Rhiannon Alwen's community profile page

Write a review

Viewing profile for,

Rhiannon Alwen

Total reviews written

Helpful marks given to their reviews

Times reviews seen

All reviews (3)

Review of the HSBC, Bank account:

View on product page

A good mix of secure and simple.

Unlike many these days that seem to push endlessly towards apps for security or rely solely on passwords HSBC gives you a little keypad doodad which generates a code for you to log in with. Fortunately if the doodad breaks or gets lost you can still do basic banking, checking your balance and (I think) paying existing payees. But you can't set up new payees. To me, this is the best of both worlds. Outside of address changes (which went smoothly) I've never had to contact customer support. So can't really comment. On the other hand I've had the account for 14 years without needing to contact customer support so that says... something I suppose. Reviewed on: 9th August 2015

Review of the Santander, Basic Current Account:

View on product page

Patchy customer support, but mainly okay.

I've been an account holder with Santander since before they were Santander. And mostly it's been fine. General transactions work, though I don't use it as my main bank since setting up new payees requires mobile phone contact (no signal) or landline phone (expensive and annoying). The real area it falls down is customer support. I was opted into paperless statements quite some time ago and never noticed until I suddenly needed a paper statement for proof of account ownership (long story). This at first didn't seem to be a problem, there is a button on the site to turn paper back on. Sadly, the button isn't connected to anything and takes you to a blank page. I reported this via webform and asked to be manually re-papered. This was responded to shortly by someone who didn't understand the technical problem and claimed they couldn't help me with the paper. I tried again. The second one also didn't believe the technical problem, but did turn the statements back on. While I'm happy to get what I needed, frankly it leaves me feeling like they don't have a clue which isn't reassuring at all. Reviewed on: 9th August 2015

Review of the Tesco Bank, Clubcard Credit Card:

View on product page

Overzealous security forgets we're not all urban.

I initially applied for this card because I liked the idea of getting clubcard points on everything. Sounds like a fair deal to me, no faffing around with other reward schemes, just good old clubcard. I was accepted and after putting in seemingly endless permutations of passwords I was told that if I needed to "change computer" I would have to receive a text message with a code. All very well, and probably reasonable to most people but out here not so much. There's no signal. While I do own a mobile it sits perpetually flat in the bottom of my handbag because there's just no point unless you're going into town. Of course landlines can receive text messages perfectly fine, and of course they've not thought of this- the only numbers accepted are those starting with 07. Now you may wonder how often I change computers. And not often would be the answer. But having had experience with other similar systems the dynamic IP address does tend to confuse them and often it can be every time I go to use the site that these security measures kick in. Frustratingly it allowed signup without a mobile number. If the field had been not optional I wouldn't have bothered. Reviewed on: 22nd April 2015

We are helping 1000s to make smarter financial decisions

We use the power of consumer reviews to help increase trust and transparency in financial services and to deliver industry leading insight and events.