Save Money by Switching Bank Accounts.

There I was one day, calmly logging into my on-line banking with the Halifax. What should pop up but a letter. Usually these are pretty boring information letters, but caution made me take a quick peek. I was confused. There in front of me was THE END of a twenty year relationship. OK, so it was with my bank, but it was inconvenient non the less. It was THE END of my £100.00 free overdraft. No consultation, no option, just a dictatorial, unilateral decision on the bank's part. We may all know that our hard working bankers really deserve their massive bonuses; unlike our nurses, health service portering staff, ambulance staff, teachers, firemen etc. who of course must just accept their monthly salary as prescribed. No, here were the bankers again, in my view, preserving their own interest. Literally. Customers were to pay £1.00 a day for every day they were overdrawn, even if it was a by a paltry sum such as £12.00. This would amount to around £30.00 charges if you accidentally were overdrawn a little for a whole month. Being a self-employed service provider, which by definition in a recession means someone who works their socks off, I do occasionally take the eye off the ball with my personal but not my business bank account, plus my monthly pay fluctuates which is outside of my control. My £100.00 interest free overdraft meant that I was used to relaxing about the occasional small oversight.

A quick internet search found many other irrate Halifax customers, also unhappy about the situation. Now, everyone has to earn their keep, and if I borrow money I do expect to pay for the privilege. My objection as a loyal customer was to the sudden unilateral change in the way my overdraft was calculated, which would mean that as someone who only occasionally dipped into the red only a little, I would be paying £1.00 per day, the same as another customer who, for example, was £900.00 overdrawn each day.

In disbelief I popped into a branch to check I was correct in my assumption. Sadly, the staff stated I was. The manager of one branch which shall be nameless, just said, "Good Luck," when I said I would have to bank elsewhere, which wasn't exactly great public relations. He was proabably just fed up with people moaning. The next branch I tried were much more helpful ,explaining about accounts with the Halifax. Sadly, one of these required me to pay around £12.99 monthly for the privilege (no way), the other did give me £5.00 a month for each month I paid in £1000.00 but still had the nasty £1.00 for each day of accidental overdraft and I often don't pay in £1000.00 a month anyway. Strangely, asking why the bank didn't give me £1.00 a day for each day I was in credit didn't elicit a reply.

Luckily for me, I had a rather nasty cold the following weekend. This provided a great excuse for a lazy duvet day. No one wanted to be near my sneezing, thus allowing me time, plus peace and quiet with my beloved laptop. A couple of hours later, the solution (hopefully) beckonned.

To summarise, after my internet explorations via uswitch to compare deals and having made my choice, this is the process I followed to switch.

Firstly, I disabled tracking cookies on my laptop so that I would be tracked through Quidco without previous tracking cookies overriding the Quidco tracking. For my computer this was, click on computer, control panel, internet options, browsing history, delete, delete cookies. Take advice if you are unsure. It's not always the same but if you don't delete the cookies you may not receive cashback if you have visited your new bank's site via another site prior to visiting Quidco as that site may be credited with the referral.

Next, I loggged on to Quidco. I went to Alliance and Leicester and clicked for £45.00 cashback for opening a current account.

Alliance and Leicester were offering £100.00 to be paid into new customers' bank accounts (terms and conditions applied; as I remember this was paying in over £500 each month regularly for three months before the £100.00 was to be credited) as a reward for switching. This deal is not displaying on their website today so I was just lucky. It's worth searching around for this sort of thing - try Martin's Moneytips and uswitch for starters.

I selected the Premier Current Account which gave me free European travel insurance, 0% overdraft and 6% AER (annual earnings rate) for one year (terms & conditions apply). When the year ends, this changes to 50p a day for overdrafts but, importantly for me, this is currently capped at £5.00 a month, meaning no nasty potential for £30.00 a month if life overtakes my common sense and I forget to stay on top of my account by a small sum. As a bonus, there is an Alliance and Leicester cash machine handily placed in a local shopping area with easy, free parking which provides free cash withdrawals and deposits. Internet banking means I can carry out everything else on-line.

It remains to be seen whether the cashback comes through OK. There is a note to verify the transaction on my Quidco page so it seems hopeful. I also have to fulfil the requirements for the £100.00 bonus to my account, which takes around three months. Watch this space - will update this hub later on to let you know.

Moral of the story? Keep on top of changes banks and credit card companies may make to your accounts. In my opinion, the banks rely on customer inertia. Changes may well not be to your advantage and there could well be a better deal out there.