Packaged bank accounts – Are you satisfied?

I opened my bank account when I was just a girl of seven. It was the jeans scheme of the original TSB bank, and I was so proud of the little denim bank book, although I sometimes wished I had joined the NatWest instead and got those piggies. Over the years I stayed with the same bank, until TSB and Lloyds Bank merged, and then un-merged in a Farage style manner. The accounts have changed over the years, but one thing has stayed the same, I don’t pay for my bank account. But many people do.

The packaged bank account has become a trend in recent years. This is a paid for bank account that offers the account holder certain advantages and incentives for paying for their account. For a fixed monthly sum (which tends to be somewhere between £6-£25 ) the account offers incentives like free travel insurance, mobile phone insurance, breakdown cover and many other things. The M&S bank even offers shopping vouchers and offers. It sounds brilliant – a definite bargain. But is it?

Well, the old saying goes that if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. Packaged bank accounts are currently rising fast in terms of complaints made about them. Some people are unhappy that they were signed into an account they didn’t realise they had to pay for (my brother is one of these people), whilst other people are complaining that the ‘fantastic’ extras proved to be anything but, with exclusions and small print making them not worth the paper they were written on.

Examples of this include breakdown cover that was limited to a person rather than the car, meaning additional coverage had to be sought. There were also policies which did not include home start – a major part of a breakdown package.  The travel insurance sounds brilliant if you are a seasoned traveler, but not all policies covered those of pensionable age, or with certain illnesses. This has meant that people have been paying for added extras that were actually no use to them whatsoever, and would have clearly been just as well served with a free bank account.

If any of the above sounds familiar, or if you are tied into a package that you feel is not relevant to you, or just isn’t delivering all it promised, you may actually be entitled to compensation. There are companies that can help you to look into your case and sort your paperwork. If you feel you are entitled to make a packaged bank account claim then an expert and professional company such as Quantum refunds have a dedicated and professional team on hand to help, they have been specialising in the processing of Financial Claims since 2005 and has dealt with over 30,000 successful claims.  If you would like some further information, check out the mis-sold bank accounts information page here.

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