A & L migration to Santander

nigrior2

As a newbie to this site, I'm not sure whether it is permitted to post the 2 telephone numbers I have for the head of Complaint Management at Santander. (I suspect one or two of you might like to pass the time of day with him or, at least, make him aware of your existence.) My reading of the rules suggests that it is OK as both are business not personal numbers.

Guidance please from someone with more experience than I about such matters. Or is PM a better route?

Thanks for any advice offered.
nigrior

Paulgonnabedebtfree

nigrior2 wrote: »

As a newbie to this site, I'm not sure whether it is permitted to post the 2 telephone numbers I have for the head of Complaint Management at Santander. (I suspect one or two of you might like to pass the time of day with him or, at least, make him aware of your existence.) My reading of the rules suggests that it is OK as both are business not personal numbers.

Guidance please from someone with more experience than I about such matters. Or is PM a better route?

Thanks for any advice offered.
nigrior

If you are unsure whether you are allowed to post something, I suggest you PM one of the MSE staff. They initiate a lot of threads started by the news items in the right hand panel - so you can find their names easily.

bungalow_bill

:j

Had a letter through the post today apologising for 'blips in the system' and.....confirmation of £100 compensation.

Since I've had nor replies via my account messages I've sent, I presume this is from the e-mail complaint I sent through the watchdog link.

£100 actually arrived in account 3 days ago...unless of course there's another one on its way. Now that would be a nice error to make :cool:

soozonholiday

Spent another hour on the phone tonight - had to steel myself to make the call in response to 8 secure message replies received after the 25 or so I sent. Interesting they nearly all gave conflicting advice by giving me different tel nos and departments to call but insisted I would be helped if I called. Guess what? No such luck and I was told after being transferred to several departments that I would have to get back on the "go to branch, they'll help you" madness. I said that's funny they tell me they cannot deal with internet accounts blah blah...

Could hardly muster the energy to meet their stubborn refusal to help but did try. Eventually gave up.

Googled a bit and read the recent posts so thanks to everyone who made suggestions. I have now emailed the following so we'll see what happens:

watchdog@santander.co.uk
Antonio.Osorio@santander.co.uk
alison.brittain@santander.co.uk

If I get a response I will post results. If no response then I may well file a claim in the small claims court and be done with it. Banking Code states fair treatment and reasonable access to your money. Anyone would think I owed them money. Having said that I'm sure I would hear from them promptly!

Yesterday I received a cash card (no pin) for my new eSaver from Santander but have no access to the online account as they have bunged it onto my A&L online accounts and blocked it as well. Lady tonight said I shouldn't be accessing it from A&L (thought they were one company now) - I replied "Well I never, really?! Shame they haven't sent me any Santander login details then! I know, I'll send them a cheque and then without online access or a pin I'll just let Santander keep it!"

Rant over!

RumPunch_2

Right, here we go again.

Went to branch to get a list of DDs and SOs with originator's reference to send to First Direct.

Got home and telephoned First Direct, the list that I have has Originator's Reference but not OIN - Originator's Identification Number! So no use to First Direct at all! I wonder how many times they have pulled that trick?

This next bit is the best bit..... when your new bank actually gets a list of DDs with OIN - Originator's Identification Number they set up DDs to leave your new account and A & L/Santander are supposed to cancel DDs leaving your A & L/Santander account. You don't need me to write what is often happening do you?

So be wary when switching bank accounts away from our dear friends, don't leave them to cancel DDs and SOs because they are not doing it!

I will visit the branch again tomorrow, they close at 4:30pm, and get DD list with OIN - Originator's Identification Number as this will probably still be the quickest way of getting them switched. If First Direct have them tomorrow (secure email message or fax) then we should have a transfer date of Thursday 14th October.

Apparently we are unlucky, most transfers haven't been taking this long...

Then again, we've got 7 ISAs now so perhaps we're luck after all!

Cheesedoodles

Well......I haven't been so lucky as others.

It's been 3 months now without ANY access to my account.

