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Dormant Accounts

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mc2fool
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Dormant Accounts

#395476

Postby mc2fool » March 14th, 2021, 3:26 pm

Having used a bank or building society, e.g. 'cos they had a good rate of interest on a savings account, etc, once they are no longer attractive and I move my money elsewhere, I try, if possible, to keep the (or at least, an) account open with the bank or building society with a nominal amount in it, usually £1.

I do this 'cos sometimes the account may become attractive again, and then I can easily shuffle money back into it, or sometimes the bank or building society will offer some other account that is attractive and it's usually a lot less faff to open another account at a bank or building society where you already have one than it is if you don't.

I have a number of these in-abeyance accounts and I tend to log into them every few months just to check that nothing untoward has happened (and occasionally to note the 1p of interest that's been added, although not much of that recently!).

I did that yesterday with such an account with Saga (BM) only for the website to tell me that my account was "unavailable" and give me a phone number to call "to re-instate your account". Yawn, ok, so I call and am told that if there's no activity in the account for three years (logging in doesn't count) then it becomes dormant.

Ok, fair enough I guess ... but I can't re-instate it over the phone, instead they'll send me a dormant account form to fill in and return. The form should be with me in "5-10 working days", and who knows how long it'll take on top of that to re-instate the account after I've returned it. :shock:

Well, as there's only £1.02 in the account and I wasn't figuring on using the a/c for the foreseeable future anyway, it's not exactly a big deal.

However it has encouraged me to "tickle" all of my other in-abeyance accounts (most often by transferring 1p to the associated nominated account!), and this is just a heads up to others who may has such potentially dormant accounts that they may want to do the same ... :D

kempiejon
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Re: Dormant Accounts

#395478

Postby kempiejon » March 14th, 2021, 3:44 pm

mc2fool,

I do a similar thing and have a handful of accounts with trivial amounts but I've usually got a text, mail or even letter telling me my account will become dormant without activity. I think I may have been in your position to have to go through a process to reactivate and whilst on the phone chose the option to just close it and post me a cheque.
A handy reminder.

mc2fool
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Re: Dormant Accounts

#395481

Postby mc2fool » March 14th, 2021, 3:55 pm

kempiejon wrote:I do a similar thing and have a handful of accounts with trivial amounts but I've usually got a text, mail or even letter telling me my account will become dormant without activity. I think I may have been in your position to have to go through a process to reactivate and whilst on the phone chose the option to just close it and post me a cheque.

No notification in my case, and as it happens I wanted to close the Saga account (which is a Birmingham Midshires one, as I have another BM account, and I also have a Marcus account, and Goldman Sachs is who new(er) Saga accounts are now with). However, it seems I can't close it until they send me the dormant account form and I return it and the a/c is reactivated. :(

richlist
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Re: Dormant Accounts

#395559

Postby richlist » March 14th, 2021, 8:57 pm

Tell them you want the account closed, they already have your details and it's not your fault they have decided to make the account dormant. Tell them to stop being so childish, to get on with it and forward you a cheque for the closing balance.

Stompa
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Re: Dormant Accounts

#395581

Postby Stompa » March 14th, 2021, 10:35 pm

I had the same issue a few years ago, three accounts BM, AA & Saga (all run by BM) became dormant. None of them notified me that this was going to happen, which was rather annoying. I think I did eventually fill in the relevant forms to get them unlocked, but given that I only had about £1 in each it was not really worth the effort.

didds
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Re: Dormant Accounts

#395629

Postby didds » March 15th, 2021, 7:49 am

Stompa wrote:I had the same issue a few years ago, three accounts BM, AA & Saga (all run by BM) became dormant. None of them notified me that this was going to happen, which was rather annoying. I think I did eventually fill in the relevant forms to get them unlocked, but given that I only had about £1 in each it was not really worth the effort.



especially if you then have to post the form back with at least a 65p stamp on it!


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