A & L migration to Santander

Tiggsok

I have just had what can only be described as dreadful customer service from what now is Santander.

I opened my account with A&L about 3 years ago and was 'upsold' to a Premium 50 account last year, being told that, despite my doubts, that the £10 monthly fee would be outweighed by the interest I would receive. It didn't! I called earlier this year and was told I'd have to wait until the 12 month contract was up and to call again to swap it.

I have now called, but despite speaking to a manager, Santander say that they can't change my account without me contacting ALL of my direct debit originators myself to inform them of the new account number. If I were a new customer, they'd do all that for me.
So which business do they value most? Obviously not customers with established good business, savings accounts and ISAs. :mad:

I shall be taking my accounts and ISAs away from this company - beware!!

Ebeneezer

Like others I have been unable to access our Plusaver Account since the migration some 3 or 4 weeks ago. the two emails I sent were answered eventually with the exact (cut & paste ) reply which basically just said wait until we put it right. Why has this mess up not been on the news? Also I thought that this site was famous for fighting the banks. Where is Working Lunch when you need it! Sorry for the rant.

carnotcycle

As others have said, for me its now 3 weeks since access to on-line banking and a linked account failed, with no restoration in sight. Interestingly, a "spokesman" quoted in the Guardian said that migration had only begun last week which is obviously untrue. I've rung twice, was first told it would be complete within 2 days (that was more than 2 weeks ago) and the following week that it would be complete by the weekend of the 7/8 August. I've also attempted to get updates via electronic messages; the latest electronic message from A&L (basically ungrammatical rubbish) says in effect that "we have no idea when it will be complete".

Anything to do with Santander seems to be a mess. An Abbey account that I manage under PoA for my mother now send me letters to "Mr Attorney" and no matter what I do (call, write, visit branch) it seems that it can't be changed.

From what I read the Santander banking platform was not designed for the British market.

Whilst Abbey have always been the masters of maladministration, experience with A&L had previously been OK, and Bradford and Bingley and Cater Allen (my business account) have - so far - been excellent. I fear for them all.

D&DD

I've been an A&L customer for 43 years and although I wasn't happy when they changed I thought I'd give them a chance.
My account really is only used for my family allowance now and paying in bits and pieces as I can do it at the post office round the corner..

Recently ordered some stationary and today recieved ONE brown paying in envelope in total.
Spent an hour trying to get hold of a real person (after trying for ages to find their phone number from the website)and was told I can't use the post office anymore and to pay it in at a branch using my card as they don't issue paying in books either.

If I have to travel to my nearest town again now to pay in and withdraw I'll be closing my account as my main bank is next door.

blackwid0w

I started working for the Post Office (have since got a proper job working in Railway Construction which is much more fun) about 25 years ago and was rail-roaded into having a Girboank account. It all worked fine, no problems with it. When it transferred over to Alliance & Leicester it was smooth and seamless and no real problems again. Thought it would be the same with the move to Santander and at first I thought it was - direct debits/standing orders seemed to cross over with no issues.

And then I got my first Santander bank statement...
...Eventually!

For some reason known only to themselves Santander have decided to change my home address from 'Flat x' to just 'x'.
'x' is a pizza parlour.
They even added the name of the pizza parlour into my address.

The statement must have arrived at said pizza emporium and someone there scored through the address and wrote 'return to sender' across it. My postman must have noticed this when it was returned to the sorting office as it eventually found its way through my letter box.

Trying to get anyone at Santander customer services to do anything about it was impossible. "We can't change addresses over the phone, you have to call back in working hours..."
Eventually I found the number for the complaints department and braced myself for a good old ranting session. However, a very charming young man changed it all over for me over the phone (outside of office hours) with no bother.
Or so I thought.

Today, 10 days later another statement arrives. Sadly not the next one in the series. That one, along with the one before the original offending statement have either (hopefully) been returned to sender or have been stolen and are in the process of being used to commit ID fraud in my name!

