Charities Aid Foundation Avaliações 152

Opened an account, put a substantial sum of money in as a long term plan, and had it invested, all as part of a long term giving plan, expecting growth to have a reasonable impact on offsetting investment fees and inflation, but totally accepting the investment risk. They then decide to increase fees x4! My only options are to accept the increased fees, which are unlikely to ever be offset by growth, or transfer to a non invested cash account with no fees but also therefore no growth, and also no interest. I was forced to take the painful decision to go for a no fees account but also no investment, no interest, no growth. Absolutely not what I signed up for and not a credible long term plan. But once they have your cash you can never get it back, while they can change the terms as they wish, and you can do nothing about it. Avoid them at all costs!

I hate this bank so much and can not wait to complete our switch to another. Nearly everything has to be done by post requiring users to download print and fill out of forms all the time, even the most simplest of things like an address update requires posting forms. Their phone service takes ages, we're constantly asked for different passwords, and the sheer number of passwords and codes we have to have to access different aspects of our account (even when we're logged in!) is ridiculous. It's impossible for one person to remember all of these, so we have to write them all down which isn't secure at all. And if you every want to change one, guess what?... Yep download, print and fill out a form and post it.

In a permanent employment as Hal Manager for a Church - Charity Centre since last April. While receiving payslip notification from Sage on my payday (21st/ month) funds reach my account on or after 17:30. Today, no funds yet!! Most direct debits and standing order ate set for the 22nd / usually claimed after midnight of 21 and now feeling frustrated. Having read a review of a youth worker stating that missed payroll needed be chased for days- distressful. Usually, payroll is payable a bit later after midnight on the payday.I have not seen something like this before. COULD YOU PLEASE ADVISE? Missed direct debits and standing orders occur costs, let alone credit or other complications.

I look after the membership and donations a small charity. We moved to CAF bank and CAF online as a way of collecting donations by direct debit and claiming gift aid.This was supposed to make things easier.

However, it is a nightmare. There are at least 4, possibly 5 different reporting systems for all donors. All of them doing slightly different things, and all providing crossover, or not. So you have no reliable way of knowing who has paid what and when.

I frankly don't need to konw if people pay using the embedded widget or directly on the CAF website and to have different reporting systems for this is an irrelevance. This information is provided in the reports anyway.

I also don't care or know if they paid via CAF bank or another bank so have no need to have a separate reporting system for this when it's all in the spreadsheet anyway.

All of this I could overlook if I could at least use the search function properly. There is a search box for donations, and in theory you just pop in the reference you get sent in an email. Except it only works if you go to the advanced search. Oh and of course, there is more than one reference number. Because...well who knows?!

What is most annoying though is that despite the awful revues on Trustpilot, despite begging them to simplify the system or at least repair the bugs, they have no interest in doing so.

As soon as we can find a way to collect direct debits and gift aid from another provider we will be moving to them.

If there was a zero option, I'd choose it. You'd be better off banking with a Russian bank, because frankly, this bank is so incompetent your charity's assets might as well be frozen. Twice we've agreed urgent action, sent in the paperwork, twice, the people on the receiving end have done nothing different to any other request. And then you call up to find out how they're doing, and even then, despite their monumental cock-ups, they still can't guarantee to prioritise the work.
And don't get me started on the online banking app, which is so OTT on its security, sending 6 and 7 digits to your phone for Every. Single. Transaction. then ask you to confirm, twice, that in the end, you're paying no attention whatsoever to the payments you're authorising, you're so cheesed off and preoccupied with keying in numbers correctly.
Choose ANY other bank.

AVOID
After banking with CAF as a Trustee for many years my account is finally closed and it is such a relief. I fail to see how they are still in business. Every request either got lost or took six weeks for them to come back to me with a reason as to why it couldn't be actioned. Online banking was very difficult to use. Contacting customer service meant a wait of over half an hour to talk to someone who then couldn't help. This bank is stuck in the dark ages. I moved to the Co-op Bank, it has been a breath of fresh air.

We recently opened a CAF account for our charity.
Thanks to their incompetence, we have already lost one valuable donor. Using their own CAF donation link which is connected to a charity account which they run, CAF managed to lose the donation! More broadly, I'm really disappointed with the quality of the general offering - especially digital which feels antiquated. Online banking is cumbersome, the navigation is poor, their own products feel disjointed (CAF banking and CAF donate for example act like separate companies), they lack basic integrations (i.e. Mailchimp), there is no app, it's hit and miss as to whether the log-in code will arrive on your mobile, it takes ages to run what should be a simple donor report, fees are high and interest is low...I could go on. Sooner or later (hopefully sooner), I think another charity bank will sweep up the non-profit sector in the UK, not before time. They are riding on a past reputation that they no longer deserve.

