gdcollectables

Forget Banks!

Try Credit Unions!

I'm with Savings & Loans Credit Union, no fees as long as there's $1,000 in your account on the 30th of the month! I have a direct debit card (EFTPOS/ VISA type) like Switch in the UK - where the purchase is deducted straight from your account and can be used for phone/inernet purchases.

gd

Flying Banana

Some rebranding required for the big four methinks

bondipom

I had a Wastepac basic account left over from the working holiday. Westpac are no longer offering these for free so I closed it. Just a warning to those who may still have a Westpac basic account.

gdcollectables

LMAO!!!

gd

Wol

I've been with them for 16 years (actually, I have at last managed to sever all relations!).

I have a sheaf of correspondence/statements almost an inch thick; after trying to get sense out of them for years we eventually got shot of them Best thing we ever did

HSBC doesn't have any fees, unless you have a lot more activity than the average private account does.

logan

hee hee flying banana!!

Amazulu

If you are paying fees on a current account in the UK then you only have yourself to blame. There are plenty (most) of accounts that do not charge fees.

Astro

16 years to sever all relations? ....They can't have been that bad then. You people here will say anything to try and prove a point.

Vash the Stampede

Australian banks are the biggest rip-off merchants this side of hell. No two ways about it. UK banks are positively charitable by comparison; they don't even charge for cheques! :scared:

OTOH, as an Aussie I have found it impossible to get a UK bank account; they kept knocking me back without providing an explanation. I once asked a member of staff in HSBC how foreign nationals obtain bank accounts, only to be told "They don't." Absolute nonsense of course, but she wouldn't change her tune. Thanks for nothing, HSBC.

Eventually I found West Bromwich Building Society - which was happy to provide me with an account, but whose banking practices are locked in the Middle Ages. Access to my money is limited to a bank book and nothing else. No Internet banking, no debit card, no cheques; in short, nothing which even remotely resembles a 21st century finance institution.

On the plus side, they are open on weekends, the interest rate is excellent, there are no fees, and the service is always friendly and helpful. But the bank book system is immensely frustrating, and means that I have to walk around with great lumps of cash in my wallet.

Back home I belonged to StateWest Credit Society, which provided Internet banking, a debit card and an overdraft. If West Brom offered at least two of these services, I'd be delighted.

Wol

"Aussie born & Bred", eh?......

I took out a St G a/c in 1989 when working in Oz, then it was effectively dormant for some 14 years. The fact that the statements were erratic and uninterpretable didn't matter that much. However, when resurrecting it a couple of years ago it was hell - visits to different branches, ... well it's of no interest to anyone else.

Suffice it to say, nearly everyone I met in the interminable queues said the same thing.

It took almost a year to get out since we had term deposit accounts. I won't bore you with the details!

Astro

<Sigh> Seems like quite a story

Anyway back to reality... my 20 years regular use of my St George account, with great service and no issues, is enough for me.

I guess we should all close up our SG accounts, because some pom has a "so called" bad experience and decides to post it up on an Internet Forum?!

Hunterau

I had a pretty similar experience as Vash when I first arrived in the UK. I set up an account with Lloyds fairly easily but they wouldn't give me a debit card etc. All I had to do to set up the account was get my work to send me a reference letter but they would only give me a cashpoint card and I could only use it at Lloyds cashpoints (boo!) The people at Lloyds told me that you have to be resident in the UK for at least a year to set up a full account because of recent anti-terror legislation.....

That being said at least I didn't have to pay transaction fees and monthly charges just for the privelege of being a customer.

Australian banks have ONE redeeming feature and that is that if you have newly emigrated here (within the last 1-2 months) you don't need to pass a 100 point check. All you need to open an account is a passport.

sassie

This reminds me of what happened a couple of years ago. I came home to OZ for a few weeks from the UK. When I left the previous time, I had about $200 in a Westpac account. A couple of years later, having arrived at Melbourne Airport, the account not having been used, I try to use an ATM, only to discover I had a "nil" balance. Luckily, I had a few dollars on me to get me by. I went in to my local branch to close the account the next day, and ended up having to pay them money, not only for the monthly fees that had accrued, but also for the pleasure of closing the account. I'm now with HSBC and no regrets so far.

KatieStar

[QUOTE=logan]Yeh most banks do charge for...well everything...everytime you do it, but we've found the ANZ to be the best. We started off with an account where we pay $5.00 per month (compared to all the other banks' charges, what's 5 bucks?) and have unlimited EFTPOS and ATM usage (as long as it's an ANZ ATM, of which there are many.

Hi Logan - we have the same deal but with the Westpac. It is good for us as we make loads of transactions.

Katie