CAHOOT-NOT BAD AT ALL (Cahoot)

Member Name: mazhar68

Product:	Cahoot
Date:	05/10/01 (538 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see below

Disadvantages: see below

Cahoot is an Internet bank part of the well known Abbey National group. Cahoot began in 2000 & offered only credit cards but recently has added other products to their range i.e current accounts & loans. They have no high street branches & only offer banking via the internet or telephone(at national call charges).

Cahoot was one of the original companies to offer interest free credit cards for a set period of time, I can't think of any at the time that offered this facility it was set to become a trend. I first heard of Cahoot on a sky digital channel known as "Simply money" it was not an advertisement but a best buy, only being offered to the first 50000 applicants(I think, can't recall the exact numer of applicants).

My experience with them relates to having their credit card & current account. The credit card I originally applied for offered an Interest rate of 0% fixed for a year, extremely competitive. I immediately transfered all my credit card balance from my original credit card with TSB & left it there occasionally paying various amounts so the balance would be more or less clear by the end of the year (although a small amount was also debited each month via direct debit as the minimum payment). I must mention that at the end of the period they did offer me an extra month at 0% interest.
I recently applied for their current account which offered £250 intrest free overdraft which again is very competitve compared to other High street or internet banks.

Since banking with them I have contacted them on three occasions via e-mail from their site & telephone on all three occasions their responses have been very good, although I have had to hold on their telephone line once for a about 10 mins but compared to other telephone banking services it was acceptable.

I recently needed immediate cash on a Saturday evening I have a main current account with LLoydsTSB (into which both our salaries are paid) I c
ontacted their telephone banking service which refused to increase my overdraft limit & reffered me to my branch being Saturday that meant two days without any money, I then contacted Cahoot as to increase my overdraft I had used up the intrest free £250 (one of the main reasons in opening the account), I rarely deposited any money in to the account & had been overdrawn at the time I honestly expected them to refuse the overdraft but they agreed to increase it to £500 which was available immediately.

To conclude- I'm satisfied with most of their services such as site navigation & telephone services but find paying cash/cheques into the account time consuming, cheques are deposited in to the account using envelopes they send out & the only way to pay cash is to transfer it from another account (which takes about 3 working days). As I have never sent cheques to them & prefer depositing them into a branch based account & transferring an amount when required.
I personally would reccommend anyone having or thinking of opening a cahoot account to also open a branch based account. Finally their rates change often so do check their website for recent changes.

Summary: