Alliance & Leicester (Santander) = abysmal!

neilio

I’d like to know if anyone else has been receiving an outrageously bad service from Alliance & Leicester, particularly in the last few months when they became fully integrated into Santander?
I’ll post my tale in a separate posting below

neilio

I started banking with A&L in late 2008, after reading on Money Saving Expert that A&L were giving new customers £100 for opening an account with them. Little did I know that A&L would be the worst financial institution I’ve ever had the displeasure to bank with, particularly since their merger with Santander.

I get paid every 4 weeks (13 times a year) so my pay date is different every month. As a result, it has always been easier for me to transfer rent money to my landlord manually rather than setting up a standing order. Halifax (my previous bank) processed faster payments of around £500 a month successfully, but the bane of my life with A&L is that I have always had to transfer my rent in 2 smaller instalments every month to get around the fact that A&L do not process faster payments larger than £250 – why the hell not? Especially when other banks do to the value of £10,000 or so. As inconvenient as this was, I could live with it. And until about a month ago, things got a lot worse for me...

1) About a month ago, I transferred £30 to my partner one day, under the assumption that this would be transferred through faster payments given the relatively low amount, but my partner did not receive the amount into his account until 4 days later. Before the money turned up in his account, I’d phoned A&L who told me that some payments can “slip through the net” and take up to 4 working days and that there was nothing he could do to speed it up in this matter.

2) With that in mind, and rent being due a week later, I made sure I made the transfers in plenty of time. My first payment of £250 went through successfully. The following day, I transferred £250 again, and was alerted that the transaction completed successfully. But my landlord contacted me a few days later to tell me that it never arrived. I checked my account and my balance had not adjusted a £250 decrease. Believing I’d made a mistake, I transferred the money again, being extra vigilant, and again it said the transaction online was successful. But the same thing happened again, my landlord told me the next day he hadn't gotten it, and sure enough, no money actually left my account.

3) I called A&L to complain, only to be told mid-conversation that they had to end the call due to their systems having gone down and I should call back in an hour. Being extremely angry, they told me they would transfer £5 into my account as a goodwill gesture. My internet banking also went dead at the same time.

4) I called back later, and the woman I spoke to said the £5 wasn’t there, so she transferred it in anyway. Getting to the crux of the matter, I told her of the above problems, and she was unable to give me an explanation as to why funds transfers were not working properly. She made the transfer for me to my landlord, and confirmed that on her computer system she was using that she received confirmation that £250 transferred under faster payments. Sure enough, this was reflected on my account. Incidentally, when I asked about the low faster payments threshold, she told me that they were still trialling faster payments!

5) The next morning, I called my landlord to make sure he’d received the money, but he hadn’t. I logged on to my internet banking only to see that minutes after the transaction, the £250 was re-credited back to my account as the funds transfer had failed! This made me realise that all forms of banking remotely with A&L had totally failed and I could no longer rely on them at all for any service whatsoever. By this point, my rent was now late and my landlord was asking for a £50 late fee.

6) That day, at work, I went up the High Street, withdrew £250, and went into my landlord’s bank to pay directly into his account, completely defeating the object of telephone and internet banking. I called A&L from work, only to be told again that their systems were down and I should call back later, again. Having run out of time and energy, I wrote them a lengthy letter and posted it to their complaints department, following the advice of their website that said they’d call within 24 hours of receipt. I posted it First Class. In this letter, I requested £50 compensation to cover the late fee for my landlord.

7) The next day, whilst at work, I notice a missed call from a number I didn’t recognise. I check online and sure enough, this number is A&L, but they left no voicemail and when I called back, there was no answer. They never tried to call me again.

* Thankfully, in amongst all this, I had successfully applied for a First Direct Account with the intention of replacing my abysmal A&L account, using FD's switching service. The FD account became active at around this point.

8) With my new FD account, I transferred a small sum of £5 from A&L to FD. The money has left my A&L account, but it is now 5 days later and it is still not in my FD account.

By this point, I had emailed my posted letter to A&L and completed their online complaints form twice – all have remained unanswered. Admittedly I haven’t tried to call them again, but then after 2 failed attempts because of systems being down, and 1 failure to transfer money successfully over the phone, I can’t be bothered to call them anymore. All I want is to be done with them. Thankfully, by the end of this month, FD will have finished switching all my banking from A&L, and then I can finally close that terrible account. But before I go, I want my £50!

