MSE News: Santander 'worst bank for customer service'

jeanmd

I've never had a problem with Santander/Abbey except not being able to understand some of the customer service staff so we try not to use the phone for them and if we do I ask to be transfered to the UK based customer service.
I've been with them for many years. The staff in the Batley branch are lovely and helpful. I moved to a different area a couple of years, yet when I go to the branch the staff always say how they haven't seen us for a while and ask how we are.

simplybest

It was nice to hear you actually occasioned some service from your Branch of Abbey, as you can see this is different to nearly all the comments in this forum. I did actually communicate with the U.K. based customer service concerning my online e account they were worse and even more confused by the issue, these people also have issues with communicating in the English language. I would agree with you that in your particular location and actually going into your Branch in Bately that you should expect the service to obviously be of the highest standards including the tea making of course.Now Santander have their greedy mits on Abbey and Alliance Leicester things are turning out for the worst, it is only a matter of time and job losses will course disgruntled employees as is the case in most other areas of Santaner.
To sum up my I suggest at the present time do not use their online Banking Service, and for good measure insist biscuits are served with your cup tea on your next visit to this Branch.

DarkConvict

I lost face in abbey (when it was actually santandar) after it took them 6 months to setup a student account, when I say it took them that long that was the point at which i gave up and closed my account with them. They had managed to open a current account but never turn it into a student account.

I have had some minor issues with online banking, i.e. can't login to account and get a Spanish error message.
Santander are the worst for customer service.

beeceebee

Went into the branch today and was told that the 14k has been put back into our account. Our account is still blocked and therefore any cheques written in the last week will be declined. We can put money in but no transactions can go out. The staff in the branch have been fabulous, but I fail to see how security procedures can have been breached so seriously without anybody putting a stop to it sooner. Santander did try calling me on my home phone number on Tuesday but left a message saying just "Please call Santander on .........", there was no urgency and they didn't even say they were calling from the fraud team. They have mobile numbers for both my husband and myself, and email addresses but chose not to use any of these. After their phone call on Tuesday and subsequent message asking for us to call them they still let the thief steal another £4333 and £420 on the Wednesday. So, even though they were aware that something suspicious could be happening, they did not try all avenues of communication to make sure that the suspicious behaviour was genuine or fraudulent. Only a week previously my husband received a call on his mobile from Santander who had noticed that we had a considerable amount of money in our account and wanted to see if they could sell us some of their products.

We are so unimpressed with Santander, and we are not the only ones. Having spent several hours in our local branch in the last couple of days I have had the chance to speak to numerous other dissatisfied customers. Most people actually say that they would move accounts but they don't want the hassle of moving direct debits...I have told them how easy it is, the bank that is prepared to open your new account does it all for you.

naked

I swapped to Abbey when they were doing the 6 or 8% interest on your current account deal a long time ago which was quite good.
Everything went OK and had no problems until I tried to apply for a mortgage last year - it took them 8 weeks to post out an agreement in principle to me which I did over the phone. In the meantime I asked for another copy and that took 6 weeks to arrive and was for a different amount so I gave up on them. I mentioned it to the branch staff and they apologised on behalf of the call centre and said it's a shame because that's a lot of business we've just lost because of them and they didn't blame me for going elsewhere!
There's always a massive queue at the branch, but I've found that at other banks too.. Their online banking works alright except if you have to have a new card you have to reset all your logins which can leave you without access for a week until all the bits of paper arrive.
What pushed me to move elsewhere though was the fact that they still can't do faster payments properly. A £100 payment you send one month to an account will go by faster payments, but the next month it won't. It's just completely random and the limits on the amount you can send are really small.

At least Halifax are paying me £5 a month to use their rubbish online banking system (transactions which take up two lines are always back to front, and the only way to make a mortgage overpayment is to transfer the money to another bank, then pay it to your mortgage account) and faster payments have been used for every single payment I have made.

naked

beeceebee wrote: »

Most people actually say that they would move accounts but they don't want the hassle of moving direct debits...I have told them how easy it is, the bank that is prepared to open your new account does it all for you.

Unless you have an obscene number of direct debits I wouldn't trust it to the new bank to transfer them over. A lot of mine were cancelled on my Santander account but not set up on my Halifax account which resulted in lots of angry letters from utilities and the council tax people.
It's easy to change them yourself - normally you can just phone up whoever you are paying and they will do it instantly and tell you when the new DD will be active from so you know when you need to put the money into the new account.

shadowspy24

I recently got screwed over by santander as well. I opened the free £100 account a year and have been putting in and taking out the £500 required by them for the past twelve months but this month they decide to charge me £5 for the underfunding even though I put the money in on time. I am about to phone them up and complain about it.

simplybest

I wish you well with your phone call, Santander customer services will of course try their best to confuse you in their normal manner{but i expect you already know this}the other sly move by them is to insist that you are not giving them a chance to sort it out because wait for it "your bad attitude" even if you do not raise your voice I have been put through this one. GOOD LUCK I hope I am terribly wrong.

simplybest

Taking to task any member of Santander is a complete waste of time anyway, most require a rigorous brain transplant which obviously would include common sense. Branch or otherwise stop making excuses and get on with the job.

reflector1

So sorry to hear of everyone's hassles, but comforted that it's not just me. Their queues are totally inacceptable, their staff seem to have little idea and their promotions are counterproductive - don't they realise that when they put on their '£100 switch' offers they will totally alienate those who opened an account just days before or after these offers start or end.