imlach

Got upgraded to a Barclays Premier current account recently without asking....

http://www.barclays.co.uk/premier/

Did anyone else get this done? Just interested.....there's a few benefits, but nothing hugely amazing as far as I can see. Not really fussed about having a 'personal banker'. Surely anyone walking into a bank these days is attended to by a 'personal banker'!!!

Daryl

Yeah, got upgraded some time last year. Leave all the banking to the wife, I just spend it

Brendan Hughes

Lucky you! I got this (in Portugal) and was charged 150 euros p.a. for the privilege. Next year it went up to 200, so I got it stopped. Included a platinum credit card, loads of cheques, share transfers - stuff that would have normally cost me that much p.a. IF I'd used it. I didn't. Now I'm back down to pleb rating, but with a smaller package, which is the same price as a smaller credit card and less cheques. <shrug>

Manager was desperate to sign me up to it initially. Just another rip-off IMHO.

gsm1

Yep, it's normally just fancy packaging to make people feel important. Be very wary of any credit card or account with silver, gold, platinum etc in the title. Lloyds have a Gold savings account which they claim has x benefits - it pays sod all interest.

Graz

"Premier is an exclusive service designed to help you make the most of your money. It's ideal if you earn £100,000+ or have £50,000+ to save or invest."

Hmmm don't think my account will be getting an upgrade then.

moses

switch to alliance and leicster its better

Tiggs

point of a personal banker is to feed leads to the barclays IFAs....who then try to sell you stuff!

Pixxie

Premier BARCLAYS BANK account shouldnt cost you anything
Premier BARCLAYCARD will prob charge you a annual rate, but NOT interest as you have to agree to pay in full each month.

It's just another customer service, some people take full advantage of a personal account manager, others dont.

Pixxie

Yeah their try and sell you stuff
Sales=commission

Chris L

Strange isn't - with all the moves to telephone banking (which I use BTW) etc, they should now go back to what they were doing 20 / 30 years and assign 'personal bankers' - the only difference is that now it is a 'premium' service whereas before, it was part of the service for all customers....

The other thing that makes me laugh is that they are not personal bankers at all. Each one is probably looking after more than 1000 accounts. That's not personal. When I worked at Coutts, most managers would only look after a maximum of 100 and some as few as 30 or 40 customers. That is the only way to give a personal service (the staff to customer ratio was 10 times better than any high street bank). All this does cost money and there are plenty of people out there willing to pay for it. The stuff that Barclays and others are pushing is just a thinly disguised sales and marketing pitch.

imlach

Well, I didn't ask for it, and I amn't paying for it.
I rarely go into my bank, nor communicate with them.

I use online banking. Period.

Tiggs

sales= person selling gets paid, thats no different from buying a loaf of bread.

gsm1

Yeah, but your grocer doesn't sell you a loaf of bread when you wanted a pint of milk.

330uk

I got upgraded with £1000 interst free overdraft which can come in handy

GCollier

I used to have a barclays premier account (when they still used to charge £10/month for it). The personal relationship with the account manager was useful on a couple of occasions, e.g. a phonecall to him and I was authorised to draw a 5 figure bank draft against an uncleared cheque I'd just paid in, and they promised better mortgage rates and stupidly high overdraft facilities, but in the end I just found I wasn't using the facilities, so I decided to save my £10/month and cancelled it.

If it's free it's probably worth having, but after a couple of bad experiences with barclays I moved banks to Smile.

Gary.

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

I had a similar account with Nat West. You got the mutts nuts service. I wanted an impreza I got an impreza. Just phoned up and put it on the overdraft, sorted out a loan with another bank a few weeks later, bingo.

Sbradley

I've got one and it's brilliant. I can phone up and talk to a real person who can sort things out there and then. They come and take me to lunch annually. They offer me advise which I am free to take, ignore or ask them not to bother. They help me manage my accounts and when I screw up they help me get it right again.

I've been a Barclays customer since I was 16 - that's an awfully long time - and though I've used other banks for business accounts, not wanting all me eggs in one basket, I haven't found anyone else who an do the job as consistently well.

And no, I don't work for them or anyone associated with them. Never have, never will.

SB