The best ive come up with so far desite my terrible past credit debts is the Alliance and Leicester Basic Account. Ok you can only get a cashcard to draw money out of ATM's but you can also use it at any Post Office, have your Benefits paid in by Bacs, withdraw funds to pay weekly or monthly Bills, ie., Rent, Council Tax, Water, TV Licence etc., etc., plus also i applied for a Lastminute.com Travel Cash Maestro Card at http://www.lastminute.com/ with which to buy things online or in shops, and be sure nobody can scam you online (ebay etc.,). The cost of the card at the time i got mine was £1.00 although i think that was a special offer, and the updated price is £6.99....NO Fees to Load the card at any Paypoint Outlet, and when spending money online the charges are miniscule.

Please be very aware of any of the Big Banks as most if not all are wholly or Partially owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland, who have not an ounce of sympathy if you have any sort of past Bad Credit, Natwest, Yorkshire Bank being two i wouldn't even deal with even if they would look at you sideways.

The Prime mastercard is also a breeze to obtain for the measly sum of £3.00 from most retail outlets or their website is http://www.idtprime.com/ , its costs for loading are higher than the TravelCash Maestro Card, plus usually should you pay by Mastercard or Visa for goods or services there is normally an extra charge around 2.2 %. Please be very wary of anything to do with Royal Bank of Scotland, they will fleese you for every last penny they can out of you, and thats from 17 years as a loyal Natwest Customer, bad news folks!

Ive learnt my lesson the hard way, and would love a Current Account with a Maestro (switch) Card...no overdraft facilities required, so if anyone can suggest one who has no connection with Royal Bank of Scotland, and survives only on State Benefits of around £500 per month, i'm all ears!!!!

Regards.

Hi There, You're absolutly right about RBS they are horrendous and really not helpful to anyone unless they are pretty well off! Unfortunately Natwest and YB are linked to them and so their policies have to be the same. I found that out too.

However, i tried Halifax who are part of the HBOS group (Halifax and Bank of Scotland - who are nothing to do with RBS by the way!) and got an Easycash Card with Electron facility! I've not got the best credit record and they accepted me with no problems, you can apply online too! they've been fantastic i cannot fault them 1 bit and having the Easycash card is actually helping me tons with budgeting etc as i have no overdraft anymore so cannot go into the dreaded unauthorised overdraft scam many banks use!

Another bank to avoid is Lloyds TSB, i have had so much trouble getting my money back that they took off me "accidently" that they meant to take from someone else! Be very wary!

Seriously though, give Halifax a try, i was just about to open a cardcash account with just the atm card until i heard about them!

Good Luck!!!

Many thanks for that info Nikkimccc, the Halifax easycash Account sounds excellent, although i am a little confused by what a Visa Electron Card is? Also is the Bank of Scotland & the Royal Bank of Scotland 2 totally different establishments?

I'm a bit snookered in my case however as i have defaulted on an Aqua Credit Card, which is run by the Halifax.

Being in receipt of State Benefits since 1981 is very hard to budget, and i am facing nearly £15,000 in debt. Having done the correct thing and offered a token payment to all my Creditors as advised by Citizens Advice, all Creditors totally turned my offers down. Having been threatened by many different Debt Collection Agencies since a year last April the letters keep coming on a daily basis.

I suspect these morons expect me to commit suicide ( please note said morons: its NOT a Criminal Offence to be in debt) rather a Civil matter....pester someone with a Ferrari and a £100,000 mortgage instead.....if i pay you all the amounts you are demanding, YOU and I will be pushing up daisies by the time the debt is paid, so maybe harrass some little old pensioner, rathe than me...ive made you an offer which you have refused, who is going to look the biggest clown in the County Court?

Sorry people, slightly off topic there, its so annoying though, if i AM WRONG and its a Criminal Offence, there are going to be lots of Householders, mortgage payers, this year filling our overcrowded Jails ( than you Gordon Brown)

Hi There

Not a problem, just to answer your 2 q's there, yes RBS and BOS are 2 different establishments BOS came from Halifax and now are linked and RBS own Natwest/YB.

With the Aqua thing, Halifax only sponsor the ownership of the card and admin on it so it's kind of a different company (although the call centre dealing with it is part of Halifax i would think they would use different systems) if you do the app online they'll send you some paperwork through, i'd previously defaulted with the Halifax and i got a new account (please note when they pass the debt to the collection agencies i think the "banks" don't deal with the account anylonger so you should be safe.

An electron card is like a solo card..... Many banks use these now it's a basic debit card you can use online at atms and also in shops that allow the electron card, it's sponsored by VISA and has no overdraft or borrowing facilities! Just right for what we need!!!

Hope it helps

Hi there, Best Advice I can give you is go to the Co-Op bank they were absolutly brilliant. Have got cashminder account and a savings account with them. All now approved:-) I went into a branch really helpful only took 5 days to approve. Gave me a number to talk to the branch direct..... No bloody call centres. see http://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/servlet/Satellite/1193206375355,CFSweb/Page/Bank. Also if you want a good prepaid Mastercard I can Highly recommend a CashPlus card see the details at www.mycashplus.co.uk Give it a try never been to a bank in years that was so helpful and efficient.

