Trying to close Alliance & Leicester esaver

tawse57

I am trying to get 10K I have in an A&L esaver account closed - 41 mins on phone so far. They keep refusing to do it by forcing me to make a branch appointment to discuss new accounts or they put me on hold and I go back into the queue.

Asked to speak to a manager - have to go back into the queue. It is prooving impossible to get my money out and I am just going round and around in circles on the phone.

Thankfully, I found the 0845 number on the MSE website as opposed to A&L's 5p per minute number. They charge 6p also for dialing a number and sometimes the line goes dead so I have to dial back in.

At this rate my rubbish interest will go in a call to them.

Lousy IMPO.

If anyone can help please let me know as this is very very frustrating. It is as if they will not allow me my money.

freckle

I tried to do the same thing last week with an A&L Online Saver Account. When I phoned to tell them I wanted to close my account they told me that it had been closed last August. I had £70,000 in the account!:eek::eek:

I was told to go into one of their local branches to get this sorted. I decided I wanted no more to do with A&L/Santander and started moving all my money out (£10,000 per day over the next 7 days) into my RBS current account. From there I am setting up a new Egg Savings Account.

I nearly had a heart attack when they told me my account had been closed, and because of that I won't use them again.

I know this doesn't help you, but perhaps you should just move it out via your internet banking account.

tawse57

50 minutes on the phone and the guy I spoke to said that I now have to go into a branch to close the esaver.
Last year they would not talk to me in branches about my esaver.

Sceptic001

I haven't tried it myself, but it has been said on the Budgeting & Bank Accounts forum that these annoying A&L online accounts can be closed via secure message. I have a couple of old online savers myself with £1 balances, so would be interested to know if it works!

freckle

When I phoned them I used their landline number via 18866. Only cost 5p despite the fact they passed me from pillar to post and that I was kept on hold for about half an hour.

Number I used was 01162011000.

philbostavros

Hi Tawse57

If it's any help, I used SAYNOTO0870.com to find this freephone number for A&L: 0800 0566066

I last used it about 3 weeks ago so hopefully, it still works?

My onlinesaver 5 expires on 1st August so I will be following your trail then, I expect.

Good luck.
Phil

roddydogs

I was told the same, I have to go into a branch to close my A & L online saver, you cant just remove all your money via internet as you dont know the interest, However you can take out your original capital if you cant get into a branch quickly. And their internal messaging has not worked for about 2 weeks, for me anyway, so you cant do it that way.. Ridiculous.

MoneySavingNovice

If it was me I would:-

1) Transfer all the money out to another account.

2) Once the balance is nil, write a short and direct letter to their head-office advising then that they have 7 days to close the account and provide you with a cheque for the final interest balance and reply in writing confirming that this has been auctioned.

If they fail to respond in within 14 days (you need to allow then a little extra time to be reasonable) commence a complaint, giving them 7 days to responds, and advise them that at the end of this period if they have resolved this issue you will make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Don’t bother trying to ring then up or see them in their branches, they are utterly useless and will only try and sell you something else!

I know that this my appear extreme, but in my view is the only way to get Santander to actually do anything!

Good luck.

exel1966

MoneySavingNovice wrote: »

If they fail to respond in within 14 days (you need to allow then a little extra time to be reasonable) commence a complaint, giving them 7 days to responds, and advise them that at the end of this period if they have resolved this issue you will make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

A complete waste of time as the FOS will not entertain any complaint which has not followed the correct procedures as set down and regulated by the FSA.

Financial companies have up to 8 weeks (which can be extended with notification) from receipt of complaint to investigate and provide an outcome. Only after that time will the FOS investigate if the outcome was not to an individuals satisfaction.
They will however provide details at any time of who to complain to at said financial institution

tawse57

After 90 minutes on the phone running up charges... thank goodness for the 0845 number on the Say No to 0844 numbers website.

The staff kept disconnecting me, sending me to departments that could not do anything, etc, etc.

Eventually, a guy told me to get into a branch to close it.

Went to the branch and whilst they were very helpful they were in a big mess.

Turns out today was the day that they moved A&L accounts to the Santander DB.

The result, apparently, is that the computers are running super slow, people either cannot log onto to their esaver accounts - as was the case with me - or they were logging in and finding no money in their accounts. Have read some posts online of people discovering that they technically no longer had six-figure sums in their accounts.

It took about an hour for the A&L branch staff to get me my money - the interest for 12 month was a few quid and I probably spent them on the telephone to them. Whilst I was waiting a big queue gathered in the branch of like-minded people unable to get their money. When I told them I wanted to close my account I overheard one staffer say to another "Another one wanting to close an account" so I guess I was not the first today.

The staff were brilliant in the branch but had obviously been let down by their bosses. They asked me if I had received any information about this change and I told them I had not.

They did want to send the money to my nominated bank acount but they simply could not do it so they gave me a cheque.

In a day or two when things calm down I am taking my money out of the other Santander branch I have savings with - the old Bradford & Bingley.

The telephone service was dire - they charge 6p initial charge and then 5p per minute thereafter. Luckily I found the 0845 number after 6 minutes on the phone to them but then had another 90 or so minutes going round and round in circles, being disconnected.

Santander will never have my business again.

hasdogs

1st call gave up after 15 minutes waiting.
2nd call slowly got somewhere and while waiting to be transferred they disconnected after 38 minutes.
3rd call after 80 minutes the end result is :-

I still can't transfer more than £10,000 a day to the nominated account online.

I could possibly have transferred more than £10,000 on the phone without visiting a branch. If I wanted to close it apparently I would have to visit a branch.

I can't actually do either of those because the first £10,000 I transferred yesterday prevents them from making any offline transfer for 7 days.

My welcome letter last year said :-
"Access to your savings at any time with our secure and easy-to-use internet banking"

"Easy access to your money with no notice or penalties for withdrawals"

Absolutely sodding useless. I wonder if it would have been easier a few days ago before the Santander change over.

Most of the afternoon wasted on this and I ended up setting a bunch of online transfers which will drain the account over the next week. Won't be going anywhere near Santander in the future.