also rise. The Spanish bank, once ravaged by administrative incompetence, has made great hay from the 123 account in recent years, using sporting icons Rory McIlroy, Jenson Button and Jessica Ennis-Hill to promote it.

Nearly four million people have fallen for 123, helped by new rules that make switching bank accounts less stressful than it used to be. In hiking up charges, it has committed the same sin that its bigger rivals have been committing for years – namely luring in as many new customers as possible with an eye-catching offer, only to slash it back at a later date. It’s called predatory pricing and it gives personal finance a bad name.

If I were a Santander 123 account holder, I would be turning the tables on the bank by using the new user-friendly switching rules to move away.

Scottish-Power is the third firm that had me frantically searching for my spotted handkerchief. Last year, this energy giant promised to my face it would tackle head on its administrative problems, that had resulted in people receiving incorrect bills, credit balances not being refunded when they switched to another supplier, and direct debits suddenly being increased.

Yet its left hand still doesn’t know what its right is doing. The latest research from Which? indicates that across 100 big household brands, Scottish Power is ranked bottom for customer service. I wouldn’t go anywhere near this company for fear of what it would do to my bill. It should be rebranded Scottish-Powerless.

I wish to weep no more.

They lure us in with offers – and then slash them back. It gives personal finance a bad name