Many savers being fooled by Internet savings accounts
December 5, 2007 by admin
Filed under News, News-Banking
According to a recent report from This is Money, many savers across the UK are being tricked into parting with their hard earned cash by seemingly tempting high interest Internet savings accounts that look far better than they actually are.
A number of Internet savings accounts, some from big name banks such as Alliance and Leicester or the Abbey, are offering eye-catching interest rates that have got consumers flocking to open up an account. However, experts state that there is a massive sting in the tail.
What many consumers are failing to realize is that many of these accounts will only pay this rate of interest in the event that the money in the account remains untouched, and just one withdrawal from the account could seriously impact on the amount of interest that you receive. For those that do make withdrawals the interest rate is docked to the point where it falls behind many of the best buy savings accounts on offer at present.
The highest paying of these seemingly high interest savings accounts is Coventry Online, but industry officials state that even if you did open an account and did not make any withdrawals you would only receive 80 pence more for each £1000 of savings than you would with the ICICI Bank’s HiSave Account, which is currently Money Mail’s best buy savings account.
Consumers that are hunting around for a place to put their savings are urged to ensure that they read the small print with these Internet savings accounts, and do not jump in feet first based just on the eye-catching interest rates that are advertised, as the amount of interest that is received may not be close the interest rate advertised.
Tom Smith
5th December 2007
