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> Tesco Bank is stressing that relatively small amounts were taken from 20,000 accounts If someone is living month to month, said £500 missing could be very se
by elcct 10y ago
> Tesco Bank is stressing that relatively small amounts were taken from 20,000 accounts
If someone is living month to month, said £500 missing could be very serious complication of life and £25 "emergency fund" is a joke.
I personally doubt a wealthy person would use that bank and yet they seem to think their customers are pissing gold.
- dan1234 10y ago> personally doubt a wealthy person would use that bank and yet they seem to think their customers are pissing gold. Actually they give a decent interest rate (relative to the competition) of 3% on the first £3,000[0] so I know a few people who have multiple accounts with them just to reap the interest. [0]http://www.tescobank.com/current-accounts/ http://www.tescobank.com/current-accounts/
- elcct 10y ago3% minus inflation of 0.6% that would be 2.4% of £3000, which is £72 a year, which gives £6 a month. Is it worth the hassle?
- simonh 10y agoI don't understand why you're subtracting inflation. Yes I know doing so gives you the 'real terms' increase in value, but if you stuff £3,000 in a mattress and pull it out after a year you don't notionally add inflation to it's value when comparing it to the value of savings. The savings in that account would still be 3% more than your mattress money, not 2.4% more. Unless you're comparing it to spending all the money right now. Anyway, £6 (or £7.50) is the price of a meal. £72 (or £90) is the price of a few decent Christmas presents. These things add up.
- mcbuilder 10y agoHe's probably subtracting inflation to make the interest rate of Tesco relative to the rest of the economy. Stuffing money in a mattress is a pretty poor idea when it should be very easy to find an investment scheme that covers inflation.
- simonh 10y agoIt's not like the rest of the economy is immune from inflation though. Do we adjust everything for inflation? It just strikes me as pointless complication. Really, the only point I can think of is comparing saving to outright immediate spending.
- DicksenZuider 10y agoCertain statistics are usually inflation adjusted, like GDP. Real Gross Domestic Product measures economic output adjusted for inflation or deflation. If inflation is 20%, and you're earning 3% interest, your losing purchasing power. If inflation is 1% and you're earning 3%, you're gaining. Real, not nominal, returns are what people care about.
- rifung 10y ago> If inflation is 20%, and you're earning 3% interest, your losing purchasing power. Yes but I think the point the person you're replying to is trying to make is that it doesn't matter because the inflation rate is not dependent on where you put your money. Shouldn't the comparison be to the interest rates and risk with comparable places to put/invest your money? I suppose if inflation were extremely high or low compared to interest rates then it would affect your appetite for risk vs interest rate, but I don't think that's the case here.
- foota 10y agoYou need to consider real returns only if the inflation rate varies between things you're looking at, i.e., across countries or time.
- pikzen 10y agoWhen you're storing small sums of money (less than 10k €/$), the amount you lose from inflation from stuffing money in a mattress over a year is negligible.
- verbify 10y agoBut investing in 'the economy' generally means investing in the stock market. Which introduces risk, which isn't great for an emergency fund - and you'll no longer be covered by FSCS.
- fredkingham 10y agobecause a lot of accounts provide an interest rate that's below inflation
- dan1234 10y agoThere aren’t many other options when it comes to low risk, short term money storage. Certainly beats any cash ISA rate atm (some of which are actually below inflation). There’s a website[0] dedicated to helping with this style of saving, so I think it’s a fairly popular thing with people who don’t want to leave money on the table. [0]https://www.bankaccountsavings.co.uk https://www.bankaccountsavings.co.uk
- mcintyre1994 10y agoThink of it as a savings account and it's fairly competitive in the current climate. No monthly pay-in required, no direct debits etc. required, just 3% interest no questions asked.
- to3m 10y agoWhat hassle? If you need a current account, open a Tesco one, and you're getting free money. (If you opening multiple ones, and juggling money between them or whatever, you're probably just the sort of person who gets a kick out of doing this sort of thing, and so the exact figure is beside the point...)
- brador 10y agoWith Brexit uncertainty the current GBP inflation is over 20%. 3% is a drop in an ocean on that.
- parenthesis 10y agoThe UK doesn't import everything.
- brador 10y agoWhether you like it or not the USD is the world peg right now and a currencies worth in USD is its true measure of inflation. What the national bank prints is negligible in comparison.
- johansch 10y agoNo, but quite a lot. "Overseas Trade Statistics. In July 2016 the value of exports (EU and Non-EU) decreased to £23.9 billion, and imports (EU and Non-EU) decreased to £39.7 billion, compared with last month. Consequently the UK is a net importer this month, with imports exceeding exports by £15.9 billion." https://www.uktradeinfo.com/Statistics/OverseasTradeStatistics/Pages/OTS.aspx https://www.uktradeinfo.com/Statistics/OverseasTradeStatisti...
- johansch 10y agoSo, (brits), why did you downvote this without commenting? (It went from +3 to 0.)
- spoonie 10y ago£72 in a year for about 15 minutes of effort sounds worth it to me. (Apply online and transfer money to the account online.)
- laumars 10y agoIn many instances the amount taken is significantly more than £500 too. One colleague has had £800 taken. He's quite stressed right now.
- alex_anglin 10y agoWouldn't that be covered under deposit insurance?
- smcl 10y agoRight, but until that insurance pays out you're maybe faced with a bill you cannot pay in the meantime.
- Cthulhu_ 10y agoI'm sure the creditors would be lenient if you can prove this incident complicated things for you.
- DavidHm 10y agoCan't tell if this is sarcasm. Then again, maybe I am overly cynical. UK utilities at least do seem to have a more positive approach towards people struggling to pay than other countries.
- noir_lord 10y agoAye, it's one of the (very) few good things you can say about them (generally).
- smcl 10y agoTo some degree you're right - if you've got a landlord you need to pay or a utilities provider (assuming you're not horrendously behind already) then sure, but it'd depend on the creditor. I suspect these lads wouldn't be particularly sympathetic, for example: https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/2015/11/24/warning-of-loan-sharks-operating-in-deprived-areas-of-dundee/ https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/2015/11/24/warning-of-loa...
- jameshart 10y agoAnother way to look at it is that a relatively large amount of money was taken from Tesco, and Tesco has simultaneously been fooled into reducing the reported balance on 20,000 customer accounts. The difference is between whether this is seen as a bank robbery, or a series of minor incidents of identity theft.
- rasz_pl 10y agoyes, the infamous Mitchell & Webb Identity Theft sketch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E