Hoodwinked by Cahoot

All interest rate prostitutes need the occasional day for a spot of financial management; this was one of mine. I get notified by email whenever there’s an interest rate change (read reduction!) at cahoot so I was well aware that their savings account was down to the less-than-significant base rate of 0.50%. It was not, therefore, the appearance of the following cheerful log-off screen that surprised me, rather it was the wording.

Before you go, here’s another great offer:

“Great offer”? I don’t think there are any circumstances under which I would regard the bank base rate as a “great offer”. I would class that as a standard offer; pretty much minimal, in fact.

For some reason this irritating screen made me spin off to the cahoot interest rates page where I began to think either that my eyes were deceiving me or that the cahoot interest rates page was, shall we say, less than up to date. Cahoot offers two options for their current account for day to day banking, either with a cheque book or without. The two options pay a slightly different interest rate. I can only assume that the reduction with the cheque book is to cover the cost of said cheque book. (I’m being generous.) Anyway:

• cahoot current account without cheque book: 1.10%
• cahoot current account with cheque book: 1.00%

They have to be kidding. Can this be right? I invested in a reasonably quick 0844 phone call to validate my findings. Sure enough, the pleasant but seemingly embarrassed lady on the other end of the phone at the cahoot help desk confirmed my findings: the cahoot savings account really does pay only half as much (or less) as the cahoot savings account. Ye Gods! Never mind a sane human being, I wouldn’t have thought that even an IQ-challenged banker could consider that to be a great offer.

There we were, studiously managing our working capital by salting away any so-called excess from the cahoot current account into the cahoot savings account thinking that we were maximizing our interest when the paragons of professional banking at cahoot are now paying twice as much interest on their current accounts.

In case any other misguided cahoot savings account folks out there stumble into this posting, listen – stick it all back into your current account. Bloody Hell!

Better still, look for a better savings account; there are still some out there.