Beth

Sep 11, 2025

Months of wasted time and energy

I tried to set up an ISA with charter in mid July. They send information about your ID documents and this was confusing as it said you needed these signing and then wanted them in the post - I was confused and ended up calling charter who told me I didn't need to do that, just email them. Charter noticed my nominated bank details were wrong so closed my account and told me to start again, so I did, and this is where things got worse with charter. I re-opened an account with the correct details... and its been weeks since I have heard anything. It shouldn't take weeks to set up an account. I called up and asked what is the hold up, they said there is a note on my account but couldn't explain but was told that I am at the top of the account list and they will get back to me. Most banks do this automatically but this bank seems to work on human power alone - which comes along with all the human errors (takings months to deal with when AI set up my account with Leeds building society in 5 hours!?). I got a call back within 30minutes to let me know about the error on my account - they said my nominated account is wrong. I was confused and shocked as I had already re-applied with the correct details so this is not possible!? She looked into the application so see I was telling the truth and charter had processed my old application twice or changed the numbers to my old account (their error!) She said leave it with her and they will call me back - assuming my bank would then be set up that day, well nobody called me back. A week later I called up to ask what the hold up is - they repeated everything like "oh your nominated account doesn't match" - wait so a week later you have done NOTHING!?! my account is still on hold!? I am wasting my time with this bank and over a month worth of interest lost not having this account open !? If I had just gone somewhere else then I would already have a bank and started saving and earning interest but I was sold by charters great rates... but its all a lie if you can't actually open an account as I would have earnt more putting it somewhere else during this time frame. Do not fall for charters deals, you won't even get an account. I requested a call back but they never called me back. This is now another week later (a month in total from applying) and they said I am "in the final stages" but at this point I do not trust this bank to hold my money. With limited communication, terrible customer service, terrible online systems, terrible processing. Why would I trust them? Why would YOU trust them? Please go elsewhere and save your time and actually save your money