Serious problems with my online savings account. I set up a post office online savings account 5 months ago because of the 1.20% interest rate. From day 1 it's been a nightmare. Firstly they have 2 options for depositing money. Direct debit or payment via a debit card. My first deposit was via direct debit and took 6 days to clear. My other deposits were made via debit card and they usually take 3 days to clear. It wasn't long back I needed to transfer some money from my savings account back to my main bank account. I entered my details and was met with an error..... "Transfer cannot be applied at this time". I tried multiple times a day for a week to transfer money yet had that error every single time. I looked at how to contact them and no phone number was given due to it being an "online only" account. I used the webform to contact them and after 10 days I still heard nothing back from them. In those 10 days I carried on trying to withdraw money multiple times again, yet still had that error. A few days ago I phoned the number which is meant for discussing non online savings accounts. Finally I got through to someone and explained the situation. They told me their system is updating so theres nothing they can do and that they would put me through to someone who's system wasn't updating. I waited for 15 mins and spoke to someone else. I explained my situation again to them and they said exactly the same thing... That they can't do anything as their system is also "updating". I put the phone down and opened a complaint with the post office yet haven't heard anything back yet. I have now done research online to find out a lot of people have that error and it's the post offices fault. If I had seen this before, I wouldn't have bothered to open the account. I just trusted the post office. A warning to all thinking of getting an online savings account with them. The interest rate may seem good but it takes ages for money to be transferred to them, customer service is useless and of course you can't even access your money when you want it due to th e "Transfer cannot be applied at this time" error message. Anyone else had the same experience with them?

These are good and use 25% power for equivalent filament lamp BUT They don't like being switched on/off frequently and will quickly fail. Be wary of using them on automatic night light switches. These use a light sensor to detect the onset of darkness and switch the lamp on. Unfortunately some of them can tend to flutter around the switch over point and this is very bad for a CFL. Indeed there have been cases where a householder left one of these on while she went on holiday and came home to find her house burnt down. Fire caused by an overheated CFL using one of the threshold switches. Older CFls cannot be used with dimmer switches. A proper dimmable lamp must be used x2 cost) I now have gone over to LED lamps for outside security lighting 6W vs 15W and I leave them on permanently (porch side and back), no threshold switch to go wrong. Should last 20 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cost per year £10 pa Last year had 2 CFLs failed (£10) plus annoyance of getting ladders out.

I have a phone line and calls from this Carrier Pre-Select (but thankfully no broadband). It was first class for 4+ years under original Primus Telecoms but in Nov 2010 was taken over by NewCall Telecoms and has gone severely downhill. (aside) This was the company that was touted by the Daily Heil in 2011 for bringing its call centre back from Mumbai to Burnley because they could employ people there more cheaply, on minimum pay rates, than the Indian staff. As far as I am concerned no 'contract' exists as it was a continuation of a service I first subscribed to in 2006 with Primus. However, within the past week I have been unable to make any outgoing calls. Dialling out brings the standard BT response " sorry, your call has not been accepted" This is actually being increasingly widely reported across UK in other consumer forums. Added to that, all their service and business lines are NEVER answered. (Dial-in is cut off after 1hour 30 mins waiting) Many have tried, no success yet reported. Their 'on-line chat' permanently reports the office is closed. Their web pages are still up, but you can't get a 'human' response to anything. All emails are only given an auto-response. (now I know what you are thinking, 'cos I'm thinking it too) So now the legal bit: I have instructed my credit card provider to suspend all further recurring transactions as it was being paid by CC continuous payment authority. My thought is that should NewCall reinstate and make good their service I will resort to payment upon billing (or e-billing) Ought I to officially inform them, given that they now appear to be completely incommunicado, of my actions in suspending their auto payment method, to avoid future repercussions? (prepare for more posters on this company)

Despite being told by two advisors that standing orders are available, I am unable to set up standing orders from my new "online saver" account. The online help pages also state that this can be done - quote "You can also make payments and set up Direct Debits and standing orders from your account statement page." I was able to do this from the old "Web Saver Reward" account. The bank should re-introduce standing orders for this type of account. I used a standing order to maintain the reward status of my current account to avoid having to do this manually.