MSE News: Santander 'worst bank for customer service'

carh

Not that I wish bad service on people, but I am glad it is not just me who detests Santander. I rejoined Abbey 4 years ago and opened 4 accounts of various sorts just when they had some good offers and Santander were on the horizon. Within the year, I had sent numerous complaints, I was given all the wrong figures and information, the manager virtually stood me up for an appointment (I waited half hour over my time and left) and I ended up going to the FSA for both Abbey AND Alliance & Leicester (Yes... I opened an account with A&L too and again was badly informed). The FSA upheld my complaints (where Santander wouldn't) and I left Abbey as fast as I could. Regardless of their 5% and £100 deals, I would NEVER NEVER NEVER join Santander again. BEWARE!!!:mad:

AmandaJSmith

I absolutely agree - I can't begin to list all the problems I've had with them - and their arrogance and lack of interest in what their customers think beggars belief. My advice is move your accounts - even if there isn't a good bank nearby - most things are done on the internet anyway.

AmandaJSmith

simplybest wrote: »

I can only assume that your roll in Santander is some sort of cleaning job, but if not then my case rest you obviously went on the wrong training course, never fear with your appalling attitude I am sure you will not go very far , by the way who pays your wages{I know you can't answer that} call customer services.

I agree - this is typical of their attitude! Do they actually train their staff?!

r9rog

Without a shadow of a doubt, First Direct is the worst service provider of all the banks. I have accounts with NatWest, Alliance & Leicester, Barclays, Lloyds TSB and Halifax, and some have serious failings but First Direct is worst by far. They reneged on the £100 promise because my first payments in were not in cash, delaying the amount for three months, and even then arguing. To avoid charges I must pay in £1500 each month. Has anyone tried paying in cash? In Sutton they hide the cashier's counter! The HSBC staff at all branches maintain their housekeeping while the customer stands in front of them. I find their contempt so offensive that I will only go in once a month at most. Some months I pay in at another bank and transfer the £1500. In a distant past at all banks, we used to queue separately at each counter, and the staff organised systems which kept us blocking the window until they had completed every task regardless of our involvement. We also had to complete a paying-in slip for each deposit. Nowadays the banks have introduced the single queue and the card reader. We have all learnt to wait until being called to a cashier who has completed his other tasks before we step forward. (If only McDonalds could step into the modern age!!) And HSBC for First Direct. No card reader yet, but they have introduced the single queue although the staff will not pass the full benefit on to the customer. I normally pay in £1500. I would like the staff to verify the amount, and let me go. As a rule, I have stood in a queue and waited while they put away the money for previous customers and I would like to go away and leave an empty space as quickly as possible. I know that the strong probability is that the next person will wait courteously until called forward. But in a hangover from the multi-queue days the staff insist on me blocking the window until every task is done. I am content to watch them count my money to the nth degree, weighing it as many ways as they may wish, because I appreciate the responsibility. However, I am not content to watch them gather the 50s, re-count them and count further 50s from their tills and band them and stamp the band to show £500, or a thousand, then do the same with the 20s and even the 10s, all prior to running my paying-in slip round their barcode reader and then stamping my paying-in book and returning it to me. All this of course while I am asking them to return my book to me. On Monday this week the offence was compounded because a prior customer managed to get away before completion, so the cashier called me forward to occupy the space at the window, and without speaking ran several pieces of paper through the barcode reader before referring to my transaction. Then after she had shown her contempt for my urgency another member of staff wanted to lecture me about their systems and even ignored the initial abuse by the cashier. I could liken it to a jobseeker at the benefits agency, but I have witnessed that process and the benefits agency staff are streets ahead of HSBC staff in recognising the dignity of the people they serve.
And has anyone used the savings accounts First Direct supply? I kept over £1000 in one of these accounts for several months and the interest was zero. Before the crash!
But to top it all, you should try to get money out. You have to show your driving licence at least (and the staff at my local HSBC know me, of course, but no avail) and for a sum above £2000 you have to phone in advance, quoting from your telephone password explaining what amount and what forms of identification you will provide. And if you fail to call in advance, the staff gleefully offer the phone provided in the branch. Once I had to wait half an hour while another individual experienced difficulty in clearing his requirement. And this, like everything else I have quoted, is true: The First Direct operative you call, makes you confirm which branch you are in by describing to them what you can see out the window. True! Twice!
As for service, the provision of unarranged overdraft without charge is impressive, but small beer. When, three months before my 64th birthday, I wanted a £50,000 loan by mortgage to build an extension (and I have a good pension as well as other income and ISAs), I was told it couldn't be considered unless I could pay it off before my 65th birthday.

mycroftmill

mycroftmill wrote: »

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.

