An all-right building society (Yorkshire Building Society)

Member Name: worst_trip

Product:	Yorkshire Building Society
Date:	01/09/09 (12 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: As good as, and no worse than many other high-street building societies

Disadvantages: Unfortunately, communicating with customers doesn't seem to be their strong point

I've been a small-scale saver with the Yorkshire Building Society for about 10 years. My experience has been that they're a pretty average organization in terms of the products and savings rates they offer - they're not a great deal better, but certainly no worse than many of their high street competitors. Their internet banking is trouble-free to use and their call-centre staff - if not terribly knowledgable about the YBSs' products - always appear to try to help.

In my experience the YBS do have a tendency to change the details of their savings products without always keeping their customers informed. The regular saver deposit account I first joined operated for a three year fixed-term only; at the end of this time the account arbitrarily changed to one into which my monthly direct debist were still directed as before, only this package paid lower rates of interest. Although I was aware of the three-year term of my original account, the changeover to the new account in my name was made without my being notified at the time, which I thought was a bit odd as I had to phone my nearest branch to find out what had happened to my account.

Similarly the type of child savings account I opened for my young daughter was suddenly - at some point last year - suspended, and changed into a differently-named young person's account, one paying piddling rates of interest (although to be fair, at a rate comparable with what else is currently available for childrens' accounts on the high street). Again I was not informed that this switch was going to happen - which I feel I should've been, as I'm the trustee for the account. All through the switchover period (whenever that occurred) I had happily gone on paying into my daughter's YBS account by direct debit as before, and only found out about the change to a new account when I visited the YBS website to check her saving account's current interest rates, and discovered that that type of accout no longer existed! The YBS operator I spoke to did give me details of the new account, but was not able to tell me at what point the change to the different account (with its lower rate of interest) had taken place.

So in summary, the YBS perform adequately as a savings institution but customers need to closely monitor their accounts for themselves, as the YBSs' communications (in my experience) aren't really up to scratch.

Summary: "A" is for "adequate" in the YBSs' case