MSE News: Santander 'worst bank for customer service'

sixnil

I,ve been without Santander online banking for about twelve weeks now. I;ve rung them numerous times, and their best response was an unexpected curry receipe. I think from someone who hadn't quite got the hang of using a telephone headset.
I'm up to £60 compensation....so far.
I joined Girobank in 1984, anymore of this and I'm taking my massive overdraught elswhere.

baublebag

Quote -

Alliance A&L/Santander now paying interest by delayed cheque
On 2/8/10 my wife and I closed our Online saver 5 as the % rate had dropped and reinvested it in an esaver.
After 2days the capital was reinvested but not the interest.
A&L have since said that Santander no longer transfer interest prefering to send out a cheque.
Today we found out why, my wifes cheque won't be with us until 17th August. My interest has not, as yet been calculated.
A&L/Santander have an interest free loan for 3wks until this cheque clears. Multiply this by it's customer base and you can see how they became such a rich bank.


-- exactly the same happened to me, rather than simply transfer the interest into my new Santander eSaver or even my Santander current account, they sent (after several weeks) a cheque. I had to make a special trip into the branch to pay it back into my Santander account. The cashier looked at it and said 'but it hasn't been signed'. !!!
At first the suggestion was that I, having wasted a trip into town, should at my own expense send it back to Bradford and wait more weeks. When I made clear what I thought about this idea, they got hold of someone from a former Abbey branch to invoke some special procedure. 'It'll be in your account today' they said. A week later I rang 'oh no, it's a cheque, they take four working days to clear'
'But it's a Santander counter cheque, money out of a Santander account going back into a Santander account, that should be as good as cash'
'Nope - four working days'.
A week later - still no money.
They had to invoke some other 'special procedure', I was pleased when a woman from the branch phoned to tell me it would be in my account the next day, but less pleased when she then had the cheek to tell me 'they had calculated this had cost me only about 2p in interest'.
I blew up at this. A simple calculation showed that in fact it had cost me about thirty quid, but it wasn't that I cared about, it's the stress of not knowing where quite large sums of money are from one day to the next that is driving me round the twist.

baublebag

r9rog:

I enjoyed superb service from FD for years (including quite large foreign transfers, very quick and easy mortgages and other grown-up stuff) but it sounds to me as if your affairs are far more complex than mine.

I spoke to them tonight about going back to them (they were really friendly, as always) and they confirmed that all you need to do to avoid the £10 a month charge is to have a savings account, doesn't matter how little is in it.
Personally, I would rather pay a tenner than have the hassle of finding £1500 in cash from under some mattress and going into town to queue in HSBC. I value my time, and when contemplating any moneysaving strategy I try to account for it at a tenner an hour.

FD was designed for personal customers who prefer to bank remotely, originally via the telephone, more recently online.
It was set us specifically as an alternative to in-branch banking and so was never intended to be appropriate for people who need to handle large sums of cash. I rarely handle more than £50 in cash and so cannot personally understand why anyone would walk about the place with £1500 in cash, £2000 in cash, unless they were an antique dealer or a secondhand car dealer or a shopkeeper or some other kind of business person, in which case they are supposed to have a proper business account. And then you will find out about charges and poor interest rates!

Anyway, best of luck, I hope you find an account that suits you.

simplybest

fatboy88 wrote: »

I would never use this bank and i'm not even a customer. They made a mistake and tried to chase me for a DD imdemnity claim. But took them nearly 1 month to get to someone who understood what the problem was.
They still dispute the fact i made now over 60-70 calls and offered me a small amount to cover my call costs but my time isnt payable which i can accept.
So off to the ombudsman i go, rather they get fined and they can give the money to charity. I'm not too fussed about the money rather they insinuate that i'm making all this up but wont put it in a letter and that a lot of their staff wont put a record of the calls on the system if it is a little difficult

Joke really

I hope you are sucessfull with the ombudsman, I have found this organisation to be a complete waste of space with Santander and with other issues I have had including Scottish Widows who said jump to them and the ombudsman said how high.

smartie91

Hi
I have recently switch to Santander for the £100 switch acount what a load of rubbish I have no Direct debit payed no Pin sent out untill i had to reapply again refused a credit card from them allthough I have never been refused credit in my life before ,I got a copy of my credit report, nothing on their to surport there decision, I went into my local branch reapplied again refused once more I am now in the middle of a appeal with them,I was told it would take 72 hours,one week later the local rep cannot even be bothered to ring me, I have now told them to stick there account and will continue with my old bank, I have still asked for the £100 ,all i have done so far is to ruin my credit rating which has taken over 40years to build up.

