Santander - Bad experience with Tax Statements

Essex123

Just wanted to share my experience on this joke of a bank, and add my warning to keep away from this unprofessional organisation.

For some reason, when they send your annual investment statement they exclude any accounts closed in the year. I had two such ex-Abbey accounts, and I had twice been in branch to request S975 tax statements for the 2009/10 year. Needless to say, neither time the statements were actually sent to me. :mad:

I went in the branch again today, and the first cashier said she could do them manually, but she didn't like doing tax statements, so she called over a colleague who was busy doing nothing at the back. He then sat in her chair and did them. Excellent I thought.

Except I had another 'challenge' for them. I also wanted a S975 tax statement on a closed B&B account. I hadn't requested a statement previously on this account, but thought I'd get it whilst at the branch. With little fuss, one was produced.

Again excellent, until I looked at the date which said it was for the 2008/9 tax year, not 2009/10.

This was very strange, as the account paid no interest in 2008/9 (it was opened Oct 2008, and paid interest once on maturity in Oct 2009. When I examined the statement more closely the amounts were those for 2009/10, just the dates were wrong.

When I questioned this, the cashier said he could only produce a statement for 2008/9 on that account. When I said there should be no interest in that year, he looked blank. He then said the amounts on the 2008/9 statement were actually the amount of interest accured during that year but not actually paid until the 2009/10 year. Which was rubbish because (i) the amounts on the statement corresponded to the full year of interest which was paid in Oct 2009, and (ii) S975 statements are about paid interest, not what has accrued.

The cashier then couldn't explain what was going on, although apparently I should be receiving a S975 statement through the post for 2009/10 on the B&B account soon. I won't hold my breath on that.

Apart from the fact that Santander's systems and staff are equally hopeless, do I need to be unduly concerned that they have produced for me a tax statement for 08/09 showing several hundreds of pound interest which is wrong? Will they also have now sent this bad data to the HMRC?

Again, my advice is avoid this hopeless bank.