MSE News: Santander 'worst bank for customer service'

[Deleted User]

020 8181 0000 in case someone else has problems

beefinbed

I moved over for the £100 transfer service. Nothing but problems..... they said that all direct debits are comin out of the santander ac and gave the dates that this would happen, however the direct debit came out of my old account (there wasn't enough money in the account so i got charged £8 because of it - i know its only £8 but still!!) Rather annoyed!!! And i asked for internet banking when i opened the account but i am still waiting for the information (its been a month), so i rang up and said and they said that i havent opted for it - even though i have the paperwork saying that i am set up for it!!

Consumer40

Not a surprise to readers of this forum but Santander have managed to come bottom of yet another customer satisfaction survey:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/dec/04/santander-customers-least-satisfied

This time it's the respected JDPower survey. As usual First Direct and the CO-OP come out on top.

adindas

I am banking with most of UK high street bank as well as Building Society.

I have no wonder if Santader come on the bottom. The only reason why I staying there because their product is very competitive and hard to beat. So I am taking advantage of high Interest rate.

ADINDAS

GenesisDevice

Hello

I often read forums with great interest - in partiular forums that are about poor service and in particular - poor service from banks - and in particular - Santander.

It is i agree - very annoying to receive a level of service that seems to differ from what you would expect after watching the tv adverts etc.

Santander is a massive organisation - and it's true - sometimes things go wrong.

I know how hard the people at the bank are working to look after their customers - and as with all service providors - despite this mistakes can and do happen.

I also know just how much the staff want help when things have gone wrong.

How do i know this ?

Because i work there.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

GenesisDevice wrote: »

Hello

I often read forums with great interest - in partiular forums that are about poor service and in particular - poor service from banks - and in particular - Santander.

It is i agree - very annoying to receive a level of service that seems to differ from what you would expect after watching the tv adverts etc.

Santander is a massive organisation - and it's true - sometimes things go wrong.

I know how hard the people at the bank are working to look after their customers - and as with all service providors - despite this mistakes can and do happen.

I also know just how much the staff want help when things have gone wrong.

How do i know this ?

Because i work there.

It's not the staff who are the problem.
It's the appalling, inefficient system under which they must work.
There is only one reason that I still do any business with this bank. It's because they make it very easy for me to deposit cash and cheques into my small business account.
Although these are only accepted via ATM, this is easy for me as I live a few minutes walk away from a branch. So cash and cheque deposits 24/7.
Incoming BACS payments are a different matter. After writing to quite a few of my customers, Santander decided that they didn't want to show the references that I supply to the customer. This meant that I had to guess who had paid - usually possible due to the size of my business, but not always.
Result?: The BACS payments now go to the Co-op bank. Santander receive hundreds of pounds less each month to play with on the money markets. No problem for them because, as you say, they are a massive organisation.
What I am referring to is not a small problem, something that went wrong. It is a basic systemic failure about which I made a formal complaint (it was the only way to get a meaningful response from someone who understood the problem). The staff aren't at fault. It's the dozy pill***s who think it's OK for a business to not know which customer has paid. I even asked Santander if I should pay theirt credit card (by BACS) just using my surname rather than the 16 digit number as the reference.
Santander did say that they were aware of the problem but that it isn't priority. They "may" put it right one day. Yeah right, and let me chase my tail finding out which customer has paid me in the meantime.
I felt so angry about it, I even wrote to them asking if they were going to provide a proper service after they had finished grovelling to Lewis Hamilton.
I'm afraid that such a basic systemic failure on such a simple issue is just not good enough. It wasn't a brief error either. I was banging on at them for two years over it and I'm sure I couldn't have been the only one.
I don't trust their competence.
So you're right. It's not the fault of the ordinary staff. It's not your fault (or the fault of any ordinary employee) that chunks of Santander's banking system isn't fit for purpose.
Many have suffered far worse than me as well.[/QUOTE]

adindas

Well answered .....
Things to look is also your outward Faster Payment from Sanatader to another bank A/c.
I can't understand why BS could outperform Santander in this matter, given that Santander is a massive organisation.

Why Santander FP is so unreliable, even for the amount of Cash less than £300

GenesisDevice wrote: »

Hello

How do i know this ?

Because i work there.