Dreadful service whether donor or trustee. As a donor, CAF, unlike other providers, describes all donations as "charity donation" with out charity name so have constant battle working out what it what and whether any are frauds (3rd time this year today). Made even worse by CAF classifying me as a money launderer last year because I made small annual donations to local homeless charity (as a trustee I know all about the need to "know your donor" but CAF applies it aggressively to trivial amounts where no likelihood of risk). As a trustee of a charity which banks with CAF, on-line banking is dreadfully cumbersome every time I log on (again today), monthly fees are high, and interest on cash balances woefully low. But no real competition to CAF so it gets away with it!

My husband died recently. I was a signatory to the account. When told of my husband’s death the account was frozen and funds transferred to an account they administer as my husband had not left a letter of his wishes. Very distressing

I work for a church as a youth worker. The church use CAF bank to do my payroll. I have never had such a shocking lack of consistency in the day i get payed. They regularly miss payments, which have to be chased up. Also unlike other bank they wait to the last minute of the banking day for it to be transferred. This means that if it doesn't get transferred i have to wait days to get it sorted.

Very disappointing. I wanted to donate monthly to a charity and used Payroll Giving through CAF. I discovered that the charity wasn’t receiving monthly donations but at random intervals.

CAF provide no annual statement, which would have highlighted they deduct a fee of 4%.

The practises of this organisation need investigating. At best they’re failing to follow clients instructions, at worst they’re operating fraudulently.

Shockingly poor customer service. Multiple letters sent to them 'get lost'. Long waits for replacement debit cards, and these sent to wrong address. Only place to pay in cash is HSBC branches which are becoming more and more scarce. No faster payments like other banks - BACS transactions still taking overnight to reach the recipient account.

Good experience - efficient way to manage my charitable giving.
I used to do charitable giving through work payroll. A few years ago, I switched to CAF to give me better control and flexibility with my donations, and taking the admin burden off my employer's finance administrator.
I am pleased with the service. For topping up my CAF account, this is easily done by direct-debit or one off top-ups from bank account. For donations, it is easy to find a vast number of charities in the CAF list and set up (or cancel) regular payments or make one-off payments.
On the occasion that I have had questions - CAF has responded faster than their auto-reply email suggests.
I am happy with CAF and will continue to use it.

Fraudulent approach... please don’t donate... they don’t pass your donations on... they use excuses to keep them....!!
Update: I have been in touch, you are not responding adequately.....

Seem to be fraudulent in their approach... have kept donors money, not passed on and now not communicating properly. Shocking. Using excuse of we need to do due diligence before we can pass the money on. Queries answered months ago by ourselves... & we are also a registered charity..... what other checks do you need?????????

Hallelujah. I thought it was just me. CAF are beyond hopeless. We have just had a donor try to transfer a large amount of money from Barclays. Despite confirming our account number and sort code, Barclays refused to make the transfer because they could not verify the account with CAF. I even offered to send Barclays a copy of our CAF statement showing the account details. It appears the problem is not with Barclays the problem is with CAF. Exactly the same thing happened a couple of weeks ago trying to transfer money to CAF from Starling bank. This is not the first time we've had trouble with CAF, the staff are rude and when we wrote a formal complaint, we received a letter refusing to accept any of our points and, quite frankly, was insulting to an organisation that has more than £300,000 sat in an account. Take my advice, Do Not, open a bank account with these Muppets. they are stuck in the dark ages.

An absolutely shocking customer experience, whatever the task in hand. From a clunky and slow online banking system or extremely slow process for paperwork (eg 6 weeks to get a card for a new colleague) through to errors (card linked to incorrect account despite double checking) and absolute unclarity/constantly changing rules regarding how we can use our cards. CAF seems to do everything they can to make our simple banking process harder, which is doubly hard as many charities will be using volunteers to be doing this work. Particularly frustrating is the rude and patronising phone service, and an inability to escalate a problem or make a complaint.

One of the worst sites to navigate. Constantly logging you out. Continuously freezes when trying to update a campaign. Getting through to support takes ages.

In principle a wonderful way of giving. However, the organisation of CAF Trusts for larger donors is inefficient and badly run. A combination of high charges and very limited investment choices (unless you pay even more exorbitant charges) leaves little room to grow the money you have given for the benefit of the ultimate charitable beneficiaries.