A & L migration to Santander

Simongw

I moved my bank account from Abbey to Alliance & L'ter a few years ago because of Abbey's dreadful customer service. I now find that with Santander having taken over A & L, their service has also plummeted. The latest is that I have been without internet access to my A & L accounts for 5 days now- because they are having problems "migrating some accounts". I get platitudes and scripted apologies when I telephone- and still no indication of when this will be sorted. I do all my banking on-line...I live in rural Scotland and it's the best way. I shall be moving my account away from Santander as soon as I can. Be warned! All these "come to us goodies" that Santander are offering will seem as nothing if you move to them.

Simon Wheeler

turnberry

I have the same problem, I have been very patient up to now, but after several more phone calls and being passed from pillar to post I too have decided to take my business elsewhere:(

MoneySavingNovice

Hi Simon,

I think that you should express your displeasure by moving banks!

Can I suggest two alternative banks you may wish to move to:-

I had a smile account and found the service to be first class.

I only recently moved to First Direct to take advantage of the free £100 that they were offering, however I have found First Direct to be equally as good from a customer services point of view.

Best of luck!

Simongw

turnberry wrote: »

I have the same problem, I have been very patient up to now, but after several more phone calls and being passed from pillar to post I too have decided to take my business elsewhere:(

Each time I phone (several a day for 5 consecutive days now) I ask how many others are in the same predicament. Answers range from "Oh, just a few" to "Have no idea" to "I can't say".
It appears they have set up a special tranche of "customer service agents" to deal with the likes of us, cos as soon as they suss out what I am calling about I am passed on to another dept.
Not only is the service appalling, they seem to think we're stupid!

sunnyday123_2

I applied for a Santander account the other day, sucked in by their £100 offer and free overdraft. After reading the posts on this forum about them and their atrocious customer service etc I decided that I wanted to cancel my application (which they havent emailed me yet to advise acceptance/rejectance). After having to redial twice because they passed me round from pillar to post I eventually got through to a charming young man who told me that in order to cancel my application I had to go into a branch. I said that I applied online and he said it didnt matter. I said that I could not believe that I had to go to a branch to do it and I should be able to cancel this over the phone with customer services and he said very aggressively "are you calling me a liar?". I was gob smacked and said "I beg your pardon?" and he repeatedly asked me if I was calling him a liar. Unbelievable! When I worked in customer services there was no way we would ever be allowed to speak to a customer/potential customer like that.

It looks like I had a lucky escape - good riddance to them! I have now applied with First Direct and they have been extremely polite, helpful and pleasant on the phone.

turnberry

Simongw wrote: »

Each time I phone (several a day for 5 consecutive days now) I ask how many others are in the same predicament. Answers range from "Oh, just a few" to "Have no idea" to "I can't say".
It appears they have set up a special tranche of "customer service agents" to deal with the likes of us, cos as soon as they suss out what I am calling about I am passed on to another dept.
Not only is the service appalling, they seem to think we're stupid!

I have now been told that my problem is that I have two customer id numbers! When asked how can that be, he could not give me an answer!
but he will pass my problem on to the technical dept to sort out, yeah right:(

Looks like a massive mess-up migrating accounts from A/L to Santander.

Mark

Simongw

...and I've just snail-mailed a letter to the complaints dept. The words "breath" and "don't hold" spring to mind...but time will tell...

chambta

There are good reasons that Abbey and A&L virtually pay people to open accounts.

turnberry

chambta wrote: »

There are good reasons that Abbey and A&L virtually pay people to open accounts.

I didn't open the account because of incentives, I was originally with the National Girobank, which was taken over by A&L

chambta

turnberry wrote: »

I didn't open the account because of incentives, I was originally with the National Girobank, which was taken over by A&L

I'm talking about now.

I'm really looking forwarded to the impending Santander takeover of my employment.

Simongw

Isn't there a saying about something like "beware Greeks bearing gifts"? When I changed from Abbey I chose A & L cos they had a good reputation and were recommended by many such as Which? And things were OK..till Santander came along. At least these days switching is (relatively) straight forward- though maybe too much customer inertia and short-sightedness (apart from those who use this site, of course!) means large institutions such as banks can be complacent: until more of us vote with our feet, so it will remain.