Hi to all, just to let you know of my situation regarding the ThinkBanking Bank, about 4 months ago i opened a think banking account, i too have bed credit and it seemed like a good solution to accept wages ect, they did what they said on the tin initially although the service was very slow, the guy on the phone raved on about how bad other banks were and their practices and really sold it to me, great i thought finally a company looking after our bad credit needs, to which we all know us people with bad credit are pretty much penalised in every circumstance, anyway two weeks later received my maestro card, tried to activate it so i could pay my wage cheque in and was told no until my pin number comes through, ok i say so a trip over to casha cheque and another £12.00 per £100 was lost three weeks gone by got my pin number, activated my card, tried to pay another cheque in was told to go to nearest RBS or Natwest, RBS was 43 miles away, so chose my local natwest, nope i was told you need a think banking paying in book, Wasnt told that i said, so an hour later arrived at RBS, who took my cheque, and hour later a call came from the illusive money manager, your cheque Mr ********, wont be able to clear it for 9 working days due to security, oh thats lovely thanks for telling me that when i opened the account, 9 days later still not cleared, finally two weeks later was cleared went to supermarket got a trolly load of food and my card was declined, very embaressing, go home an 1 hour 45 mins of waiting on phone trying to get through to an illusive money manager was told the cards were down and they didnt know when the problem would be fixed, after this i just had enough paid in to cover my monthly bills via direct debit, anyway had the account now for three months, received a letter stating that my account will be closed in thirty days, no explanation, no reason telling why, phoned again two hours later was told i dont know mr ********, a week after this i re-applied thinking maybe it was teething troubles i'll give them the benefit of the doubt, went through the whole process again as apparantley this was the only way, fine i was told here's your account number and sort code, your card will be with you in a week, that made me laugh, anyway, gave my new details to employer for wages payment, two weeks later no card, no letter, no explanation, phone again, this time over three hours wait, was told that the account was closed before it was even opened for reasons they cannot disclose, phone again sorry cannot tell you why there's nothing you can do, can i complain, nope, then the phone was put down on me, phone back to complain, there is no-one to complain to, was spoken to very rudely by a young female with no common sense, who obviously cannot understand plain english, as she had it in her mind set that she knew exactly what she was gonna tell me and wasnt gonna listen to anything i had to say, she then hung up on me again, to this day i still do not know why i cannot have an account or why they cannot just run their business like a normal bank, perhaps its because they are not a bank as they like to profess, for me i dont think i will entrust my money to a bunch of child like idiots on the end of the phone again.

Summary or my Conclusion to all you Prospective Think Banking Clients, Look at the companys history, look at all the bad write up's, look at what i have just written, Think Banking will make a bad situation worse for you, in todays day and age your £12.50 a month is more like £22.50 a month as if you call them on a pre paid phone it will cost you at least £10.00 before you get through, also the initial charge of £25.00 is not told to you until after you have opened the account, still back to the good old high street and the hunt continues, to where the proper bankers lay in wait, they might be expensive but they are reliable and they do what they say their gonna do, I am pleased for the ones that thinkbanking does work for, but be aware their is a long way to go yet, staff service when you get though is very poor indeed, time factor is non existent, customer care well i wont even start on that, please be careful with these money grabbers, my advice is get a normal account, make sure you use every facility to view your account they offer, and if in doubt cancel them dd's or s/o's, then your not paying for anything except a wealth of experience and some protection, much cheaper all round, they really should be called thinkless banking, as they tend not to think about anything, oh i almost forgot a friend of mine recommended these cowboys to me, and he said you dont get charged if they do miss a DD on your behalf but as he found out you will get charged late fee's by the company thats payment you have missed, of course this is all just my personal experience, take it or leave it. Chow....

Sincere Apologies for some strange reason my last post came out 4 times, dont know why just a funny connection i think, only meant to do it once....

Right to reply. I am grateful to the moderators for MoneySupermarket.com for allowing this post to remain online.

This post is not spam, but a Right to Reply against some of the posts which are on these forums. They have been brought to our attention by some of our customers and we have reason to believe that they are placed by our competitors as we are much more successful than they are.

LessThanPerfect.co.uk service is a legitimate and successful company which assists individuals and companies with adverse credit history to obtain personal or business bank accounts. It is not a "scam" or any such illegal operation. We are licenced by the Office of Fair Trading and the Information Commissioner, unlike our competitors.

The service we provide cannot "guarantee" an account for anyone and we do not advertise it as such. We have received only three complaints in the past year, of which two were resolved and one where the customer refused to provide the information to enable us to return his fee. We have never received any complaints from OFT or trading standards about our serices.

Readers of this forum are intelligent and should make up their own minds about the services we provide, and should take any negative comments with "a pinch of salt".

Right to reply. I am grateful to the moderators for MoneySupermarket.com for allowing this post to remain online.

This post is not spam, but a Right to Reply against some of the posts which are on these forums. They have been brought to our attention by some of our customers and we have reason to believe that they are placed by our competitors as we are much more successful than they are.

LessThanPerfect.co.uk service is a legitimate and successful company which assists individuals and companies with adverse credit history to obtain personal or business bank accounts. It is not a "scam" or any such illegal operation. We are licenced by the Office of Fair Trading and the Information Commissioner, unlike our competitors.

The service we provide cannot "guarantee" an account for anyone and we do not advertise it as such. We have received only three complaints in the past year, of which two were resolved and one where the customer refused to provide the information to enable us to return his fee. We have never received any complaints from OFT or trading standards about our serices.

Readers of this forum are intelligent and should make up their own minds about the services we provide, and should take any negative comments with "a pinch of salt".

NB We do not offer a prepaid card as a standalone item, but we do include it with the Restart Current Account (including debit card) for no cost and as a courtesy to our customers.

A&L recently accepted me for a Premier Direct current account with a Visa debit card and cheque book and I currently have 3 CCJs (as far as i know). I have been turned down by so many places I've lost count. It's also worth a note that I'm currently a HE student and I couldn't even get accepted for a student account with all the big banks but A&L helped me out! I am just waiting on the £100 bonus promised to me as I switched from my existing bank.