A & L migration to Santander

Simongw

From A & L website:
"
To help you, we want to deal with any concerns or suggestions you may have as quickly as possible. So, if there is something we are not doing as well as you would want or expect, please tell us.

• Call into any of our branches
• Phone 0844 561 9790†. We are available Monday to Saturday between 7am and 11pm and Sunday between 8am and 10pm.
• Write to us at Let’s Work it Out, Alliance & Leicester plc, Carlton Park, Narborough, Leicestershire, LE19 0AL

We will aim to sort out your concern immediately. If we can’t, we will aim to sort it out by the end of the next working day."


It took them over a week to reply to my letter (always best to get things in writing I find!). Then you could be waiting 8 weeks for the Ombudsman to get involved. You have to give the bank a chance to resolve the problem first. And if the bank delay replying, they can hope that either you get fed up, go away, or the problem is sorted anyway!
I also wrote to Which? magazine and contacted various media with details- and link to this thread. I have a naive (?) hope that the more people know and the more who walk away from such bad service, the better- in the long run- for all of us. Strength in numbers against large organisations, maybe? But we have to shout to be heard- but if enough of us do so, who knows...maybe things will improve. However, I am all too aware that this does not help in the immediate situation....:cool:

misterfish

Simongw wrote: »

From A & L website:
"
To help you, we want to deal with any concerns or suggestions you may have as quickly as possible. So, if there is something we are not doing as well as you would want or expect, please tell us.

• Call into any of our branches
• Phone 0844 561 9790†. We are available Monday to Saturday between 7am and 11pm and Sunday between 8am and 10pm.
• Write to us at Let’s Work it Out, Alliance & Leicester plc, Carlton Park, Narborough, Leicestershire, LE19 0AL

We will aim to sort out your concern immediately. If we can’t, we will aim to sort it out by the end of the next working day."


It took them over a week to reply to my letter (always best to get things in writing I find!). Then you could be waiting 8 weeks for the Ombudsman to get involved. You have to give the bank a chance to resolve the problem first. And if the bank delay replying, they can hope that either you get fed up, go away, or the problem is sorted anyway!
I also wrote to Which? magazine and contacted various media with details- and link to this thread. I have a naive (?) hope that the more people know and the more who walk away from such bad service, the better- in the long run- for all of us. Strength in numbers against large organisations, maybe? But we have to shout to be heard- but if enough of us do so, who knows...maybe things will improve. However, I am all too aware that this does not help in the immediate situation....:cool:

I'll get something succinct on paper tomorrow (I tend to waffle on if I'm not careful) and then send it by recorded delivery.

Misterfish

DizzleUK

Received our first paper statement from Santander this morning for the joint account. To be fair, I do prefer the layout over A&L's.

Jancee_3

I had another 30 minute call today (mostly hanging on listening to very bad musak) and am told to go into a branch or ring up to carry out any transactions. Like you I have no idea when access will be resumed. Today I was advised to keep checking daily - they don't know when access will be resumed. Only today was I told there was a technical problem. I've asked if I can get a refund for phone calls, car journeys to sort things out and if I go into overdraft but obviously they cannot comment on that.

I work in IT and cannot believe it can take this long to make changes - 3 weeks. I don't envy you if you are in rural Scotland. Branches in Gateshead are available but I just do not have time for this extra hassle. That was why I chose an internet bank!!:mad:

Simongw

What strikes me, especially reading back over this whole thread, is that they seem to be be having the same problems all the time. Why are they not learning as they go along? Yes, they should have foreseen problems; yes, they should/could have done dummy runs/testing...but now it's looking like continuing colossal incompetence.

Botany

molerat wrote: »

This has been mentioned earlier and it seems that the first payment to an account after migration will not go FP, the same as when you first set up a payment.

I also have made a £ 250 transfer which failed to go via Faster payments a few days ago. I thought this was a one-off but I tried another one this morning and the money (another lot of £250) has not arrived (it would have had it been sent FP).

Anyone having the same issue???

PS I detest the new Santander/Alliance-Leicester and I shall be leaving them as soon as my bonus runs out. They are absolutely useless -simple as that.

DizzleUK

Turns out the new girl that started at the place where I work has just come from an A&L call centre, so I'll see what secrets I can get out of her over the coming weeks.

All she has said so far is that since Santander took over a couple of years ago it's all about the hard sell and not about the customer service. She even went as far as saying their position now is that "customer satisfaction" is not important. Getting new customers is, hence the super offers atm. Post credit-crunch, it's all about the profit.

Customers generally still don't like to switch their bank accounts, so everything is all about getting new customers in rather than keeping the ones they have happy as statistically they'll stay put anyway.

Much of this we know already, but it's nice to here it from someone (who was) on the inside.

nameloc2080

I get payments from Amazon via BACS as I sell items on Amazon Marketplace. I updated the sort code held with Amazon to the new code given on internet banking after migration, but Amazon tell me the payment keeps getting sent back to them by the bank. Are we to use the old sort codes or is this a specific problem with my bank account?

Anthony

Cheesedoodles

Just wanted to add my name to the list of affected!

I've been without access for "only" 2 days. I phoned up just now and was told "there is a technical problem with the migration that affected your account, I will flag it now so they will hopefully sort it out quickly. Keep checking it daily".

!!!!!!! How difficult can it be? As someone else mentioned, I too work in IT and when we migrate anything we test, test ,test...then test again...and once we are 150% sure it will work...we test it again! You don't mess around with things like this. I can understand a short period of time where the systems are unavailable but days?? (or weeks as someone else has experienced!).

Last night I applied for a new bank account with The Co-operative. I was approved immediately and the paperwork is on it's way.

A&L/Santander just lost a customer....and will probably loose a few more!

csnann

I requested a Paypal withdrawal to my bank account before I realised that I had been migrated, obviously it used the old sort code and account number and it arrived safely. I don't know if we are meant to go on using the old codes but they still work.