Alliance & Leicester First Saver Children's Saving Account

Tried to move from one bank to A&L as thought they would offer me a better service. Evenif this may have been true financially, eventually, I chose to cancel the whole thing a few days after the deal was done because I soon realised it was almost impossible to get in contact with a real person. When I did finally get to speak to someone they sounded like they had heard this complaint a thousand times before and were tired of it. I felt sorry for them. And decided to cancel the whole thing. I was afraid for them to be in charge of my money. Completely USELESS, I am so relieved I got out before I got in. I would have liked to know timescales/processes before I tried to apply, it makes it sound so simple but it is everything but. The product was Alliance and Leicester Premier Current Account Switching Service.

I have decided to close the account, and I will be transferring the money we have saved to another bank. Not because of the interest rate, but because of the bad customer service I have experienced from the bank over the last 2 years.

Everything was too much of an effort. We regularly made deposits; one from my bank account via a standing order; others were usually by cheque as gifts from family members. But God forbid if we actually gave them bags of coins (which may I add, were in the correct bags and correct amount with no mixed coins!!

I think the last straw came last month when I was banking notes, a cheque and 7 bags of coins. I was told they would only accept 4 bags, as this was company policy! However, I had been banking bags previously, and I had never been told this before (maybe this is why I had had the moody glares and huffy voices and sighs when I had done my previous banking)!

We have saved over £2,000 since my son was born. He is only 2 years old. It's a shame I have to close the account, as I would have liked to have had the original bank book to hand over to him when he was older, to show him how his savings grew.

Not a good experience. I wouldn't recommend the Alliance & Leicester First Saver Children's Saving Account or the bank.

The Alliance & Leicester advertised the First Saver Children's Savings Account, but when I went into the branch, I was told that they do not cater for children's accounts.

I went to open an Alliance & Leicester First Saver Children's Saving account for child 2, only to be told to make an appointment. The cashier told us the interest rates, and we have decided to move our eldest child's savings from A&L as they no longer offer anything special - or even average.

We tried to open another account for our second child and was told that an appoitment needed to be made which would take around 45 mins - not good when you have a toddler and newborn to contend with! I was appauled that a young child would get charged a flat rate of £1 per withdrawal and now they have reduced the interest rate so much that I would be surprised if anyone keeps their childs money with the A&L - this just makes me feel that our custom is no longer valued. They have offered an alternative account with a slightly better rate - but nowhere near the rates that you can get at other high street competitors.

Good service and helpful people enabled me to open the account for my child. Good rate of interest at the time and access arrangements.

The interest rate will be reducing on this account from July to 3.65% gross and the A&L are discontinuing the account. Not fantastic. It was difficult to organise a standing order to the account on a regular basis, the account number is very long and took some time to sort out getting a regular payment set up. I will be closing this account and looking elsewhere because of the reduction in interest rates.