After my first complaint they said they would credit my account £30 within 7 days...I never got that money.
After my second complaint, they referred to the 1st complaint telling me they don't know when my problem will be fixed
I then complained to the bbc watchdog address...And got a letter two days ago telling me they were sorry about the problems and that they can now CONFIRM that they have fixed the problems...They also appologized for not crediting the first £30. So they would now credit my account £40. This was Santander's finaly response and If I was not happy I had to go to the Financial Ombudsman.

Guess what?? I STILL DON'T have access to my accounts. So their letter CONFIRMING it has been fixed was all lies. Did they not check that it worked before sending me this??

Anyway, I've already complained to the FOS and received a letter today asking me to send them the final response from santander and they will deal with it.

I am now ceasing ALL communication with these idiots.....

soozonholiday

I received a phone call yesterday following my emails and my problem should be sorted within next 24 hours. I am holding my breath, literally!!

This morning I logged into my Lloyds account and was offered an online incentive savings account 2.78% aer interest paid monthly unless I withdraw in that month in which case it is zero interest for that particular month. I opened whilst logged into my account and it took 10 seconds. Made my first deposit which took 3 seconds and it was instant with both the deposit showing on my savings and the debit on my current account. Now that's what I call internet banking!!

I will post further A&L updates later but have to admit I am afraid if I talk about it nothing will change and I will want to cry......

RumPunch_2

Went back to Scamtander today to get the illusive OIN - Originator's Identification Numbers.

The lady at the branch said she didn't think she could do it but would try. She played with her computer for a bit and printed off a list of DDs but still no Originator's Identification Numbers, the computer at the branch wasn't able to do it, although A & L are now part of Santander, the computer systems are not completely synchronised still.

She asked which account I was switching the DDs to and I told her First Direct, she then said they were being difficult because they shouldn't need them. It is possible she is wrong, but, based on recent experience I know who I think is being difficult (or in today's case incompetent).

Anyway, despite First Direct trying valiantly to get the information I've had enough of waiting and have cancelled all the DDs on A & L. I rang each company and explained that we had changed bank accounts and they were all able to ammend their details instantly, with the exception of one company. It took less than an hour to phone them all and the job is done now. Wish I had done it sooner, it was really very painless.

The one DD that caused a problem was the DD for the Santander Credit Card, I (obviously) had to work my way through their automated system, then got a terrible line, then got cut off. I decided it would just be easier to set up a standing order as we will be closing the account in December when the 0% rate expires.

One more Santander glitch to report... whilst sorting out the Santander Card DD I noticed that my name on the September and October Statements has changed. Same problem as with the bank account, christian name spelt wrong and surname changed back to maiden name. As usual, depsite this being their error, they can't change it and I will need to go into the branch. I politely explained that I had wasted a lot of my time sorting out Santander mistakes and therefore would write and complain. Maybe a bit more compensation from them yet before we leave.... not long now!

fluffig

Today, 11 weeks since I lost online access to a current account, I can now access it again :T

This is after 3 final resolution letters (none of them had resolved it) and the 8 week formal complaint period expiring earlier this week and me thinking I'd ring them one more time. I got put through to a chap in A&L e-commerce and he confirmed my name was still different on both of my profiles. They had told me that on 03 August and told me it would be corrected within 48 hours then :mad:

Anyway, he corrected it, the system updated overnight, but nothing had changed So I rang back yesterday, got put through to same chap in A&L e-commerce department and asked him to check for mis-matches in the rest of my data. He said the first line of my address was different in my 2 profiles. So I got him to correct that and today that account that has been showing as unavailable since I was "successfully migrated to Santander" is available again.

Any of you still with unavailable on the screen, if you haven't gone through the rigmarole of them checking if your profiles match, it might just be worth you asking about that.

Oh - and a new ISA has appeared on the screen ?!?! I really don't think it's ours. I need to contact them about that now ...

jxp

I just looked at my September statement for my A&L Premier Direct account and found I had a £5 charge for underfunding. Requirements are to fund at £500 per month and I had done this. Called Customer Service and evidently this was a mistake caused by the transition to Santander and they promised to refund. Don't suppose they would have refunded unless I noticed it. I wonder how many have suffered the same and not noticed.