In the meantime they have transfered money from another of our accounts without being asked to.

They have also changed the payees Direct Debit account number of our credit card provider so that payment would not have been credited to our account.

Customer Services are either unable or unwilling to assist..........'Everything will be done in due course'

Still awaiting cheque, but have now received a letter from the Head of Santander Complaints thanking me for my communication to The Daily Mail who have contacted him. If anyone else would like to receive a similar letter I suggest you too write to [EMAIL="m.stone@dailymail.co.uk"]m.stone@dailymail.co.uk[/EMAIL]

blueberrypie

r9rog wrote: »

Without a shadow of a doubt, First Direct is the worst service provider of all the banks.

You might not have liked the service, but the vast majority disagree with you - FD came top by a wide margin in a recent MSE poll, with 85% of customers rating it "excellent" and only 6% rating it "poor". All of the others you list were included in the poll and none of them came out nearly as well - A&L (Santander) were rated "poor" by 62% of their customers.

I have accounts with NatWest, Alliance & Leicester, Barclays, Lloyds TSB and Halifax, and some have serious failings but First Direct is worst by far. They reneged on the £100 promise because my first payments in were not in cash, delaying the amount for three months, and even then arguing. To avoid charges I must pay in £1500 each month.

There are ways to avoid that - e.g. you can open a savings account and leave £1 in it - but to be fair, if you open a bank account which has a requirement that it's funded by a certain amount each month, it's hardly fair to then criticise the bank for expecting you to do just that.

Has anyone tried paying in cash? In Sutton they hide the cashier's counter! The HSBC staff at all branches

Yes - HSBC staff, HSBC branches. FD is, first and foremost, an internet bank. They don't have to even offer a branch service if they don't want to. If you want a bank that has branches for you to go into, again - why open an account with a bank that clearly doesn't?

*snip rant about HSBC staff*

And has anyone used the savings accounts First Direct supply? I kept over £1000 in one of these accounts for several months and the interest was zero. Before the crash!

Were you not aware of the interest rate on that account? Did FD claim it was higher than it really was? If so, you have a complaint (and should make that complaint to FD). If not...then it's nobody's fault but your own.

But to top it all, you should try to get money out.

FD has the best implementation of Faster Payments of any of the UK banks.

You have to show your driving licence at least

Again, I think perhaps the concept of an "internet bank" is something you haven't quite understood. You don't really sound like someone for whom an internet bank is suitable, as you obviously need to visit a branch regularly.

As for service, the provision of unarranged overdraft without charge is impressive, but small beer. When, three months before my 64th birthday, I wanted a £50,000 loan by mortgage to build an extension (and I have a good pension as well as other income and ISAs), I was told it couldn't be considered unless I could pay it off before my 65th birthday.

That's fairly standard - some lenders will arrange mortgages which will take you past retirement age, but it's more usual for them to require that the mortgage is paid off by then.

So to summarise: You need branch access, but opened an account with FD, an internet bank, and are now complaining about the service provided by the HSBC branch you use. You don't want to have to fund your account with a certain amount each month, but chose an account with a funding requirement. You didn't pay attention to the interest rate on your savings account and now you're blaming FD for not paying more interest. And you wanted a mortgage that would run past retirement age, and you think (wrongly) that FD is the only lender to not offer such a mortgage.

simplybest

Here ends this mornings lesson according to FD.

r9rog

If I ever need a barrister, I should pick blueberrypie. As long as the judge lets him set the boundaries. And doesn't require him to produce evidence. Or to rebut evidence against his case.

I don't criticise First Direct in order to swim against the stream, but because I cannot see how the claim "service bank" can apply.

