Under Funding Fee on Current Account after migration from A&L to Santander

Pheobesmove

I joined a+L /santander in feb as part of their £100 cashback for moving your current account.
It all seemed to go very smoothly and I soon got a letter saying that all my direct debits had been transferred over so I should cancel them with my last bank.
Then two months in a row, A+L failed to pay my santander mortgage payment! Despite this, they kept confirming that the DD was set up correctly by them. As they were incapable of arranging a DD to pay themselves, I transferred all my DD back to the original bank and am now furious that thy have charged me a under funding fee as I should be depositing £1000 instead of £500 under Santander rules. I have just transferred all remaining money out of the account and will be closing it by phone next week!

geckofabulous

I'm pretty sure that when I joined up with the premier direct account some two to three years ago, the minimum payment thing was for the first 12 month rewards period, which was stipulated in the t&c's. It looks to me that they've since reneged on this agreement

catz1ct

I have just had a statement through about a £5 underfunding fee, I find this really irritating because my account has always been in credit. I have sent them a secure message so I will see if I get a response. I think I will close my account and go with someone else because I wont be surprised if something else goes wrong.

KeithAV

Hello

I am having a lot of trouble with Santander and their charges:

Last November I decided to transfer to Halifax, who arranged everything for me. They gave me a letter to sign and send to Santander to authorize my closure, but I was late in sending it

I left my Santander account with £1.02, but they swiftly levied a £5 underfunding charge on it and sent back a reply saying they could not close my account because I was £3.98 overdrawn

I reluctantly paid the money into my account on the internet and wrote back telling them to close the account, but I now have a statement saying they will charge another £5 underfunding fee plus £55 unauthorized overdraft charge!

I phoned them, but they were very unhelpful, telling me to get back to the Halifax and reclaim the charges off them

I just want to get out of this stupid bank!

HELP! What can I do? I'm stuck in limbo

God knows how many charges they are going to add next month! They are sucking money out of me for nothing. I could go on like this forever!

pmduk

I think you're better starting a new thread with this. Certainly it's not the Halifax's fault, they've done what was asked of them.

Cloudane

Just been stung by this myself, it was a dormant account and I'd not realised you have to pay £500/month into it. Only when I logged in to check the account still works (was considering an ISA with them) did I find a year's worth of under funding fees and overdraft charges. Ouch.

Lady on the phone was highly defensive and keen to state in no uncertain terms that it's my own darn fault, but did cool it a little when she realised I was genuinely unaware and not trying to bullpoo them. She kindly refunded what the system would apparently allow (£30) as a goodwill gesture at that point.

Still annoyed at the system in general though. I went paperless and wasn't checking it online (she told me off about this early on in the call), so sure I'm not blameless. But was it obvious? I didn't think so, I don't remember seeing anything about a minimum funding amount when I opened the account ~2009, and I usually check any updates in terms and fees if I receive a letter. Maybe because I'm paperless they expect me to read through the Ts Cs and Charges online every day. Or maybe it was right there all along in 3pt smallprint in their basement, in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "beware of the leopard".

So when they did start issuing charges, did they warn me in any way? NO. A&L/Santander don't seem to bother with this, they just quietly sit there racking up the charges. I feel for anyone who has left one of their accounts dormant for years without thinking!

It's also silly that you can do all manner of things with your account at this time except... close it. No, for that you have to call between 9 and 5, fill in a form and probably rack up more charges while they take their time putting it into action.