Update! Santander First Home Saver Account: 5% on up to 50k savings (up to 35 only)

beefturnmail

Update on my complaint to Santander following a miscalculation of interest for the second year running:

Was again given the runaround by incompetent staff, despite writing direct to Executive Complaints. Decided enough was enough and fired off another e-mail to the CEO. Result: Interest corrected and full written explanation plus a cheque for £100 compensation on it's way (almost double the underpaid interest).

In addition to the 5% interest I have now earnt £150 in compensation over 2 years from this account.

Santander's business model seems to be offer a terrible service on the cheap in the hope that the majority won't notice mistakes or won't complain and then throw compensation at people who persistently complain through the right channels.

As long as the contiune to do this, I will continue to play their game - they have effectively paid me £100 to calculate the annual interest on this account for them which is fine by me...

rb10

beefturnmail wrote: »

Result: Interest corrected and full written explanation plus a cheque for £100 compensation on it's way

So what was their explanation?

beefturnmail

rb10 wrote: »

So what was their explanation?

Coming in a letter with the cheque apparently. Will post again when I get it

finder

pazza2000 wrote: »

I opened up a Santander current account last week, I was asked if I had £10k+ saving to which I said yes... I provided details of this account and was informed I will be creditted with £100 as per a promotion they are running.

Could you please provide more details as to what the name of that promotion is? any links?

cheers

donkingkong

Has anyone else been asked for £10 to have a breakdown of the interest calculations on this account? Ask for a breakdown just to make sure the correct interest has been paid.

rb10

donkingkong wrote: »

Has anyone else been asked for £10 to have a breakdown of the interest calculations on this account? Ask for a breakdown just to make sure the correct interest has been paid.

Surely it's easier to calculate what you think is due, and compare that with the total that they've paid?

beefturnmail

Yes, I was initially told that I had to pay £10 for an interest breakdown - I had already calculated the interest and knew it was wrong, but Santander didn't initially agree, and I wanted the breakdown to pin down where the error occured. As you can imagine, I was none too impressed when the asked me to pay £10 for this privilige - it was at this point that I took my comlpaint to the CEO

[Deleted User]

I've prepared an excel spreadsheet to calculate the annual interest on a santander first home saver account (assuming you qualified for 5% interest for the entire year). The spreadsheet is found here:

https://rapidshare.com/files/1645721293/BLANK_Annual_Simple_Interest__Calculator_-_Santander_First_Home_Saver_Account.xls) (choose the "free download" option)

Instructions are contained in the purple box at the top of the spreadsheet. Essentially you enter your starting balance and the amounts and dates of each payment into the account. The spreadsheet then calculates the interest owed (giving you the figures both for the full interest and the amount santander would pay you after deducting 20% tax).

I prepared this tool as a check after seeing that someone else got the wrong interest. Luckily Santander calculated my interest correctly.

I suspect the guy who had the wrong interest has done something to break the Santander system (i.e. payments into the account close to month end or month start) - not his fault though! Santander are pretty useless if things go wonky.

Eponym

Thanks! I will definitely use that when the time comes for my interest to be added!

donkingkong

Thanks for the spreadsheet. Plugged my figures in and I've missed out on what appears to be 3 to 4 days interest. Can probably be just put down to something normal.