I said other banks have their failings. I have concerns about Santander, it misleads by calling Alliance & Leicester "Santander" but they don't let you pay money in at Santander branches. But when you pay in at the post office you use a card and the cashier counts your money and tells you thank you, remove your card and take this receipt, you can go. The Post Office uses card readers but unlike Lloyds TSB and NatWest you don't have to enter a PIN. They trust you not to be embezzling when you hand over cash. But I agree that's the Post Office, not Santander.

Halifax have not truly embraced Faster Payments Scheme (FPS), but they handle my direct debits immaculately.

Barclays insist on the disgusting PINsentry to view my business account online, but they embraced FPS immediately, long before I had a First Direct account (so I can't compare).

NatWest and Lloyds TSB absurdly require a PIN to pay in cash, but you don't have to complete a paying-in slip.

All the staff like to slip the notes away while the customer is standing there, but usually this is accomplished while software is producing the silly requirement to enter a PIN then press "Enter" again, prior to the receipt being printed. But HSBC don't have any of this because they don't have card readers for paying in.

And Blueberrypie is right. I haven't grasped the concept of internet banking. I understand online banking. Is this any relation? I view all of my accounts and credit cards five or six times a week (thank you, Egg money) and each month across all the banks I undertake over a hundred transactions online (not counting direct debits and standing orders). With the shortcomings of Halifax set aside, I have found Barclays, Lloyds TSB, NatWest, Nationwide, Bank of Scotland all satisfy FPS. As for Alliance & Leicester, I have no experience of transfers to non-A & L accounts, but they have always transferred between A & L accounts instantly.

However, I cannot recall seeing a cashier at any other bank re-count my notes, count further notes from the till, band them and stamp them and put them back in the till before letting me go.
The question of service was referred to banks, not internet banks. I wonder how many of the population are restricted in their knowledge as I am and thought banking was banking with online services being just one process in the system. I wonder how many of the poll voters had separated off "internet banking" and voted within this tight criterion - which I wait to be enlightened on. (As for prepositions I am in Churchill's boat, but I don't split..., but that's just semantics).

Regrettably, banking is fundamentally about the movement of money. In my case, this is frequently in cash. I have other things to do, including the aforementioned transactions and not least earning the money to support those transaction.

Did I miss blueberrypie's defence of the need for a cashier to keep someone occupying the space at the window?

Did I miss the evidence of the ways in which First Direct offers better service, even within the narrow area of internet banking?

Did I miss the justification of a savings account which paid nil interest in the same period that Lloyds TSB paid over £8 for having less money in my current account?

Did I miss the reason why I have to clear with a call centre to withdraw cash above £2000, explaining what I can see out the window, or to withdraw any money at the tills why do I have to provide my driving licence for photocopying and initialling ?

Did I miss his recognition of the absurdity of paying off a £50000 personal loan in 15 months?

PS I am not convinced that keeping a £1 in the savings account staves off the charges, but if a savings account pays nil interest who wouldn't resent keeping money in it?

PS I suspect the reason banks require customers to enter their PIN when paying in cash is to give the cashiers time to put away their notes while the customer occupies the space at the window. Apart from confirming the amount displayed on the unreadable card reader can anyone explain why they might think we are embezzling when we pay in cash? Let's find out if the Chief Executives of Lloyds TSB and NatWest read MSE.

olly300

Paulgonnabedebtfree wrote: »

I've been with Abbey N. / Abbey / Santander for over 30 years and if it was more convenient for me to deposit cash and cheques with the Co-op I would be off like a shot.

Talk to the Co-op and see if you can use a Post Office.

In fact make it a complaint.

olly300

r9rog wrote: »

And Blueberrypie is right. I haven't grasped the concept of internet banking. I understand online banking. Is this any relation?

Cutting down your long post.

It's the same.

You should be able to pay bills, pay other people, set up and cancel standing orders, cancel direct debits, move money to different accounts in the same bank, set up an overdraft, and email via secure messaging the bank if there is an issue with your account.

However if you need to pay a cheque in you need to go to the bank but you can use a machine to do it. If you need to pay cash in you can use a machine as well.

If you need to take cash out you can use an ATM.

In short you never need to have contact with the bank staff in person if your account is running OK.

The main complaints about banks are when something goes wrong. Santander seems incapable of dealing with people's mistakes. For example if lots of people are completing the same form incorrectly then clearly the form should be redesigned.