The pizza co's name has been removed from my address but the word 'Flat' has not been returned so my statements are still effectively being sent to the pizza place.
Fan-chuffing-tastic!
I was very specific with the address given to the young man expressing the importance of the word 'Flat' and he led me to believe all would be well.

To add insult to injury, this morning I've logged into my account so that I can express my ire through their secure messaging system and find that I am now being charged to receive weekly statements. This charge was waived about 10 years ago after a minor problem with A&L as a goodwill gesture. And now it's back! I thought all terms and conditions should stay the same. Mind you I also thought my home address should stay the same...

After sending my secure message asking for a human being to call me and assure me everything was going to be sorted out, I thought I'd give them a week-10 days to sort it.
Not after reading these forums I won't be.

I didn't even realise the Post Office facility wasn't available to me anymore until I read it here. I shall be looking into Smile and First Direct this afternoon amongst others. First one to recognise my address is probably going to be the winner...

The building including 2 rows of flats above 1 row of businesses has been around for 30+ years and although Royal Mail and Google know exactly where it is from typing in a postcode, many other businesses don't. I guess there are several databases in existence with varying costs for the information. Santander (and Very - don't get me started on them!) have obviously paid for the cheap, bog-standard, half-assed version. You'd have thought that as they'd taken over A&L, they could at least have used their more comprehensive one.

Butterfliesarepretty

I only found out about the transfer when my statements arrived with santander on the top and each debit or credit showing more details on the statement. I checked my account and it did not recognised my id number which was weird as its never changed, then had to answer my security questions and it went in the account and worked. All my direct debits go out tomorrow so they had better work.

I sent a secure message to them in june asking them to send me a letter of all charges I had got refunded to me and which ones were refused and they still have not replied to me.

Should I change banks? It might be too messy for me, already been with smile, cahoot but never touched any others. I have £550 overdraft with santander charged at £5 a month.

W40K

Tiggsok wrote: »

I have just had what can only be described as dreadful customer service from what now is Santander.

I opened my account with A&L about 3 years ago and was 'upsold' to a Premium 50 account last year, being told that, despite my doubts, that the £10 monthly fee would be outweighed by the interest I would receive. It didn't! I called earlier this year and was told I'd have to wait until the 12 month contract was up and to call again to swap it.

I have now called, but despite speaking to a manager, Santander say that they can't change my account without me contacting ALL of my direct debit originators myself to inform them of the new account number. If I were a new customer, they'd do all that for me.
So which business do they value most? Obviously not customers with established good business, savings accounts and ISAs. :mad:

I shall be taking my accounts and ISAs away from this company - beware!!

Was it an A&L branch you visited or a Santander one? Santander branches are able to downgrade accounts but A&L don't currently have that facility at the moment.

phil3443

I have an A&L Current Account. Here's a good one... I noticed a payment to an MBNA credit card (I don't have an MBNA credit card!) about 2 weeks ago which I did not make. To keep the story short, I've spent in excess of 5 hours on the phone, been promised that it would be refunded twice (it wasn't). It appears the payment was done by their phone staff on behalf of a customer but applied to the wrong account. Before the migration to Santander, I've had no problems with A&L and anything done over the phone was quick and easy. So I've been about £200 down for 2 weeks...

TwistedPsycho

Alliance and Lecester have already had problems accepting my payroll into my A&L account on the new sort codes they have issued.

Thats probably because they did not tell me they were doing that, so I never informed my employer. Cue a stroppy phone call from me.

misterfish

STILL no access to my mother's account.

But on a different tack - the change of account details with Santander. The welcome email says

"I’m delighted to inform you that your personal Alliance & Leicester savings and current accounts have successfully been transferred onto the Santander system.

Please be assured that you do not need to take any specific action as a result of the transfer. You can continue to use your account details, manage your accounts and contact us in the same way as before. And now you can start to enjoy some great new benefits."

Misterfish