Alliance & Leicester were pretty useless. But since they announced that they had been fully integrated into Santander about a month again, they have gotten even worse to the point that they fail to offer any kind of service whatsoever. Avoid at all costs!

zppp

neilio wrote: »

I started banking with A&L in late 2008, after reading on Money Saving Expert that A&L were giving new customer £100 for opening an account with them. Little did I know that A&L would be the worst financial institution I’ve ever had the displeasure to bank with, particularly since their merger with Santander.

I get paid every 4 weeks (13 times a year) so my pay date is different every month. As a result, it has always been easier for me to transfer rent money to my landlord manually rather than setting up a standing order. Halifax (my previous bank) processed faster payments of around £500 a month successfully, but the bane of my life with A&L is that I have always had to transfer my rent in 2 smaller instalments every month to get around the fact that A&L did not process faster payments larger than £250 – why the hell not? Especially when other banks do to the value of £10,000 or so. As inconvenient as this was, I could live with it, until about a month ago, things got very weird…

1) I transferred £30 to my partner one day, under the assumption that this would be transferred through faster payments given the relatively low amount, but my partner did not receive the amount into his account until 4 days later. Before the money turned up in his account, I’d phoned A&L who told me that some payments can “slip through the net” and take up to 4 working days.

2) With that in mind, and rent being due a week later, I made sure I made the transfers in plenty of time. My first payment of £250 went through successfully. The following day, I transferred £250 again, and was alerted that the transaction completed successfully. But my landlord contacted me to tell me that it never arrived. I checked my account and my balance had not adjusted a £250 decrease. Believing I’d made a mistake, I transferred the money again, being extra vigilant, and again it said the transaction online was successful. But the same thing happened again, no money actually left my account.

3) I called A&L to complain, only to be told mid-conversation that they had to end the call due to their systems having gone down and I should call back in an hour. Being extremely angry, they told me they would transfer £5 into my account as a goodwill gesture. My internet banking also went dead at the same time.

4) I called back later, and the woman I spoke to said the £5 wasn’t there, so she transferred it in anyway. Getting to the crux of the matter, I told her of the above problems, and she was unable to give me an explanation as to why funds transfers were not working properly. She made the transfer for me to my landlord, and confirmed that on her computer system she was using that she received confirmation that £250 transferred under faster payments. Sure enough, this was reflected on my account.

5) The next morning, I called my landlord to make sure he’d received the money, but he hadn’t/ I logged on to my internet banking only to see that moment after the transaction, the £250 was re-credited back to my account as the funds transfer had failed! This made me realise that all forms of banking remotely with A&L had totally failed and I could no longer rely on them at all for any service whatsoever. By this point, my rent was now late and my landlord was asking for a £50 late fee.

6) That day, at work, I went up the High Street, withdrew £250, and went into my landlord’s bank to pay directly into his account, completely defeating the object of telephone and internet banking. I called A&L from work, only to be told again that their systems were down and I should call back later, again. Having run out of time and energy, I wrote them a lengthy letter and posted it to their complaints department, following the advice of their website that said they’d call within 24 hours of receipt. I posted it First Class. In this letter, I requested $50 compensation to cover the late fee for my landlord.

7) The next day, whilst at work, I notice a missed call from a number I don’t recognise. I check online and sure enough, this number is A&L, but they left no voicemail and when I called back, there was no answer. They never tried to call me again.

* Thankfully, in amongst all this, I had successfully applied for a First Direct Account with the intention of replacing my abysmal A&L account. The FD account became active at around this point.

8) With my new FD account, I transferred a small sum of £5 from A&L to FD. The money has left my A&L account, but 5 days later and it is still not in my FD account.

By this point, I had emailed my posted letter to A&L and completed their online complaints form twice – all have remained unanswered. Admittedly I haven’t tried to call them, but then after 2 failed attempts because of systems being down, and 1 failure to transfer money successfully over the phone, I can’t be bothered to call them anymore. All I want is to be done with them. Thankfully, by the end of this month, FD will have finished switching all my banking from A&L, and then I can finally close that terrible account. But before I go, I want my £50!

