Principality Building Society レビュー 248

Fast response with great customer service. My husband Mr Saqib is still waiting to hear back in relation to his mortgage offer. But I do have to say Principality have responded quite quickly with requests of further documents. Fast, efficient and prompt and excellent customer service. Fingers crossed

I like Principality. They answer quickly, talk me throo my online accounts in a warm plain english patient way. Their rates are competitive. They are also a building society so less likely to be investing in the worlds abusive practices!

I have been waiting 5 weeks for my ISA to be transferred from Principality. Now they are saying that they've received no documentation. This is utter rubbish , I was copied in when the form was sent out by Aldermore. The amount of interest that I'm going to lose out on is not inconsiderable. Aldermore have told me that this is happening to a number of customers.
Update
Finally transferred after nearly 7 weeks! They insist on doing everything by post and then claim not to have received anything sent. Phones were off for the entirety of a bank holiday weekend so that the staff could have a well earned rest. Took 5 days to reply to a secure message and the reply just said "thanks for your message". Didn't bother to address any of the issues raised. Goodbye and good riddance. Lesson learnt (the hard way).

Five star customer service. I had a query about transferring my existing ISA with Principality into their new ISA with higher interest rates. I spoke to someone called Stephanie W and she was incredibly helpful and efficient. This is the best service I have had from any customer services with a bank or building society. Thank you so much.

PRINCIPALLITY BUILDING SOCIETY LOVELY STAFF ALWAYS WILLING TO HELP YOU WOULD RECOMEND PRINCIPALLITY TO ANY BODY ANDREW RAMSAY FROM BOLTON

I was able to open my ISA account, fund it and use online banking, it has worked so far -I give it Top marks. a phone app would be a useful addition

Unplanned Website Maintenance:

I was thrown out of the Principality Building Society website early this morning with zero warning whilst I was in the middle of a financial transaction. The website message indicated that I should try again but I was unable to log on and kept getting the same message. I left it until 3.00pm and tried to log in. This time the message had changed to Website Maintenance with no indication of when the problem would be fixed.

I'm giving one star for the very poor communication and for the length of the disruption to service.

Applied to open an ISA account online. All went well initially but had to wait for an activation code. Received that and logged in only to be told I have no accounts so to apply for one.
Applied again, went through the login and got back to the same page saying I have no account.
Phoned the number given and asked to enter 1 or 2 for mortgages or savings. Entered 2 and was asked again. Entered 2 and was asked again and on and on.
Found a different number and spoke to very helpful assistant who asked me to apply online again while she waited. Came back to the same page again saying I have no account at which point she concluded that they have a fault!
She offered to try to resolve it for me but, having left it late ( my fault I know ) it can't be done now to allow deposit within the current tax year. And it's too late to find an alternative provider where I will have to go through the whole rigmarole again.
I'm not the most confident with moving cash around at the best of times and, as I explained to the assistant. this doesn not inspire confidence in Principality BS. I shall not be investing with them now or in the future.

Omnishambles - Put my money into an isa with them some years ago. Been trying to get it out for several years as of course they reduced the rate of interest and it is now vv low. Every time I try something doesn’t work so you have to wait until you have a few hours to spare to start all over again to figure it out. I registered AGAIN a few days ago but I couldnt just do it online …. They sent me an email acknowledgement that I had registered but For security they had to post me an activation code before i can access the account. Delay again!!! Now the activation code arrives so I try to log on but I’ve been locked outbecause it doesn’t recognise my email address. But they sent me an email to confirm registration so it must be correct.

30/3/24 Thanks Julie for your reply today - Wd be good if you could speak to customers when your customers are off work - like today. I did receive a very unsatisfactory email reply from your colleague Saskia Benyon advising that she thought the complaint shd be closed. Below is my response to her. Maybe you or Ms Benyon shd contact me on Tuesday. I’m sure Ms Benyon will recognise the email below.
Dear Ms Beynon

I am in receipt of your email however it is clearly erroneous.

