Awful treatment by Alliance and Leics (Santander!!!!!)

joeynix

This is an email I sent to the financial obudsman for advice on:


Dear sir/madam,

I have recently instructed Alliance and Leicester to close my account after refusing to remove two charges for unpaid direct debits.

I set up my account and transferred £200 into it to cover initial direct debits, while I awaited internet banking access. Access was granted and then I accidentally locked the account. I then requested another internet pin, which arrived promptly, to find that the account had not be unlocked and that the moment I used the pin I invalidated it. There was a customer service representative who advised me that it was an error on the part of the person who sent the pin out not to unlock the account. Following this I requested yet another pin which took almost 2 weeks to arrive. During this time I went into the local branch to inquire about my account and was told that I simply had to wait out the pin arriving and that they could provide me no details of my direct debits, as they had no further information other than what companies had direct debits set up.

I called customer services and was advised to call back later as they couldn't currently access that part of the system. I then proceeded to call again to be told that it was my fault I was charged as I did not use an alternative method to internet banking to manage my account. I was advised that one charge could be removed as a gesture of goodwill, but that the other would stand. I then requested that the account be closed as I was not happy that they could not waived both charges, as the customer service rep who didn’t unlock my account caused me to be unable to access my account online for a further 14 days.

I am so disappointed that my account t has barely been opened a month and that I have been charged like this.

Please could you provide me with information on how best to make a claim against Santander for unfair charges? Assuming, of course I am entitled to. I feel as though I am in a position to ask for this charge to be removed, as staff admitted liability and, had I had the internet access that the member of staff messed up, my account would have then had a suitable balance to cover upcoming direct debits and I subsequently would not have been charged.

I look forward to your response.





Has anyone else had a similar experience and been successful? How did you go about it?


What banks would you recommend?

Thanks,
Joe

Fiddlestick

Have you exhausted the bank's complaints procedure and have they sent you their final response?

zppp

joeynix wrote: »

This is an email I sent to the financial obudsman for advice on:


Dear sir/madam,

I have recently instructed Alliance and Leicester to close my account after refusing to remove two charges for unpaid direct debits.

I set up my account and transferred £200 into it to cover initial direct debits, while I awaited internet banking access. Access was granted and then I accidentally locked the account. I then requested another internet pin, which arrived promptly, to find that the account had not be unlocked and that the moment I used the pin I invalidated it. There was a customer service representative who advised me that it was an error on the part of the person who sent the pin out not to unlock the account. Following this I requested yet another pin which took almost 2 weeks to arrive. During this time I went into the local branch to inquire about my account and was told that I simply had to wait out the pin arriving and that they could provide me no details of my direct debits, as they had no further information other than what companies had direct debits set up.

I called customer services and was advised to call back later as they couldn't currently access that part of the system. I then proceeded to call again to be told that it was my fault I was charged as I did not use an alternative method to internet banking to manage my account. I was advised that one charge could be removed as a gesture of goodwill, but that the other would stand. I then requested that the account be closed as I was not happy that they could not waived both charges, as the customer service rep who didn’t unlock my account caused me to be unable to access my account online for a further 14 days.

I am so disappointed that my account t has barely been opened a month and that I have been charged like this.

Please could you provide me with information on how best to make a claim against Santander for unfair charges? Assuming, of course I am entitled to. I feel as though I am in a position to ask for this charge to be removed, as staff admitted liability and, had I had the internet access that the member of staff messed up, my account would have then had a suitable balance to cover upcoming direct debits and I subsequently would not have been charged.

I look forward to your response.





Has anyone else had a similar experience and been successful? How did you go about it?


What banks would you recommend?

Thanks,
Joe

A reponse that you may end up with is that, you cannot access your account online. But this doesn't stop your ability to run the account, for example, as you have done afterwards, contact them by phone, or branch, or even put your card into an ATM. Just something for you to think about before you make any form of complaint. Oh, and it was you who locked it out originally, so how did you manage your account when that happened?

joeynix

That is a fair point, but I did go into the branch for advice on my account and being locked out, but was only given a list of direct debits set up and told to wait until the pin came through. There was no information provided about my balance being a bit low, which you would expect if there were some direct debits that had not yet gone out.

I appreciate that it was who locked it out, so I managed the account during that time by requesting a pin and waiting a few days. During this period, I deposited £200 to cover any bills. But it then took them almost 3 weeks to get me back online with details and didn't advise me to manage my account in other ways. I feel that it is overall a poor service, maybe I should have done more, but I feel as a new customet, Santander should have been providing me with advice on how best to manage my account with them. Surely customer retention through satisfaction is more beneficial to them? The service I received was awful, they definitely could have done more too.