Santander customer service

instantkitten

as a Santander employee (and customer) I fully understand people's gripes but please spare a thought for employees who have to deal with people shouting abuse at them day in day out - often for the silliest reasons that have nothing to do with any of the main gripes people have on here - at the end of the day staff are people just like you and are only doing their jobs and I for one (as are all of my team) passionate about delivering a great customer service - we don't deserve to be called names and i quote a previous post -

I used to do a lot of business with Abbey National. They were great.

However, times change. They became ‘Abbey’ and things deteriorated somewhat.

They became Santander and… well what on Earth happened? The staff in our local branch all became brain transplant donors overnight.

I asked them for details of their Spanish banking and they could not provide a thing. Brochure: no. Phone number: no. Web reference: no.

Welcome to SANTANDER, one of the world's largest banks... So being large is good?

In short, a disaster on a grand scale surely? -

We are not brain transplant donors - we're just people trying to earn a living while helping customers as best we can

Thank you

instantkitten

and coinceidentally - my assistant manager was called a fat old ugly effing cow by a pregnant junkie because we wouldnt give her boyfriend any money out for not having any identification whatsover - thats the reality of what branch staff put up with constantly so please spare us a though )

juicyjude

Although I am no fan of Santander at all, (had too many concerns and issues) there really is no excuse for sheer rudeness like you state on your post instantkitten.Some people have no manners

adindas

hi instantkitten

I have symphaty, yes indeed we ara human and we have feelings ..
Please do not take it personally as the critiques is not about you, but your institutions ....

ADINDAS

instantkitten wrote: »

and coinceidentally - my assistant manager was called a fat old ugly effing cow by a pregnant junkie because we wouldnt give her boyfriend any money out for not having any identification whatsover - thats the reality of what branch staff put up with constantly so please spare us a though )

muskoka

I recently tried to close my A & L account which had transferred to sandtander and advised at the time I wanted the funds transferred directly to my linked account, which Sandtander advised they had the details of and that they would do this (cleared funds by the way - a substantial sum) . Instead of that happening, they sent me a cheque which took two weeks to arrive.

On a previous occasion back in 2007, they mislaid (I do not jest) over 200K cash. I took an extended lunch to go to branch & they had me sitting there for over two hours!! The staff in-branch couldn't care less & put me in front of a phone.

I'd apologise, but I won't. Santander are the biggest bunch of incompetents I have ever had the misfortune to come across!! I don't care how much interest they offer me, I woulnd't touch them with a bargepole.

LucyTheDwarf

I have never had problems with the staff of Santander - I've never met or spoken to someone who was rude or incompetent, whether they were from the UK or outside of the UK - in fact they have always fallen over themselves to be helpful, which is more than I can say for my two local HSBC branches!

I believe it is the systems, rather than the people, at Santander that are the issue. My online banking for the Santander card has been down for 2 months (worked for the first time in ages last night) - I have spoken to so many people who have assured me it would be up and running again within 2 working days, and I can't believe they were all lying to me.

AnonymousForObviousReason

LucyTheDwarf wrote: »

I believe it is the systems, rather than the people, at Santander that are the issue. My online banking for the Santander card has been down for 2 months (worked for the first time in ages last night) - I have spoken to so many people who have assured me it would be up and running again within 2 working days, and I can't believe they were all lying to me.

People design the systems and I've spoken to some right miserable sods on the phone but am always pleasant, waiting to rant once I've hung up because being rude won't help.

However, If they can't help then they should just admit they've got problems instead of constantly lying.

Happychappy

The staff at the call centre are the most disinterested bunch of half wits I have ever dealt with in banking, they make up their own rules and operating procedures under the banner of "security" I can't do the scouse accent.

I had an internet saver account paying 3.25% which I used for rainy day access, it was open for 12 months and I regularly transferred amounts up to 25k in and out of my linked HSBC account, until I tried to close it? I rang the joke of a help centre to ask the procedure to close the account, I told the person I wanted it transferring into the 3% tracker variable rate bond, I had to apply separately for the bond, they couldnt set one up, so five days later when I had the email from scousebank I accessed my account online to see the bond, but couldn't transfer money into the bond online.

I rang the "service centre" to ask them to transfer the money from my instant access to my bond, nope can't do that, I have to find a branch to do that, Internet banking it say NO, I then asked to close the saver account and transfer the total into my linked HSBC account, Internet banking it say NO, and the reason they couldn't do that was I didn't have a contact telephone number for them to ring me and confirm that's what I wanted to do, and in the interests of "security" I would have to find a branch ? what about all the security question set when I opened the account, nope they need a number ?

What is the point of an internet bank when you have to travel 20 miles to park up, find the branch, wait 30 minutes to speak to someone who says "This doesn't sound right" and rings the service centre to be told that's what there told to do ? I finally got a cheque and took it to my bank and will never darken the doors of the scousebank again.

William_Blessing

The accumulated monthly interest from my two year bond opened on July 6th that should have been paid straight into my current account as I requested has now been credited to my current account.

My thanks to Darren of the Bristol branch of Cantstandher for correcting the problem and if he's reading this, bad luck Somerset didn't win the County cricket Championship.

pauldono

I will not bore people with my woes but will give one saliant fact. I felt that after 20 years with my old bank I wasn't getting a good service so I transferred to Santander seduced by the £100 and account interest.

It was the biggest mistake of life. In the 'seamless' switchover process I have missed direct debits payments, incurred charges, had hostile letters etc. I appreciate mistakes happen but what I can not respect is a very poor customer service system that obliges people to use 0845 numbers, cuts people off, deal with clearly unhappy staff in call centres. Branch staff complain bitterly about their counterparts in thier online service departments so clearly there is a fundamental problem which needs to addressed.

Today I need to get to another branch and once again have things faxed to their centralised team which deals with account transfers. When I got through today after an hours getting cut off, queing etc. the customer services rep said they could not phone me back (they are not allowed), could not guarantee that the fax would not get lost again, could not explain why there have been so many mistakes, would not contact my mortgage lender to explain Sandanders problems etc.

After all of this I will return to my old bank and will never attempt this again. Appalling.