For the avoidance of doubt - No I do not accept that you should close the complaint. You have clearly not listened to my complaint.

I notice that you record your calls.

I was very clear in my complaint and I’m surprised that you dont understand.

The problems seem to stem from Your faulty computer system

For example:
Your computer system told you that I had opened my account in the bank at Queen St, Cardiff. I have never been to Cardiff

It told me yesterday that it did not recognise my email

Your telephone system cut us off in the middle of the call and when you tried to call me on my mobile It told you that my phone number was invalid while sending me a text which I received.. All at exactly the same time. I know you tried your best as you called me on my landline. Clearly your computer system was faulty - you were trying your best yet it told you that my mobile was invalid at the same time as it was sending me a text which I successfully received.

I have not been able to access my bank account because of your faulty computer system.

I suggest you re listen to the conversation and you can hear my full complaint in detail.

Kind regard

2/4/24. Hi Julie, No response today to my email but a letter in the post thanking me for informing you of my change of address. THIS IS NOW ALARMING. I have not moved. I have not informed you of any change of address.
Meanwhile I still cannot access my account.

My partner and I went into branch to set up our ISAs and savings accounts. We found the bank very welcoming and friendly. We dealt with Simon who was very patient and talked to us about all of our options. He was not clock watching and made us both feel very comfortable. We just thought he was fab! We normally bank with Barclays but after our visit with Simon we have never been treated this way in our normal bank. Thank you very much Simon

What a total shambolic bunch of cowboys Principality have been for me over the past 15 months or so. My local branch has been closed so many times when it was supposed to be open and when i mention it to them the next time i visit they just don't seem to care about the inconvenience they cause as long as the estate agency side of their business is OK ..... Also, on another recent visit when i was lucky enough to find them open they were totally confused by how to close and give me a cheque on a simple small regular savings bond which had matured. They spent an hour on the phone to another branch asking for help whilst i had to stand at the counter repeating 10 or 20 times what i wanted and even then they could not do it and i had to return again the next day for 20 minutes to complete it .... Also, later when i checked the interest paid on a large ISA account i found the interest was short !! Upon further investigation i found that Principality had closed my account soon after i had opened it 15 months earlier without consulting with me and had fraudulently filled in another unsigned form in my name for a different lower interest account. When i complained they refused to compensate me for this latest cock up and said they were instead giving me a huge financial advantage as compensation by allowing me to remove my savings without penalty from a contract they had already trashed and closed over a year earlier when i first opened it ..... Its frightening to think these cowboys are allowed to handle large amounts of the publics money ..... To be fair the tiny number of personnel if you are lucky enough to find them open and there are nice enough but their priority seems to be totally focused on running the estate agency regardless of the inconvenience or quality of service to Principality customers, not that you ever actually see any other Principality customers there ...... and it seems to me that Principality is trying to run the place on a shoe string when there are so many other better resourced professional banks and building societies in Oswestry, Its a sort of " Mr Bean does banking " UPDATE 5/3/24 ... Well despite their " we are investigating " response to this review .... as expected i heard nothing more from them !!! UPDATE 22/7/2024 .... Well ive now removed the last of my savings from this cowboy operation despite attempts by the counter staff lady looking for any excuse to try and stop me ...... So its back to The West Brom for me !!

I sent up an account with no problems. Everything went smoothly. So far so good.

They sent me an interest statement saying I'd earned no interest in a tax year. I messaged them saying that didn't sound right as I had closed accounts with them and could they check. They then told me that all my interest was a certain amount and set out the account info. I noticed one account wasn't listed so asked about it. They then told me it had some further interest! Are they TRYING to get their customers in trouble with HMRC?! This is seriously worrying.

Be careful if you take out a mortgage with Principality, when it comes time to renew the product, the will not offer you a competitive interest rate. You will be left facing the choice of either going through the stress and high initial cost of re-mortgaging or taking the hit longer term with higher interest rates.

