Does this sound like an odd phone call from the bank ?

[WHEELYbahhumBUG]

Call at 5.45 asking to speak to DH. He's not here. Caller says he's James from the bank in the town where i live. I ask if I can help as I am the joint account holder (thinking grrrr that he hadn't asked to speak to either of us). So he says he was just ringing to tell us that our joint online savings account now gives us rubbish interest (1st year is good, 2nd year is bad) so we should open another online one and transfer the balance and shut the original.

So, a fairly innocent phone call but why did they really bother to phone ? Could there be something dodgy about it ?

I have a feeling the manager is called James and it certainly could have sounded like him from the very few dealings I've had with him. He didn't say which bank he was from, just 'the bank in the town where I live'. Also, our home branch isn't here on the other side of London.

any thoughts ? Am I just suspicious minded - could the bank really have just been trying to do us a favour ?

Its sounds odd i would say but i cant understand and be suspicious in the not saying the bank name ie to not give out information but also to not get you to suspect.

Why not call them?>

Probably a sales call. I get calls like this from British gas who refuse to speak to me about our account!

Because you call a call centre. I'll see what DH says tonight and call in the morning if he thinks we should check. THey didn't ask for any info or anything so I cna't really see what would be dodgy but it just seemed odd.

But Cornsilk they did talk to me and it wasn't a sales call - thats what I was expecting when they called, that it would be trying to sell us something.

Perhaps tehy just advise us to do it in case we thought the interest was rubbish and moved the account elsewhere ??

The Halifax do similar to this, but we had to go into the branch to open a new account - not do it on the phone.

If my bank ring I always ask if I can call them back & ask for a name.

I once had a security call from my (then) bank & she asked if I could go through security with her. I said no as SHE had called ME & I wasn't prepared to do that could I ring her back. No this is an out-going ine only she said importantly. So I refused she got quite shirty & said it was important to check some facts as there was a suspected breach of security & someone may have got my bank details.

"YES it could be you love " says I

....severe SOH failure so I hung up & rang the bank back. Got a leter of apology but I moved anyway. Twits.

We didn't have to open an account on the phone he just said to open another online savings account (the savings account in question is online which you just open in your internet banking thingy).

I probably should have done that BB, its just that they didn't actually ask me for any info or anything so I can't really see how it could be a dodgy call but I just can't see why they'd do it !

Oh just a sales pitch then probably Wheely don't worry!!

When I worked at a bank they used to make calls at the end of the day when it was quiet. Like bossy says it'll be a sales call. They like to get you in for something so they can do a 'review of your accounts' and try to sell you more products like insurance, mortgages etc

Thanks - it was just a bit of a lame sales pitch I think. I was expecting them to say to go in and then they'd try and sell us more but they didn't. Feel better about it today. Thanks for the replies !