My advise is to keep well away from Santander

Switching your account is easy , if only


Smartie91

Newly_retired

I was furious when my A & L account finally migrated to Santander and they hadn't given me the information I needed to log in. Pleased to say this has only lasted a week and I am now back online. Meanwhile A & L staff on phone ( complaints team) and in branch were SO helpful and polite - more than can be said for the Santander moron I first spoke to.

Adam_H_2

Hello, here is my horror story on Santander's appalling service. I only wanted to move money from one Santander account to another and this is what happened:

I had an Online Save Issue 5 account with Alliance and Leicester, and after being taken over by Santander was advised to take out an esaver for a better rate. Having applied for the e-saver I was advised to call in at the branch to provide identification, which I did, and was then told to wait two weeks. Two weeks elapsed and I called Santander four times to ask if they had received my identification. Each time I was told that somebody in a different office would follow it up and call me back. Nobody did, and despite two further lengthy phone calls and another trip to the branch, all at my time and cost, nobody could help.
I decided to post more identification, and finally, eight weeks after my initial application, my, I received a letter saying I now had an esaver account open, and should wait 14 days for an internet registration number in the post. Having waited another two weeks nothing arrived, and five more calls and another trip to the branch were wasted before they finally managed to link my new esaver account with my Satander current account. However, despite repeated attempts online and over the phone again, they were unable to link my Online Saver account to my esaver. I was advised to forward the money from the Online Saver into the current account and then into the esaver. Sure enough, I tried, but was told online that they could not do that for the amount I was hoping to move,which was just over £25,000. Again I was advised to visit the branch with identification. On arrival at the branch, I was advised that this was an internet account and it had to be done online! They then put me on a phone to head office, and while in the middle of the branch I was transferred though three departments, then put on hold for 20 minutes, and finally came through to the main switchboard, where the adviser told me to visit the branch. Totally disgusted I demanded to see the branch manager, who finally took me into her office to sort out this out. The money is now in my current account while I try to open a savings account with another bank. However, I have been advised that I must continue to wait while they work out my interest, and that a letter will follow in the post to complete the closure of both the Online Saver and esaver accounts. I shall also be closing my Santander current account and shall also be remortgaging in due course as a result of their appalling customer service.

Adam_H_2

adindas wrote: »

I love Santander because their saving and a/c offer competitive interest rate. So keep happy with that ....

What a joke!

Adam_H_2

Hello, here is my horror story on Santander's appalling service. I only wanted to move money from one Santander account to another and this is what happened:

I had an Online Save Issue 5 account with Alliance and Leicester, and after being taken over by Santander was advised to take out an esaver for a better rate. Having applied for the e-saver I was advised to call in at the branch to provide identification, which I did, and was then told to wait two weeks.
Two weeks elapsed and I called Santander four times to ask if they had received my identification. Each time I was told that somebody in a different office would follow it up and call me back. Nobody did, and despite two further lengthy phone calls and another trip to the branch, all at my time and cost, nobody could help.
I decided to post more identification, and finally, eight weeks after my initial application, my, I received a letter saying I now had an esaver account open, and should wait 14 days for an internet registration number in the post. Having waited another two weeks nothing arrived, and five more calls and another trip to the branch were wasted before they finally managed to link my new esaver account with my Satander current account.
However, despite repeated attempts online and over the phone again, they were unable to link my Online Saver account to my esaver. I was advised to forward the money from the Online Saver into the current account and then into the esaver. Sure enough, I tried, but was told online that they could not do that for the amount I was hoping to move,which was just over £25,000.
Again I was advised to visit the branch with identification. On arrival at the branch, I was advised that this was an internet account and it had to be done online! They then put me on a phone to head office, and while in the middle of the branch I was transferred though three departments, then put on hold for 20 minutes, and finally came through to the main switchboard, where the adviser told me to visit the branch.
Totally disgusted I demanded to see the branch manager, who finally took me into her office to sort out this out. The money is now in my current account while I try to open a savings account with another bank.
However, I have been advised that I must continue to wait while they work out my interest, and that a letter will follow in the post to complete the closure of both the Online Saver and esaver accounts. I am still waiting for the letter.
I shall also be closing my Santander current account and shall also be remortgaging in due course as a result of their appalling customer service.

juno167

I have a Laura Ashley card (managed by Santander), and have paid off the full balance, on time, with a combination of returns to store plus payments.

I was surprised to see that they had charged £27 interest to my account, even though the balance was clear by the due date. I telephoned the helpline to complain about this, and was told that the refund of interest would be made straight away. When I pressed for an explanation, the operator told me that "the system does not recognise returns to store as payments and so interest is charged".

I asked for confirmation that had I not queried it, the charge would have stood, and she replied 'yes that is so'. This is DISGUSTING!! Think of all those people who might not have checked their statements!! Although I got my refund, it still took time to resolve plus an 0871 call for eight minutes. Am now closing the account!