Principality offer mortgage products to new customers at half a percentage less than existing customers! I felt I had no choice but to take the hit on the higher interest rate product because I did not want my mortgage to fall into the variable interest rate following the initial term expiring (since it would have resulted in a 60% hike on my monthly payments).

I believe that Principality may be in violation of FCA guidelines because they are supposed to offer fair and reasonable products to their consumers, which I would argue they are not.

Worst still, when I tried to raise a complaint they ignored more for 2 weeks. Only when I contacted them via social media did they actually bother to call me back.

The result of my complaint is still pending but based on my experience so far, I have no faith in getting a satisfactory resolution. Assuming that I do not get a positive outcome, I will be escalating my complaint to the FCA so they can investigate further.

DO NOT USE! Opened an ISA a year ago, with £20000 with 4.5% interest, and today, after 1 year, I have only received interest totalling 0.6%. Customer service didnt even answer the question I had and they take ages getting back to you. I want to receive my interest and transfer the ISA to another provider but I have no idea how to do this and they are no help. For your own sanity, avoid this bank like the plague. There are FAR better ISA providers, most of which offer easy to use services such as Apps which make the process seamless.

I transferred my mature ISA from Principality to Metro. On 11.12.23 I received a letter from Principality stating the transfer had been done and they closed my account. On 2.1.24, the funds have not arrived in my Metro ISA account. I called Principality and I am told they don't do online transfers and the cheque they sent in the post to Metro Bank does not appear to have arrived. WHERE IS MY MONEY. I am contacting the Financial Conduct Authority.

This is one of the worst organisations for customer service I have encountered.Phones not answered and when I eventually spoke to an advisor I was transferred back into a never ending queue.The one star is generous and an organisation best avoided if you are a potential customer.

The only building society where I can't retrieve interest received on closed accounts for my tax return.

All other building societies keep closed account records that are easily accessbile online.

Poor.

I cannot praise Principality Building Society highly enough as a result of my recent experience on the maturity of my Regular Saver. I received a letter setting out my options upon maturity about 2 weeks beforehand. I then contacted them requesting that they open a new one for me and that the funds were transferred to my Santander account on maturity. They even offered to deduct the first payment from the maturity funds and transfer the remaining balance, and I've kept the same account number for the new Regular Saver. This meant that I didn't have to do anything and the funds were in my Santander account by close of business - all on the same day. What wonderful service! This is gold standard service and should be the norm for all financial institutions offering a Regular Saver product. I am writing this review to thank Principality BS for doing this, especially as I have had the opposite experience with First Direct on the maturity of my Regular Saver on December 13th - no letter received to set out my options, they won't free up my maturity funds until their processes go through which will be up to December 20th, and they won't open a new Regular Saver until the matured one is deemed closed. So they get to sit on my money for another week - I am furious and disgusted and will be taking this up with the Financial Ombudsman. If Principality can do it why can't First Direct and Nationwide for that matter, as I had the same experience with them earlier this year??? So thanks so much Principality Building Society - you are a credit to the financial sector on this issue!

Shockingly backwards organisation. They're unable to do electronic transfers meaning customers have to complete paper forms and put them in the post; and they also only communicate with other banks by post. So expect extremely slow service and a loss of interest to your money.

I discovered that there's no facility in their online banking to view or download statements or transactions for my fixed term account. My savings interest is paid out to another bank. However, there's absolutely no record when logging onto Principality's banking site to view the date and amount of interest accrued/paid out. All that can be viewed is the date/amount paid in on initially opening the account. I have to log into my other provider's account to check this information. Ridiculous!

It doesn't matter who you contact to try to resolve problems at Principality, they're all as bad as each other; from call handlers, to complaints handlers, to so-called managers, to Principality's "Online Poor Review Handler" (which is no doubt a full-time job).

Don't be fooled by the replies from Principality to reviews saying things like "please call us so we can support you". You'll only waste your time getting absolutely nowhere by the end of the back and forth process. They only add their replies to customers' reviews to try to look like they're interested and care, but it's all for the benefit of others who haven't had the misfortune of falling victim to them.