Have I been conned by Santander

michaeljake

Had a maturing Bradford Bingley Bond, call in month or so before due. They refused to tranfer to my bank, saying "we are not a bank you know " we dont do that..I asked about a new bond, they told me about the 18 months Abbey Bond and gave me leaflet and said I could withdraw part amounts out when I wanted but would lose 90 days interest on the amount withdrawn. They said Santander had changed the rules about the Maturity date and I could not have the money for my old bond until the day after Maturity (even though I took it out on the former basis). They said if you want a new bond we need 7 to 10 days notice as we have queues waiting. The leaflet seems to say just what I was told. I went to Abbey and took out a bond in between. Then I rang Abbey bond Dept, and they said. Yes you can withdraw any amount as often as you want, but you lose 90 days on the total amount invested, so you can lose all your interest if you withdraw several times. I explained what the leaflet said and they said " The leaflet must be right". I looked on the internet and were the were NO details about withdrawals anywhere to be seen , there now was, and it said the account must be closed if ANY withdrawal is made. So I have a Abbey Bond based on a pack of lies and a false leaflet. I called and withdraw the proceeds of my original B& B Bond today, Had to be a Cheque, 3 counters (2 computers broken) Lady behind me said she had called to her local B & B, yesterday , 10 people outside in queue, and nothing at all working there. Manager said I'm leaving Friday, Santander altering all the rules..eg wont accept debits, wont allow transfers to customers banks, all computers useless, altered what B& B rules were on maturity dates. All done to make extra money.. Are they crooked or what ?

anselld

Don't know about crooked, buy certainly completely incompetent. Take all your money asap and avoid Abbey/B&B/A&L when you reinvest it.

RayWolfe

Incompetent.
Take your money out as quickly as you can, meanwhile show them the T&Cs you signed up to and insist on the terms being met. It won't help but it gives you strong grounds for your subsequent complaint ... which will take around 3-6 months to resolve. You will win and you will be compensated. Just don't expect it to be easy.

ChiefGrasscutter

Now, I'm not sure I'm correct on this but......

Remember that B&B technically went bust and the savers deposits were rescued by the FSCS. Rather that do a 'payout' as per Icesave, this was all done seamlessly from the savers' point of view, over a weekend, in that Santander took over the B&B savings portfolio along with the B&B computer system. In effect savers did not notice that anything had happened/changed.

As B&B was, from a legal point of view, closed by the FSCS....presumably any T&C's you had with B&B are technically speaking null and void..... and Santander can choose whether they wish to honour them/change them/ignore them.

D1zzy

I believe ING maintained the Ts and Cs for Kaupthing Edge - fixed rates & gave savers the option sticking with the Kaupthing Ts & Cs or changing to ING's 6 month bonus offer for the E saver account- but maybe that was just their choice to do that.

RayWolfe

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

As B&B was, from a legal point of view, closed by the FSCS....presumably any T&C's you had with B&B are technically speaking null and void..... and Santander can choose whether they wish to honour them/change them/ignore them.

No, it doesn't work like that. The OP has a contract, Santander took over those contracts.

PBA

While it's quite hard to understand OP's point, I really just can't understand his point. The first half seems to make sense, down to the part where the internet gets involved. There's no access to bonds online, so there's no way that the internet banking could have said anything about this account.

bendix

RayWolfe wrote: »

No, it doesn't work like that. The OP has a contract, Santander took over those contracts.

You're wrong in this case. Santander has no obligation on B&B contracts. It was part of the specific deal that was negotiated at the time of the B&B collapse.

I work for a law firm that worked on the negotiations and documentation.

RayWolfe

That comment seems entirely alien to any notion of reasonable justice. What you are saying means that they could change the T&Cs to anything they want. So a contractual fixed rate may be reduced to zero, for example?
Try getting that through a Court in this country. Think what the Daily Mail would make of it.

EarthBoy

RayWolfe wrote: »

That comment seems entirely alien to any notion of reasonable justice. ....

On the contrary, it seems entirely fair to me. Your bank went bust. Abbey/Santander helped you out by taking over your savings. They were under no legal or moral obligation to do this, so why should they have to honour any conditions agreed to by B&B?

If a bank was bound to honour all pre-existing agreements when they rescued a failed bank, then no bank would ever do it and all the savers would be at risk of losing all their money. I think you will find that most savers would rather keep their money safe than put it at risk.

RayWolfe wrote: »

Try getting that through a Court in this country. Think what the Daily Mail would make of it. ...

The bank rescue arrangements were agreed by parliament, and are now the law of the land, so you're unlikely to get any sympathy from the courts. I very much doubt if the Daily Mail would be interested either. Most of their readers would simply be glad that any money they had with B&B is now safe.

RayWolfe

Interesting points.
I would just hasten to add that it's not me with the problem, I wouldn't touch any of Santander's banks with a barge pole.
(Thought I should mention that before my reputation as a sensible saver on this board gets completely destroyed!)