I’m a little embarrased to admit it, but I enjoy reading the small print of adverts and wrappers. The reason is there are usually little gems of opt-outs and exclusions involved.
My particular favourite at the moment is Lloyds Bank current accounts, which are advertised at the mouth-watering rate of 5% AER on balances. It sounds too good to be true, and it is. Read the small print, and the list of conditions are remarkable:
- You must pay in £2000/month
- You must use their online facility six times in three months
- You only get 0.1% on balances over £5000
Now, somebody taking home more than £2000/month is likely to occasionally rise over the £5000 balance, and it’s possibly a bit of a shocker to realise you’re being paid a uselessly small interest rate (That’s 10p per YEAR on £1000) on that balance. Add to that their online website that – last time I used it, just before moving bank accounts – didn’t support anything other than Microsoft Internet Explorer, and I really don’t see what the attraction is.
The real sad fact about this headline rate is, if you earn a decent-ish rate of interest, say 3% as at Smile.co.uk (who I bank with, and can heartily recommend. No, I’m not on commission. They’re just a good bank), you need to have a balance of £8000 before the 3% earns more interest than the Lloyds bank small-print enabled rate. Ok, ok, put it in savings if you’d rather. But I’d rather have my money working well even when I unexpectedly land a premium bonds win, or win the lottery.
Also on the subject of banking statistics, the most worrying of them all in Britain is that you’re more likely to divorce than change your bank account. This strikes me as a horrifying. We’re more likely to leave the person we’ve possibly had children and bought a house with, than we are to change banks. Whilst the counter-clerk might have stared at you menacingly from behind the counter and handed you naff brochures, it seems a little out of kilter to show them statistically more loyalty.
Just don’t get me started on own-brand “Port Sausages”. Oh, you did. “Contains 45% meat”. God knows what the rest is then…
As I said, small-print is worth paying attention to. Watch out for those asterix. I’ll stop shouting at the world now.
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