A & L migration to Santander

carnotcycle

Well, I have finally managed to transfer my banking to Halifax - who I have to say were extremely helpful. I even had a contact at my local branch who I could call if there were any hiccups. :beer:

Access to the A&L accounts was never restored, more than 3 months after the initial problem.

A&L / Santander were of course completely obstructive in the whole process, inventing spurious reasons for NOT releasing the list of direct debits and standing orders to the Halifax. So I had to do it all myself, through the medium of frequent visits to my local A&L which was very inconvenient.

Without exception,whenever I visited A&L the only customers there were trying to sort out problems with the transfer to Santander. It was really quite revealing. The staff in the A&L branch were very prrofessional and helpful. Shame they are likley to lose their jobs when 2 of the three Santander-branded branches in the local high street close as they surely will.

I complained to Santander and received various very confused responses culminating in a phone call from someone who claimed to be "Head of Complaints" (I doubt he was, he had no clue). This person promised to write to me but that, of course, never happened, in the best traditions of Santander service. :mad:

I'm just glad it's all resolved. What a shambles it has been.

Newly_retired

I meant to update regarding my previous post. I was locked out of my online account after A & L migrated to Santander. I was told it would take 10 days to receive my new log in details through the post. Fortunately it took less than a week ( a week too long of course, involving various visits to the branch and ATMs to check my balance at a crucial time of the month) and all is well.
In the light of others' experience of Santander though. I may well start to move all my Direct Debits in the new year.

mike_lee77

Hi - Newly Retired. If you think you have problems - read this! Apologies it is a bit long:

To cut a very long story short, I have been locked out of my Santander Premier Direct POA account now for five months. It started when they "attempted" to migrate my A&L account over to the Santander system. Okay - I know I am not the only one affected but every time I ring up, they give me a new solution that does not work. Following over 30+ phone calls and visits to branches, I had enough last Friday and gave them an "official" verbal complaint. I was then told that I could escalate it to their complaints team (which I was never told about) and be assigned a “dedicated” individual to be responsible for my case. I was told that I would receive a call from them the following day - without fail.

Needless to say I did not receive a call all week. This evening I decided to call the complaints team direct. After finally negotiating their automated system which kept rejecting my “option 4”, I finally got through to a member of the complaints team. He then proceeded to take me through security and asked me what was the last transaction on the account. I politely explained that as I had been blocked out of viewing the account on-line for the past five months, it was impossible to answer that question.
He then asked me to give him an example of a direct debit I had set up. Reminding him that I had no access to the account, I found a recent mini-statement I got from the cash dispenser. I quoted the full correct details of a regular S/O I had on the statement but had no details of a D/D. He then told me that as I had answered two questions “incorrectly” they could not help me further and told me I had to visit a branch. Common sense……please…..!

Incidentally, it took a period of seven months to open the account in the first place due to bungling by the A&L local branch. I complained and received a full letter of apology. They offered me £100 for my troubles - I accepted - and it never arrived in my account!
Please, has anyone got any ideas where I can go from here? The Sunday Times was not interested in my letter to them. If I move the account, it will be more hassle as my mother is very poorly in a nursing home and all the DD’s will have to be moved (requiring signatures?). Please help……….How can I get them to react positively?
Anyone who is thinking to move to Santander should think very carefully
Many thanks
Cheers
Mike
p.s if you put Santander into spell checker you get Scamander and Sentence

uberalles

Hello all

I came on this board to search for an email address of Ana Bojan , the Santander CEO, and saw there was a whacking great thread dedicated to Santander.

I have spent all day trying to sort out a problem they created and now am about to switch to the Halifax. They appear to have had a problem with how I spent my money :mad: .

I asked for her email address but they would not give it. Does anybody know it?

Thank you

uberalles

Done a bit more digging and an email address of somebody on the Executive Support Team is Antonio.Osorio@santander.co.uk.

He is due my email and thankfully there is no error report yet

ses6jwg

uberalles wrote: »

Done a bit more digging and an email address of somebody on the Executive Support Team is Antonio.Osorio@santander.co.uk.

He is due my email and thankfully there is no error report yet

Hes gone to LTSB

pawnbroker_2

Yes he has. On the day it was announced Lloyds online network collapsed probably forecasting the service we Lloyds customers are likely to receive.

I can assure them at the first signs of Lloyds being Scamtanderised I will be gone.

It surely poses some very serious questions about Lloyds senior directors that they appoint the Chief Exec of the most incompetent UK bank plus many of his cohorts to run or ruin(?) their business.

BlueC

Just to add my voice to this. Since A&L migrated to Santander they have, without any doubt, been the worst bank I have ever had the "pleasure" of dealing with.

In the latest saga with them they completely blocked me from having access to my own money for over 10 days due to them making a total mess of a fraud flag on my account. Eventually I managed to get it all re-instated but not without a massive amount of hassle that I should never have had to encounter.

I'll be closing my account and moving it elsewhere in January. I don't trust them one bit and am just glad I have another account elsewhere to fall back on when they mess stuff up.

uberalles

ses6jwg wrote: »

Hes gone to LTSB

Thank you.

Back to the drawing board then.

Having said that I assume it is fairly recent and you would imagine his email is being redirected.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

uberalles wrote: »

Thank you.

Back to the drawing board then.

Having said that I assume it is fairly recent and you would imagine his email is being redirected.

You really think they are capable of doing something that complicated?
Damn.
I've got to wipe coffee from my screen now.