Cahoot

Applied and was accepted for a 2.8% loan however when the letter and code arrived in the post to move the money into my account it said the code was incorrect 3 times and to call them. The phone number given was closed and when I called the following day I was told the loan was locked (abandoned) and I would need to reapply by telephone only after 9am (I work full time) and as the loan was for a car I was purchasing the following weekend (deposit already paid) I now have to (after a 1 hr conversation and hold time) wait for an aggreement to arrive in the post and sign and return it then wait up to 48 hours for the money to clear basically meaning I cannot collect my car this weekend at all. Farcical system when they cannot reset security by phone after I passed all security checks to then cancel an entire approved loan application.
Avoid.

I went through moneysavingexpert and cahoot came up at the top saying that I had a great chance of being accepted for 2.8% loan, based on the information I had given. I applied for the loan and received an offer for 7.9%!! Really my credit rating is excellent so it鈥檚 definitely not based on that!! Needless to say I went elsewhere and was accepted for a Halifax loan 3.5% 10 minutes later with no higher rate than advertised. Feel totally sucked in and even worse, moneysupermarket was also recommending them this evening. I wished I had read reviews here first and I wouldn鈥檛 have bothered wasting my time and now energy at being peeved off with them!! Hopefully this will help someone else make a better decision and look elsewhere for a loan. Will never use this company ever again.

Applied for a 2.8% rate for loan and received an offer letter of 14.9%.

False advertising.

Go elsewhere

I applied for the 2.8% APR loan they advertised on Money Saving Expert and was quite confident I would get this as I have a very good credit rating. A short time after my application I received an acceptance email and was astonished to find out the APR had shot up to 12.9%! Needless to say I cancelled this straightaway. It looks like this has happened to a number of other applicants according to the reviews below. I鈥檓 a bit annoyed as the soft search I did on MSE indicated I鈥檇 get the advertised rate. Unfortunately this will now have left a hard search on file making any subsequent loan applications less likely to succeed. My advice is to look elsewhere before applying via Cahoot

After agreeing a payment holiday, and after me advising them I would pay this months payment next week i writing via their collections email (heard nothing back), Cahoot took double the amount 拢140 form my account without notifying me. Its left me short for food. I am disabled, on their vulnerable list and been suffering Covid. Absolutely appalled. When I called to ask why i was told to organise a refund via my bank. That took 24 hrs. My passwords dfont work everythign done by post takes forever, when i called guy couldnt tell me why they had done it. Poor attitude to customers.

Customer service seems ok when contact them however have had so many issues trying to change simple personal details on account. Still not sorted after months of trying for no fault of my own.

Terrible to deal with. I just to access my account, but the amount of security they use to get into the account is breathtaking compared to other online banks.
They now have a passcode, as well as a password and they can't just reset this over the phone. They have to POST this out to me!
Next job is trying to close the account, looking at the other reviews this won't be easy. But already having a far better banking experience at Halifax.

Misleading advertising 2.8 p.c. APR became 12.9 p.c. when the agreement was sent to me to sign increasing the monthly repayment by 65 pounds. They tried to justify it to me by saying that all sorts of factors affect their assessment of risk. It鈥檚 a small u secured personal loan. I refused it and went to Clydesdale and sorted out a loan for the same initial terms within 30 minutes – no messing around; up front and transparent and they did not behave like SHARKS – avoid Cahoot/Santander at all costs

Seemingly deliberately misleading advertising – suggest 2.8% rate on application, offer a frankly insulting in the current market rate of 8.9% (interestingly the same rate someone else offered below, seems to be standard practice). As an added twist, make the inflated rate hard to spot in the offer so some people get excited and just sign up. Avoid this company

I recently applied for a loan with Cahoot, which is part of Santander group. It was for a significant amount but for me easily affordable. I applied online and expected a response immediately but none came. In fact, it was several minutes before I received an email from them, which bewilderingly amounted to "Computer says no". Now, I know that my credit score is very high and I had previously had a Santander loan, which I had paid off in full with no late or missed payments. Unfortunately, the email gave no clue as to why I had been turned down, making me fret that there was some fraudulent activity on my account. I tried phoning them up the following day but the person I spoke to was no help. Neither could I get any help from a branch. Instead, I had to wait three days for a letter to come through the post, which I had been told would explain everything. In fact, it said nothing useful, and certainly nothing that could not have been said in the original email. It did say that it used three credit reference agencies, two of which I know show me in very good light. It did also say that they used an "internal process" that did not necessarily reflect the credit reference scores. The bottom line is that I still have no idea why they said no but now I no longer care; the day after the initial rejection I applied online with another bank for the same amount of money. This time there was no fuss and I was accepted straight away. The moral – don't waste your time with Cahoot (or any other Santander bank).

This company is a complete farce. They want to close my account and I also want them to close my account but this cannot happen because THEY have blocked my account and THEY cannot unblock my account!

I have just been on the phone for 44 minutes and spoken to three different people all of which did not help at all.

They now want me to post ID to them, its 2020 not 1990. How and why can a bank block an account but be unable to unblock it. The final letter they have sent me says my balance is 拢50 (it isn't it should say -拢50) so they can send me a cheque for this and close the account.

I have tried with them and haven't got anywhere so if they do not close this account I will have to use the Financial Ombudsman Service to do so.

2.8% APR? RUBBISH! THEY ADVERTISE THIS RATE AND THEN OFFER 8.9% APR
THIS IS CLEAR MISREPRESENTATION AND BREAKS ADVERTISING LAWS. THEY ENTRAP THE CUSTOMER INTO GIVING PERSONAL INFORMATION AND THEN COMES THE CON.

SUE ME IF YOU DARE!

