Banks that allow you to pay into an account from another bank for free?

Disenfranchised? I think perhaps you mean disenamoured.

Smile have an ethical policy? Don't make me laugh.

You need to pick your time. In my experience post office queues have rarely been long enough to give up and march straight out again.

Smile isn't an actual bank. It's a trading style of some other bank. I don't know which. Let's say it's Clydesdale Bank. That would probably mean that you could pay in for free at Clydesdale branches or branches of any bank with a special relationship with Clydesdale (such as Midland I think), and that any other bank would charge a fee.

Don't know. Do you really pay in much cash often enough? More than you could just spend?

Don't know, suspect not.

Almost certainly.

They're all as bad as each other, just sometimes in different ways. So it's probably not worth switching. "The devil you know .."

I probably do, they haven't taken away my right to vote, afterall :-)

Out of curiosity, what makes you say this?

My main issue is that, despite living in London, my local Post Office recently closed, and now all my nearby branches are "main" branches, and they always have big queues of people trying to sort out passport issues and things like that. I always have to wait quite a while when I go to post things.

They're part of the Co-operative Bank, do you happen to know what banks they have "special relationships" with?

Not really, but it'd be useful to have the option should I need to.

The devil I know's idea of customer service is forcing you to call a call centre and speak to someone who doesn't speak english, who then passes your message on to your local branch in a quasi-english language that makes no sense, who then has to call you in order to clarify what your message was supposed to say. That's not excatly efficient. Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against foriegn call centres, but they need to have properly trained staff. Apple's is excellent, as is Be* Broadband's, but HSBC's is useless every time I call.

The devil I know's idea of a branch is a room of paying in machines that don't let you pay in cash and cheques at the same time, forcing you to write two paying in slips, and queue twice to use both types of machine if you need to pay in both. There's usually a maximum of one cashier, and a "customer service" representative on a podium, whose only powers are to write down your name, explain how the paying in machines work, or direct you to a phone that lets you call customer service because there aren't any actual bankers around.

The devil I know is funding all manner of ethical misdeeds.

The devil I know pays bugger all interest.

The devil I don't wins awards for its customer service every year, has an ethical policy in place, and pays decent interest (but has hardly any branches).

Anyway, thanks for the input thus far!

Oh, should have mentioned that I suppose another option would be to keep the HSBC account open, pay money into it, and then transfer it to Smile, but I'd rather make a "clean break"...

In message , Ronald Raygun wrote

If the queues at your local post office are so short it is likely that it is on the list to close.

I've used Smile for 7 years and am very happy with them.

Use them mostly on-line.

I used to pay in cheques by post - but after one got lost in the post (a significant sum) which caused me problems until I got a replacement cheque, I now pay in at a Post Office.

Fortunately I live in a village where the Post Office is not due to close.

I don't pay in cash, but I'm pretty sure that ALL other banks (Except Co-op of course) will charge a fee.

They used to accept paying in at Co-op stores - don't know if this is so now. Have a look on the Smile website.

David

That's good to hear!

I did wonder about that possibility, it doesn't sound infallible.

I guess I'll need to ask them to be sure.

This would be ideal, as there's a Co-operative Food across the road from me, but there's no mention of this on their website... I guess I'll need to ask them!

thanks!

Alan writes

On my last visit to my town centre PO I walked straight to the counter.

I wanted A$40, and a stamp for Australia.

The guy behind the counter took the payment for the currency, then walked over to the currency room, returning to tell me that they only had A$50 notes!

I should have asked for a refund and gone elsewhere, but I persevered and paid a further fiver, as it was for my granddaughter.

That's two transactions.

When I asked for the stamp he asked if I wanted cashback, and I said yes, £20 please. I inserted my card again, and he extracted the £1.22 for the stamp and passed me the receipt!

I said "What about the cashback"?

He said "We do that separately". AARRGGHHH!

Four transactions, and the queue was as far as the door when I walked out... I will be unlikely to visit that post office again.

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

Wow - do you still have Midland banks up there? Down here this side of the border, they were taken over by HSBC many years ago...

Did they ever have Midland banks up there? I think there is one branch of HSBC in Glasgow, two in Edinburgh and that's about it.

Ah yes, that rings a bell.

No, and I don't think there ever were.

Are First Direct still around? They were, IIRC, associated with Midland in that you could go and do over-the-counter fee-free pay-ins to your FD account at Midland branches. For us here in the frozen wastes, where there were no Midland branches, it was arranged that Clydesdale branches could be used instead.

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

Oh.

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

Yep, they are.

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

They used to be a "division" of Midland, now a "division" of HSBC.

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

Ah, I see.

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

It oughta - the OP actually said: "Smile say you can pay in cash at ... any branch of the co-operative bank", which was a pretty big clue!