Well they have 8 weeks to respond to a complaint, and if you are looking for compensation for consequential loss, I suggest you send in the invoice now before they request it for the £50.

leenukes

Is the main problem with transfers then? I was thinking of moving from Lloyds TSB to Santander, mainly because of their new Direct Debit charges which I find a damn cheek.

teeni

leenukes wrote: »

Is the main problem with transfers then? I was thinking of moving from Lloyds TSB to Santander, mainly because of their new Direct Debit charges which I find a damn cheek.

Hi what direct debit charges are they,My son has an account withlloyds which he uses solely for his direct debits and he doesnt know about any charges he has a current account

leenukes

Sorry, not direct debit charges, totally didn't turn my brain on. Overdraft charges is what I meant. Referring to their new charges (cannot add links as I'm a new user, but search Google with "lloydstsb Changes to our current accounts") which seems to punish those who don't often get charges for going over as it only benefits those. So I'll be paying £5 just for having an arranged overdraft, AND I'll still pay interest.

datostar

neilio wrote: »

I’d like to know if anyone else has been receiving an outrageously bad service from Alliance & Leicester, particularly in the last few months when they became fully integrated into Santander?
I’ll post my tale in a separate posting below

I'm having to deal with them regarding accounts held by my late father.
They insist on everything being done 'in branch' which starts the inconvenience as there isn't one particularly near me. One of the accounts is an ISA. On my first visit I took in death certificate, will, my personal ID etc. Details were taken and I was told to come back when I had grant of probate. This I duly did, saw a different person and discovered that no action whatsoever had been taken on the ISA, which was still running. This should have been closed on notification of decease and funds transferred into a holding account pending 'paying away' on production of the grant of representation. They have broken HMRC rules by not closing the ISA.
3 weeks have passed since my last visit. I'm still waiting....
BTW, while I was taking up about half an hour at the counter, a lady came to the other window to deal with her mother's account for which she had power of attorney. She had been told by post that the account had been transferred to Santander, so she had been to their branch first, only to be sent to A&L. They were still struggling with that when I finally managed to get away. I don't think things are going smoothly with A&L at the moment. Pity.

pmduk

leenukes wrote: »

Is the main problem with transfers then?

The main problem is Santander is buying more banks than it is able to manage. Or, more likely, they are unable to manage the proverbial brewery party

DrScotsman

neilio wrote: »

By this point, my rent was now late and my landlord was asking for a £50 late fee.

Really sorry go off topic - I really hate A&L/Santander too - but if you have a bog standard tenancy then that £50 is likely an unfair term. Not that I'm saying you should dispute it with your landlord or anything like that, but I thought you ought to know.

Wintermute

I've been with A&L since late 2007 and I've not had any serious problems, in the past month I've transferred quite a bit of money around between accounts, closed 3 savings accounts that I wasn't using with them (took about 10 mins in branch and they paid me the interest there and then) and opened an ISA with them and I've not had any problems with that.

My only problems with Santander have been with a new credit card I got through them, the card it's self is working fine for the most part, but I've been waiting about 2 and a half weeks for my online banking details, I contacted Santander twice since, the first time they told me that it was due to a technical error and the last time they told me it should be in the post so hopefully I'll get it this week, that and some issues with the Mastecard SecureCode site are the only problems I've had with them.

I know they have a pretty bad reputation, but you're going to get problems whenever large sums of money are involved and I've had a lot fewer problems than I did when I was HBOS and the day the problems start is the day I move bank.

Jollygiantswife

My problem with the switch from A & L to Santander is the apparent lack of updates on my current balance...

Yesterday morning I checked the balance of my account (the previous day it had been £225 credit) and it said -£13.25.... horrified, and because I normally do my weekly shop on a Saturday, I used my Tesco Clubcard vouchers and what cash I had to buy enough food for the weekend knowing my Tax Credits would be paid in on Monday so I could then get the rest of my shopping.....

Checked the account this morning (like I do every morning ) and it said I was £119 in credit.... but no money had gone into the account....

So, clearly and as I'd thought, I wasn't overdrawn yesterday :mad: I could've done my weekly shop :mad: and I needn't have spent my Clubcard vouchers at face value :mad::mad:

Seriously considering moving.... just don't like and can't cope with the slowness of the account updates.....

Rant over:T!!