Cahoot Current Account

To make a payment from one account to another cahoot acount - on the 2nd i wanted to mke the payment, the earliet day i could enter was the third, having confirmed this, the system made the day the 4th. Adding insult to the injury of taking two days for the payment t0 leave, it then takes a furthur two days to tun up in the other account. Worse than this, luckily when I checked future payments just before it was about to leave I found the transaction was in there twice. FIRST DIRECT offers first class service I have used for years so luckily I don't suffer from Cahoot much.

Initially there seems little point in submitting a review for Cahoot because most of their financial products are now closed to new customers.

However, this review is aimed as a warning to existing customers.

I was alerted to fraud on my account whilst abroad this year, the sum taken from my account was just shy of £10,000. The way Cahoot dealt with this was simply abysmal and quite honestly couldn't have been worse - it took weeks just to get the ball rolling for them to actually begin to investigate the fraud. Once I was told which department I needed to speak to, every day for a week I had to ring Cahoot to ask them to send me the fraud dispute forms that I needed to sign and return. I was told on the Thursday of that week (lunchtime) that the forms would be sent personally by the guy I spoke to that day. When I rang the next day after they again didn't arrive, I was told that they'd 'missed the first class post' on the Thursday so had to be sent second class instead. These forms never arrived, eventually another set of forms sent the next week arrived. After several more weeks of about fifty phone calls, several letters (all of which were initially ignored) and threats of the Financial Ombudsman I had my money returned, but only by way of it simply reappearing in my account. Since then there has been no explanation of anything that had gone on and it took several more letters and phone calls for me to extract the expenses I incurred (well over £100 in phone calls etc) and a paltry sum of compensation from them, considering this whole episode took a load of unnecessary effort on my part for months.

Now Cahoot have emailed me four customer service surveys within the last week. They quite honestly seem to be taking the mick.

Other than recent events, the Cahoot site is 'down' far more than is acceptable (seemingly about a quarter of the time).

I've had my account with Cahoot since about 2004, they started promisingly with good credit interest rates (up to 4.5% at one point) but something has gone very wrong since Santander took over.

Not recommended.

We have had a joint current account with Cahoot for 9 years and have recently found customer service to have deteriorated with very slow response times for enquiries via their online banking facility. Urgent enquiries have taken as long as three days and cheque book and paying-in slip requests have been slow. My wife's debit card has been regularly declined when using online transactions with Cahoot blaming 'security precautions' (even when using retailers she has previously used and only small amounts). This coupled with painfully slow clearing times for cheques being paid in via the Post Office has led me to the conclusion that it's time to switch to another bank particularly with the prospect of Santander managing Cahoot. First Direct beckons???

I have been with Cahoot for some years but recently Cahoot has changed and it has changed for the worse.

I used to be able to make payments from my Santander Business Account to my Personal Cahoot account within one day - they have now changed this and it take 3 - 5 working days! Which is infuriariating when its the same group of banks. Where does your money dissapear to for those few days? And who is making money on it? HSBC and First Direct payments from account to account take less than two hours.

They also boast on their current account advertising that you get 24 hour access online - Lately I have had so many problems trying to access my account. They make you enter all your log in details and then you get a message ' Account susspended please try again in five minutes' So you try again and you get the same message - this can happen all day! Never used to be a problem. And if you try the 'online contact us' procedure - don't bother - they never respond even though they say they will within 24 hours. They make it so hard to find a contact number to call them and then the online access doesn't work.

I would not recommend Cahoot. Find a different bank! I'll be switching as soon as I can.

As a customer of cahoot almost from the outset I am very disappointed that over the past 18 months what was previously a particularly good service has been rundown -- no more call centre on Sunday even for urgent matters such as card wrongly declined, no longer showing when direct debit last taken or for how much, various products withdrawn so no longer full range of banking services, one of the few banks which still hasn't introduced fast pay transfers. Is Santander planning to give up on this? To a customer it certainly feels that way.

I had fraudulent transactions on my account and it took my about 15 emails, hourse in call centres and finally a contact to the financial ombudsman to get my money back. THey were so obviously in the wrong that it was laughable but getting someone who makes sense or has authority on the phone is impossible.

I would rather sell my children than bank with them again!!!

I've only ever written one review online but am so angry with cahoot I feel moved to do my second.

The cahoot website is easy enough to use - it's when you want them to behave like a normal bank that you run into problems.

cahoot declined a transaction of mine for "security reasons." The transaction was to deposit funds via my debit card into my share dealing account in order to buy a US company stock on the New York Stock Exchange immediately, so I was prevented from doing this. I received no phone call from cahoot to ask if this was me making this transaction and did I want it to go ahead. So I called the Call Centre in desperation, only to be left in the queue for 15 minutes and then cut off abruptly at 8.00pm so they could go home and stop dealing with customers.

Time was of the essence and what happened next is predictable - the stock price rose, the pound weakened against the dollar and the same trade the next day lost me hundreds of pounds.

Still no phone call from cahoot in the morning, so I called them. I was told to contact their Fraud department, but their one-man band was 'busy' and would call me back. Two hours later he did. Their Fraud department is in Lisbon and if you can understand anything they are saying in Portuguese English, then good luck. I've seen both Fawlty Towers series many times, but could barely understand a word. So I called the call centre again; they said there were "suspicious circumstances" over the transaction but refused to tell me what these were because it was "business sensitive information"! Yet this was my money, my account, my business! I'm the one who is sensitive to it. Naturally I was worried whether the share dealing company was in financial difficulty and therefore I should not deposit funds with them if they were at risk. I spent all day trying to get an answer out of cahoot, but nothing. And of course, I am hundreds of pounds worse off due to the missed trade caused by them declining my transaction and not checking with me.

Is this reasonable? I have two other bank accounts and both of them call me immediately if there is a transaction that they want to check with me before allowing through.

What's worse is that cahoot tell me that it is at their discretion whether they will allow a transaction to go through; that there is no guarantee at all that they will contact you; and that even if you call them beforehand to pre-authorise a transaction, they still won't allow it.

Why they think they can play God, Judge and Jury over what you can spend your money on and when, is beyond me. Cahoot is fine if you want basic banking online, but don't expect them to anything grown-up beyond that or help you when things go wrong (as they often do). They are not a serious bank. I will be closing my account.

The good points are that you're in control as you carry out most your banking online. On the down side, Cahoot recently restricted their customer call centre service, so their only open Mondays to Saturdays. Its particularly frustrating if you find that on a Sunday your card has been declined, as can happen randomly for security reasons, as you'll have to wait until Monday morning when the call centre re-opens to find out what's going on, and have restrictions lifted. Most other banks operate an out of hours customer support line which is essential for unexpected problems. It's ok to be cheap and chearful but if you want proper customer support stay well clear of this bank.

I've banked with Cahoot for years without any problems. A fraud problem was dealt with efficiently, and my other dealings with customer service have also been very good. I like the fact that you pay in cheques via the post (not that I have many to pay in). Website is easy to use, and availability is generally very good. I haven't had any charges levied to my account, and the £100 interest free overdraft can be useful.

I have been banking with Cahoot for years. They are part of the Abbey Group. There used to be £250 fee-free overdraft at all time, but now it is only £100, which is no longer a significant helping hand. Deposit cheques must be mailed by post (not too bad, as they provide prepaid envelops), but they seem to be cleared quite quickly. You are in complete control of when and where to send funds to. Cahoot are not a bad choice if you bank online often.