Personal loans

Their rates are represented at 2.8% through their partner Santander.

I know this is representative but i wasnt expecting an acceptance email of 19% APR.

protect your credit and ignore their rep rate.

I've banked with Cahoot for 15 years plus. I have never had any problems with their services.

Been with them since they launched. They always honour the original promise to pay the underlying interest rate minus 0.5% (which is of course nothing at the moment), but it's a current account, not a savings account, so that doesn't matter to me.

Never had any problems.

Fantastic bank, who I have banked with for 16 years.
Safe and secure, fantastic customer service.
The only reason people complain is because things don't go their way!.
Great Bank and I wouldn't switch and no I don't work for them either.

I have problems logging in to the website. It continually asks me for the same letters of my password which does not help. When I tried calling today there was an automated message saying they had "technical problems" and that the phone line was not working – try again later. Disgraceful service!

Overall they are OK.

They are a joke and Impossible to deal with.They have changed their security system without telling me and I am now locked out of my account and unable to send or receive secure messages .Their so called customer relations dept says they can;'t help unless I send a secure message via their website -but that's the problem i I can't because they have locked me out ! AAARGH ! Just hope I can retrieve my money somehow -and move to another bank.

It has taken to date over 3 hours to transfer money – dropped calls long delays and then after its done the bank stops the transfer because they forgot to get the CHAPS fee of 拢25 – then spent an hour failing to find a way to
Pay – so we have to start all over again – another hour plus – two other societies did transfers in minutes…….

Utterly incompetent!
After two phone calls to the Cahoot "helpdesk", an eight mile trip and a further face to face discussion with their "partners" who front up Cahoot in the post office, I could not pay in a cheque because nobody had the correct paying in slips.
Having rang Cahoot again, I was told that it could take up to ten days to send me the required paying in slip!
Today I received a letter from "James" (No full name given) who purports to be a Cahoot customer service adviser. The letter had already been opened by somebody, screwed up, then put back in the envelope and officially resealed by the post office in a separate envelope.
The letter stated that they had sent me some envelopes which was not what was previously agreed or requested.
It鈥檚 inconceivable that someone would steal either paying in slips or envelopes assuming that was what was originally sent.
The letter from "James" stated that some envelopes were in the same envelope which they were not.
So obviously some idiot removed them.
There was no mention of the required paying in slip.
No doubt the culprit鈥檚 career will progress well given this attitude.
The letter also stated that if I had any problems, I should contact Cahoot.
No contact details were given.

Terrible experience with their service! Still no resolution. My account is locked, and has been for days now. I go through the same cycle each time – I call up, answer the same questions each time, and am told somebody from the security team will call back – but either they don't or they don't get through because I am currently somewhere with poor mobile reception – they never leave a message, and only try once.

I've asked that they call back at a specified time so I can make sure I go somewhere with reception – they won't do that! Neither will they call on the landline – because it is not 'registered' – well can I register it, they say I can but they will still only call me on the mobile!

When I took issue with the situation their customer service person told me it was my fault because I'd chosen the wrong mobile provider – she then denied she'd said it!! It's the wrong bank that I've chosen.

They have my money, and at this point I'm not sure how I'm going to get it back.

AVOID!!

I have just had the most ridiculous experience with Cahoot. I attempted to book a service online using my Cahoot card for payment. The card was declined and I immediately received a text message from Cahoot asking me to verify some charges on the card. I did not recognize two and answered No.
I received a call from Cahoot and the person I spoke with asked me to go through a security check. I did not pass, although I knew the digits from my pin no I supplied were correct.
After much discussion it was established that the representative from Cahoot was on someone else's account!
After going through more security I was able to verify that two cancelled transactions were correct. I was told I had to go through to another person to unblock my card.
I was put on hold for 12 minutes and then spoke with a lady who took me through security again and told me I should disconnect the call and wait for a call back which I would receive immediately. I did this and did not receive the call!
I called Cahoot once again, went through a security check again, and at that point was told my card was blocked as I had not verified the transactions and a new card would be sent out to me!!
I feel like I am going crazy. Cahoot/Santander are like the gang that couldn't shoot straight. I will be cancelling my Cahoot account.

The most difficult bank to deal with since Santander took them over.
When Abbey owned Cahoot their customer service was excellent, their charges reasonable and their interest rates fair. This has all changed under Santander. They have put up interest rates on my loan to ridiculous levels (currently about 18%!). Their bank charges are ridiculous and they apply them whenever they can.

Web banking?? I am not impressed. I have tried to log in 3 times tonight – twice on my phone and once on a laptop. Each time the security questions have been identical! Can this really be secure?
I tried to phone for support and they're closed at 8pm.

** STAY AWAY IS MY ADVICE **

I opened a current account when Cahoot was Abbey and had no problems. I then took out a loan with Abbey and although it had a marginally higher interest rate than I would have liked it was acceptable. Since Santander have taken Cahoot over their interest rates have soared to a ridiculous level (Cahoot loan pushed up to 20% while BoE Base Rate = 0.25%). I tried to deposit cash into my current account through a branch of Santander and they said they could not do it. They advised me to place the cash into another account and then have it transferred across! How ridiculous! This is just 1 example of bad customer service which generally has been APPALLING! Their processes are riddled with errors. I highlighted an error with their processing of the loan account and they rewarded me by damaging my credit profile beyond recognition, asked for immediate payment of money that they had not been aware was owed to them, failed to correct the fault and asked me to prove how their processes worked/failed. What a bad joke!! I hope you will not be tempted by Santander's slick advertising. Mind you – I guess they have to somehow find the money to pay top sports personnel large advertising fees,

I strongly suggest you AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE.