I have a think banking account. I would rather pay £12.50 pm for them to worry about paying bills, rather than having to worry about paying them myself. They juggle all my finances for me along with G.P. so I end up with more money at the end of the month rather than more month left at the end of the money.

I also don't have any unwanted "unauthorised overdraft charges" or returned direct debit charges to come at the end of the month because they always put the money to one side.

Think banking do what other banks should do. Think banking don't have online facilities yet but apparently it is in the pipeline.

I have a think banking account and have never had a problem with them yes some times you may have to wait to speak to someone due to the fact that they are busy this is apart of life I readly pay the £12.50 monthly charges better than £35. + that other banks charge for going over drawn or returned DDs I have always found the staff at think banking great and helpfull always ready to give advice if felt it is needed I was with the yorkshire bank who when I tryed to sort out my problem of the monie I owed them did'nt want to know unless it was done there way and the ammount they wanted evan when you tryed to explain to them the situation. Also I think think banking is part of the RBS I personly recomend them to any one

Thanks mate try to apply now l think it 's better than many high st bank

ive been with think banking since october 2006, and all in all they have been a good service. yes they do charge you money, but you neglect to mention that they freeze all interest on accounts that you owe money too. to put it another way, i was 30,000 in debt and on a awful income, only clearing about 800per month. Now interest on 30,000, even if its a relativly low rate, lets say 10% would be 3000 a year, or 250 a month, and that is just interest, which is not going to lower your actual debt. And, im pretty sure that the majority of people here have bad credit, like myself, which would make the interest more like 17%+. Thats 475 a month (and thats before your rent, food travel etc). I know that at that time, i could only pay the minimum on the account, which was only chipping away at the interest

The phone center can be very frustrating, and it is expensive to call, but this is really the only problem i could find with the service.

When i took the agreement out, i was sure my debt was closer to 18000, and didnt realise that "the peoples bank" llyods had screwed me with a loan, which i never should of got approved as i applied for it with a 12000per annum job. the loan was for 13000, they then put on a 3400 insurance charge, plus a huge interst rate which charged right up to when i took gregory penningtons account.This put my lloyds loan to around 23000. I also had credit cards and a previous loan with other companies. The high strret banks deliberatly loan money to those they know cannot afford the repayments. this is how they make there money, and mess up our lives.

I had paid off around 10000 off all of this by this august, and thought i had about 7000 left to pay, called gp, and was told i still owed 18000.

Since Then, my personal manager, hayley has been an absoulte god send. she helped me get things sorted when i didnt know where the extra money in my debt had come from, and advised me well. im glad to say i had a settlement on my lloyds account, and cleared the majority off. now i am in a different job and earn better money, and i can pay off 300 per week meaning im debt free in 5 months, without the interest freeze, i would be worse off now than i was to begin with.

All in all, if you bad with your money, i would advise using this service as its helped me no end. Basically i will be a 25 year old, with a good credit rating, and no debts to pay. I think that this is a good position to be in, and one i would never be in if i didnt join Gregory pennington.

I agree with waht you have said regarding GP or thinkbanking as now known they are a good service. oh and good luck with your new job

Hi all,

We have been with think banking and GP for 6 months, and we think it is great. £12.50 a month have certainly been worth it, we have saved hundreds of fees.

We both work 45 hours a week, and have so much to focus on, I tend to forget when what is going out and what standing order to setup and so on, I love the fact that somebody else is dealing with all that for me, and I always know how much money we can actually spend. The time we have we want to spend with the children, and not writing letters, ringing people, setting up all sorts of payments, I am glad somebody else is doing all the work.

Our debts are being paid off and all interest has been frozen. Finally things seem to be going back to the way they once were, with the financial situation here in the UK being the way it is, and so many people in sooooo much debt, I really think "think banking" and "GP" are a god send to those of us that have once made mistakes, or fallen in, or lost a well paid job.

So to those who would like to get their lives back on track and don't know where to start this is a really great start...

Think banking have never left us with no money and have always rang if something was not quite right. I have never really had trouble ringing them, and when you do it tells you how long your wait time will be, so if it is too long, just hang up and ring back later.......

Maestro card with just the amount of money I can actually spend on it, great.... what more could you want.

Respect to all of you out there who can manage on their own, and have time and patience to deal with it all themselves, we did not have that.

So anybody who needs the help that we are getting.... go for it, there are a lot of grear comments on here, and the only bad one seems to be £12.50.

Well reducing my debt repayments from £600 a month to £220 a month, and my bank charges from £150 a month to £12.50 a month. Look at the money we are actually saving!!!!!! That can't be a bad thing

the cheaper the better:

Yet again you people are wrong!!!!!!!

How do they treat you like a parent?

they do this for a reason and its for YOUR benefit! OMG are you so god damn STUPID!!!!

Sounds like a parent to me!

---

Circumstances alters cases!!

Hi all

I have to agree Think Banking is extremely good for me - I too work long hours and have much better things in my life to focus on than my bank account! As the breadwinner with a disabled husband my salary has to go a long way and for a small fee I can be assured that if I make a mistake with my finances I will not be charged for it!

My previous bank was Barclays - for over 18 years. They would charge me for everything and when I called them would try and sell me something instead of helping me sort out my problem. I find the major banks pretty disgusting really. Barclays have asked me not to close my account but why should I bank with them?? They have even refunded some charges as a measure of goodwill as I was so dissatisfied with their service. I had an account that cost me £8 per month for basically nothing! £12.50 for peace of mind is good value don't you think?

I only changed to Think Banking three months ago so early days yet but so far so good. I really appreciate the text information and the speed at which they transfer excess money over to my card account.

Years ago (about 25) the Nat West had a similar account - a budget account. You had your current account and each month some money moved over into your bills account to cover regular payments.

That's basically the way the Think Banking account works. Can't see any problem with that.

Overall, I would recommend this account to anyone - I have had nothing but respect from the customer service team unlike some of the telephone banking team at Barclays. BTW: I had full banking facilities with Barclays i.e. overdraft, cheque book, connect card etc and do not regret swaping all that for a basic bank account.

i think i put my post wrong think banking ar ok on thereselves its when you have a debt management with them its different i had 6000 debt 3 years ago i coundnt get a iva as it wasnt over 10000 ,anyways three years later they said i would be debt free well three years have gone by and people who have a debt management will no you do not get with your statement who they are paying, a total amount left u owe no thats gregory penningtons little bomb shell as three years later i still owed 5389 pound beleive it or not i got from gregory penningtons with a local county court and now all i pay is 10 per month for two years finished . we all live and learn i supose but i will agree since penningtons went with think the bank got better as they were with the rbs but ask for your total amount often beleive me ive been there thanx jason.

Agreed. I don't know anything about the debt management side but the banking side are still backed by RBS and seem to be in order.

Good luck - so glad you got there in the end.

thanx for the reply tc and keep safe bye bye

jason xx

Think banking is the most Pathetic Bunch of loosers I have ever dealt with BIGGEST Mistake I have made.

At the start they sounded great, never better. My Husband and I over the moon that finally we could open a joint account, the forms came out and all we had to do was produce evidence we were 'ourselfs' so we sent it off, eventually we got a letter back my evidence was not good enough but by this time having been told everything was great we had shut down my husbands bank account and stopped the money going into mine after being told we were all set this was around the middle of april, money went into the account but we could not touch it on the 2nd of may. It is now the 17th of may and the account is useless we have had to send so many documents off its unreal it is now only in my husbands name, eventually we got the card today but the pin is not here we have been without money for so long because of their lies and now today they say we can give them £10 (In a charge, now theres a surprise i thought there was no bank charges) to see if lloyds will let us access our money from their bank, but they say its a £10 gamble.

We will be shutting this account down, its the biggest waste of money. After complaining all they do is shun you off and act like they are god, now heres to you MR manager I told you I'd write about this didnt I hope you spot it! All we did was ask for a little bit of help so our kids could have a proper shopping and all you could say was it was out of your hands, take a gamble just like playing the horses that lloyds will help! No bank charges! Yeah right!

DO NOT TRUST THESE UTTER RATS! THEY MESS WITH YOUR HEAD! And during the fight they told me they aint actually RBS they buy accounts off them so they can use their name to ease peoples worries about banking with them so they are NOT RBS!

Well they will be loosing my husbands account, bunch of FREUDS!

I am sure that most people reading your experience will share your misery with the banking system. However, I did not follow exactly why they could not eventually set up the joint account you requested.

If it were for identification purposes, I must say they are the most stringent financial establishment I have come across recently regarding proof of i.d. and underwriting of new accounts. But then they don't credit check so it must be difficult to establish identity. I work in finance and can only say that fraudulent i.d. is really high in the UK today and the main loss of money to creditors. The knock on effect is that we all pay more to operate our bank accounts.

Think Banking were very clear to me that until my account was complete operative, I should NOT move salary credits or dds over to the new account.

I guess if unsure stay with the banking system you already have in place - even if they do charge you just for breathing!

Good luck.

on the documents first provided to tell us what to send, was a benifits notice, withing 12months, so we sent that off (never returned btw) it turned out it needed to be within 3months (another week added on to the list of waiting) so we sent another off (Which they didnt accept) another week added on even though over the phone they stated it was acceptable. I am a student so as far as bills go everything is in my husbands name eventually had to give up.

When we first went to think banking we told them how quick we needed a change on account as the accounts we have at the moment have went into debt consolodation due to overdraft charges eating nearly every payment i have had into an account for over a year and never getting anywhere they said it would be fine and they could get it up quick etc change everything over if id have stayed with the other bank id have at least had a week by now i had at least some money.

The money manager who is their to advise us is not worth the payments you make for them after making us feel so safe. And they wont even give us a refund for the month.

OOh sounds like verbal promises which were not accurate. Their website is very good at illustrating their strict vetting criteria as are a lot of these comparison sites. Good idea to check it out online first.

You do also need an income yourself so maybe as you are a student that caused some problem or delay. I don't know of any financial establishment that would accept utility bills or benefit notices over three months old. If you need to prove i.d. for a loan or mortgage all evidence has to be current (i.e. within 3 months). But they should have returned your docs. I got my docs back very quickly.

I would again suggest stay with your current bank or try researching on the web before applying again. The Nat West and Norwich and Peterborough do basic bank accounts but again i.d. is very strict and you don't get a decent debit card!!

By the way, the account is definately with the RBS - I have a RBS paying in book and I get RBS bank statements for both accounts. I have recently taken a personal loan and when they set up the dd for me the RBS was listed as paying bank no mention of Think Banking....