A & L migration to Santander

Dagobert

Payments from my A&L account, which had previously gone out via FP up to £250 are now being sent by BACS.

Is this happening to anyone else?

robbie1spook

Paulgonnabedebtfree wrote: »

Although I have/had a number of gripes with Santander - some of them about gross incompetence, something I will say is that I've never yet experienced rudeness from a member of their staff either on the phone or face to face. In fact, occasionally I've felt so wound up with them that they might have been justified in being rude to me, but they haven't been.

I too have had dealings on the phone with Santander having been annoyed at the long time they take to reply via a bank account to a a simple query i.e. the one where they suddenly decided to take £5 on a given date or tried to from me. Anyway I did get refunded right away on my account while on the phone. Good I thought until they put anther one to take the next month for a reason that didnt make sense so I got that taken off too. Now realise what they really decided to take it for was because I had not due to savings interest being lower each month not put in the right lower lower limit that particular month, they therefore gave me the wrong info. it was a mistake due to an overdraft facility system they are using now I told them I dont want that facility never asked for it in the first place never used it and to never charge me again, so far they have not and wont or as I told them Ill change banks they didnt like that and seem to be towing the line never had any problem when it was A & L and told them that too. Think all these complaints may hopefully not happen anymore. Changover was a shambles too didnt even say on the site that it was happening so thought my machine was going wrong! Luckily I didnt need to transfer money to or from the account.

msgnomey

we are in the process of switching from Santander (A&L) to First Direct, so far everything has gone very smoothly, fingers cross xxx

skaps

robbie1spook wrote: »

I too have had dealings on the phone with Santander having been annoyed at the long time they take to reply via a bank account to a a simple query i.e. the one where they suddenly decided to take £5 on a given date or tried to from me. Anyway I did get refunded right away on my account while on the phone. Good I thought until they put anther one to take the next month for a reason that didnt make sense so I got that taken off too. Now realise what they really decided to take it for was because I had not due to savings interest being lower each month not put in the right lower lower limit that particular month, they therefore gave me the wrong info. it was a mistake due to an overdraft facility system they are using now I told them I dont want that facility never asked for it in the first place never used it and to never charge me again, so far they have not and wont or as I told them Ill change banks they didnt like that and seem to be towing the line never had any problem when it was A & L and told them that too. Think all these complaints may hopefully not happen anymore. Changover was a shambles too didnt even say on the site that it was happening so thought my machine was going wrong! Luckily I didnt need to transfer money to or from the account.

Are you referring to the daily overdraft charge?

thekernowman

My wife and I have had accounts with Abbey and A&L for many years. All accounts now with Santander.

My wife is disabled and I hold Power of Attorney for her.

This causes no end of problems. Every time the end of the term for an account comes (annually!) the Power of Attorney has to be renewed for that account. As we deal with our accounts by internet my wife also has to have her renewal applications witnessed each time by a doctor/teacher ect. before the account can be renewed.

So, we have to go through this nonsense every time we change our ISA's each year, and each savings account. It takes months sometimes trying to get the paperwork sorted out.

I have to wonder if all these difficulties are put there to make us delay making the change, or just to give up and keep the old rate!!

We had a letter in June informing us that the wife's ISA Issue 5 must be transferred by 31st August or lose the bonus rate. First it has taken months to open another ISA Issue 6 and now the ISA Issue 5 is shown as "Unavailable".

Telephoning and writing are pretty useless.

Surely once the power of Attorney has been registered with Santander that should be it and the same with my wife's identity.

Visiting the local office is very difficult for health reasons.

Sorry for "going on a bit" but surely things should not be so difficult. Can it all be down to the incompetence shown by Santander?

Noel

misterfish

thekernowman wrote: »

Surely once the power of Attorney has been registered with Santander that should be it and the same with my wife's identity.

Has your Power of Attorney been registered with the Court of Protection?

In my mother's case when her memory problems caused her difficulties I registered the Enduring Power of Attorney with the court of protection and from that time onwards I can manage my mother's accounts with no input necessary from her (or even possible due to her dementia).

So far once the power of attorney was registered with the financial institiution then then there are no problems.

Except, (and you know what I'm going to say), with Santander. One of my mother's bonds matured and the proceeds were paid into her A & L current account. I wanted to put this in a fixed term account and arranged to visit the local A & L branch. The person we had an appointment with decided to take a long lunch and after a while were told that we could see somebody else. Handed over all the paperwork for them to check and was told that they needed more evidence of my mother's location - the local authority bill detailing her and her specialist care home fees was 'not acceptible'. They wanted me to get a letter to say that she was a resident at the care home for which I had the bill. I was not impressed, especially as the funds were already in her current account. The treatment we got was both rude and unhelpful. We left the A & L branch and visited Halifax and Barclays who both set up accounts with no hassle at all. Suffice it to say that all the funds from the bond were moved out of A & L.

At the time I was extremely annoyed and intended writing a letter of complaint but never actually got around to it. I wish I had now.

Misterfish

ynwa

Still no idea what bank name, address and sort code to use on a direct debit application. Can't get an answer from A&L/Santander either.

All the literature regarding the migration has basically said 'do and change nothing', but my sort code has changed. I imagine the old one will still be in use, but I'm not sure what to do for best, especially regarding the bank address. As its an internet account I don't have a branch address as such.

Does it even matter or does all the information have to 'tie in' with the sort code? :undecided

thekernowman

Hi Misterfish,
The Power of Attorney was granted prior to 01/10/2007 so does not have to be registered with Public Guardian until she becomes mentally incapable of understanding her affairs. She lives at home, hopfully for a lot longer, and her dementia is at the early stage.
Is your Attorney the old or the new type. If we decided to register do you know if we would then have to draw up the new very expensive solicitor written one, or could we stick with what we have.
As far as Santander are concerned it should make no difference.
Our main banking is done with Barclays and they only required that we registered once and sent a letter to both of us explaing that I had full control. Unfortunately, their ISA's don't take on previous years savings so not much use to us.

slugger09

My and my OH both have accounts with alliance and leicester, when I transfer money to her it was instant, now it takes 3 days. Anyone else notice this

MORE_DASH_THAN_CASH

Why does none of this surprise me at all? I spent 20 minutes in queue at one of 3 city centre Santander branches today, There were never less than 10 people in queue plus kids, partners etc and the place was in chaos. The staff openly admitted that they had had little or no training on the new branch systems and that all the old A&L account numbers needed amending manually to access any information on Santanders' Partenon sytem. It took 27 minutes for a procession of staff to close a bond account down and try to print off a cheque with my money so I could invest somewhere with a semblance of customer service. The cashier suggested I came back in a hour when they had worked out how to do it! Add to this the fact that I was never informed the bond had matured in early July in the first place and you can see I am very unimpressed with the standard of service a once good bank now gives since the SANTANDER bods took over.
I tried to transfer the funds on line and you can't do it, neither can you open a Santander ISA using the funds because guess what.. they can't do that yet although they claim to have a fully integrated system.
I couldn't care less what interest rates theses jokers give as the level of service is atrocious. Unfortunately I have a business account, current account and mortgage and a four year bond with them so God help me! I will be moving everything I can as soon as I can, however I may need to set aside a whole week to do it if today's experience is anything to go by!:(