BertieFox

Having transferred our account from Alliance and Leicester I was dismayed to find immediately the following:
1. It is now OBLIGATORY to be the owner of a mobile phone if you want to use all the normal on line facilities. That's because they make use of OTP via mobile phones. As we don't own one, nor ever intend to get one, then our service is immediately downgraded from what we had with A and L.
2. I am urged to move to 'paperless accounts', yet on downloading the current account as an xls (Excel file), without the option of choosing any particular format, I find that neither the latest version of Excel Reader nor my Excel clone can read the file. I guess the intellectually challenged teenage geeks at Santander have ensured that all downloads are in the format only used by the very latest version of Excel. Utterly useless and means no way will I ever consider moving to paperless banking.
3. When you try to send a message to Santander, the standard form asks you to enter a phone number. It even allows you to click an option of 'not in the UK'. But being outside the UK, the form then rejects the phone number as unrecognisable, so you can't send your question or query to them anyway.
4. Having scoured the web, I did come up with a 'normal' email, viz. services@santander.co.uk which MAY work in getting my comments to them. Otherwise I guess we have to write to them via snail mail and wait weeks, or make expensive telephone calls to representatives who won't understand what is happening anyway, still less with the power to change anything.
Like all ex pats, we are in a Catch 22 situation where we can retain our UK bank account but NOT change it to another provider, because of very strict money laundering rules. So we have to suffer poor quality service with no recourse to anything else. We didn't ASK to be moved to Santander, as they chose to take over Alliance and Leicester.
Just what is either domestic legislation or the EU doing to protect customers like us from this monopoly?

the4thlion

Hi all, i have myself just become a victim to that pathetic excuse of a bank known as `Santander`, you will get the jist of my telephone conversation through the letter i have just sent customer services......

Hello,
Just writing to you to say how poor your service is concerning remortgages. I recently took out a mortgage with you as i thought (at the time) that Santander had a good name, and to take advantage of the low rates.
I wanted to borrow £20,000 on top of the £67,500 to consolidate a loan, and for small house improvements. I earn £32,500 a year, never had bad credit and was looking to pay £589 to complete my mortgage in 16 years (even more if possible), thought there would be no problem whatsoever.................................
However, i have just been turned down over the phone by one of your assistants, due to the pathetic questionaire that you ask, i.e how much on birthdays/Christmas a month !!!! How much a month on decorating??? How much a month on holidays ?? How much a month on car repairs etc etc; All of these questions can have no REAL answer, as i dont spend every month on Christmas and Birthdays and i dont know what i am going to buy until the dates arrive or how much....PATHETIC. I also dont decorate every month,as like everyone else in the world, you decorate when the need arrives, as with car repairs, how can you give an estimation on something that hasnt happened.....What a joke.
And then to top it off, when asked my outgoings, i replied that on my credit card (of which i owe £3500),i pay £250 a month,not because that is what the company requires (my minimum payment is £40) but because, unlike some people, i want to pay it off asap, and because `I` choose to pay that,of which can be reduced or increased as and if needed. Also when asked if i contribute towards a pension i replied that i did but it is automatically deducted from my wages as it is a company pension, so wasnt sure exactly how much, but gave my gross and net pay, to which got the reply that i earn £100 a month less (due to her calculations), than what my payslip that i had in front of me read,bearing in mind that i work for a multi-million pound company, i am pretty sure that for the last 16 years of service, they havnt overpaid me.
So basically, i was turned down because,as she explained, my funds would be insufficient, when i questioned this, i was told that with my credit card (which, as i said previously can be reduced by £200 if i chose), and my annual payment (of which £1200 net has been wiped off by your assistant), i would have more outgoings than income...
As this still didnt make any sense at all to me, i said that, even going by her calculations, the consolidation of payments would still leave me better off,to which i got the reply that maybe i wont really pay off my loan, and instead spend it on other things, leaving me in the circumstances that she was making concerning insufficent funds!!!! And was even declined when i replied that Santander could pay the debt direct to the company, rather than me filtering it all away due to my irresponsibility of paying off my debts !!!!!!!! ....... UNBELIEVABLE.
So there you go, due to this person blatantly calling me a liar,i have now got circumstances where,if ever asked if i have been turned down for a mortgage,i am going to have to say yes.
I hope i get a reply to this, as i am pretty sure i will get many replies from the numerous threads that i will be posting this e-mail on as a warning to steer well clear of Santander.
Thankyou

Rupert_Bear

I find the worst bank for customer service is the one that you apply for a product and they turn you down. Always found the best bank is the ones who accept you!