Direct debit not being taken - Santander

adeegan

Morning all,

I have been registered on here for quite some time, and reading away, but this is my first post, and I'm hoping someone can steer me in the right direction. I apologise in advance for the long read.

Around the beginning of November I took out a personal loan with Abbey (Santander), everything was accepted fine and everything set up. I received payment of the loan on 25/11/2009. I also received a letter confirming the payment date as being the 24th of the month. My salary gets paid on the 25th of the month, so I phoned Santander and arrange for the direct debit date to be changed to the 1st of every month. I received confirmation that this had been done in a letter dated 30/11/2009.

When I spoke to them on the phone, I was told that it should take effect before the first payment was due on the 24/12/2009, however, made sure funds were available for the 24/12/2009 just in case it was taken, which it was on the 24/12/2009.

I also made sure that funds were available should they also take the payment on the 1/1/2010 - this did not happen.

Funds were also available for them to take payment on the 24/1/2010 - payment again wasn't taken, so I assumed all was well, and that payments would begin again on the 1/2/2010. Nothing was taken on the 1/2/2010, or the 2nd, or the 3rd, or at time of posting this morning.

I have spoken to my bank, and all is well with the direct debit, I haven't cancelled it, and my bank (First Direct) have done nothing to it.

I spoke to Santander's 'customer service' department, who said there was no reason for the direct debit not to have been taken their end and that they would look into it and rectify the problem, but that it was my issue to make sure the payments were taken on time - even though they have set up the direct debit, and I have done everything in my power to make it possible for payment to be taken.

On their advice, I phoned their collections department and again explained the issue, the lady I spoke to checked the system and spoke to her supervisor and again told me there was no reason that the payment shouldn't have been taken. I explained that I was going to be very angry if this were to have any negative effect on my credit score, particularly as it is very good and I have been working hard for a number of years to ensure it stays that way, and will be looking to apply for mortgages towards the end of the year. She explained that if it did have any effect, Santander would make sure that it was rectified.

My problems are:

1 - What effect does this have on me and my credit score - is this likely to be marked as me missing payments?

2 - If I pay my payment over the phone to their collections department, and then the direct debit is taken in a few days - it is going to be inconvenient for me. I have provisions in place to ensure that if this does happen, there won't be any issues with the funds not being available.

3 - The costs I am going to incur by having to keep contacting them (work away so always using personal mobile), and then in the coming months reviewing my credit score - Is it unreasonable (I know it's probably unrealistic) to expect Santander to reimburse me for this?

4 - What is the best course of action?

I will make a payment on Friday, but it will take time for anything to hit my credit report - Is it best that I get the letter of complaint (already written) sent off, and begin the official process, or wait until I see if there has been any effect on my credit score.

Thanks in advance.

Adam.

hullight

They said they would sort out any problems with your credit score, they should honour this. Abbey (Santander) were quite good when I complained to them about a standing order error.

If you have been keeping aside the loan payments they should have taken there should be no problems once you get the direct debit sorted out. Seems like the problem would have come about when you changed the payment date to the start of the month when it was already the 25th, because they sometimes have to leave so many days (eight I think) before a payment date.

adeegan

I have the money for them to take a couple of payments should they choose to, I'd just much rather they did what they said they were going to do, and me not have the hassle of having to try and sort it out.

I've checked again with my bank, and they have checked their system, no attempt has been made to take the payment, even asked them to check to see if Abbey re-branding as Santander had anything to do with, but no, no attempt to take payment under any name.

They said on the phone that it could take 30 days to change payment date, but I received confirmation it had been done in a letter dated 30/11/2009, so effectively 65+ days ago, so that should no longer be affecting it.

As I say, I will phone them tomorrow and pay 1 months over the phone and see if they have any answers.

I'm just worried about the credit rating side of things, as I don't want the hassle of having to sort it out.

[Deleted User]

I've had nightmare experiences with them on precisely this sort of issue - and it's still not sorted out (it's with the financial ombudsman as we speak, in fact).

adeegan

Deleted_User wrote: »

I've had nightmare experiences with them on precisely this sort of issue - and it's still not sorted out (it's with the financial ombudsman as we speak, in fact).

What have they said / done?

What was your course of action?

[Deleted User]

They just have useless IT systems that don't link between collections and payments, so things get lost and DDs get taken erroneously or not at all. With me, they would phone me up demanding payment, then phone less than a week later demanding more payment because their systems couldn't recognise what payments had been taken and what hadn't.

They also cancelled my DD for no reason.

adeegan

Spoken to them again today, and my account is now in arreaers, so made arrangement to pay over the phone with my maestro.

I think this is going to be an extremely long and drawn out process to get this problem rectified.