Abbey/Santander cancelled Student Account with no notification

jojo_modjo

My partner, who is a 2nd year mature student, went to town today to get some supplies for the new term.
His student account with Abbey last year had an overdraft limit of £1000. When he went to withdraw money, the machine told him he was overdrawn, despite being well within his overdraft limit, even more so considering that his student overdraft is due to rise to £1250 this year.

Confused by this, he went into the branch to see what was going on, and was told to phone up their student department. The retrieval of the number for the correct department, was too much of a hassle, as he heard the cashier say to her colleague "Just give him the general number."

He went outside to phone the number, and was told by the call centre that their systems were down, and they were unable to transfer his call, nor able to retrieve the direct number for the student accounts department.

Returning into branch, he asked for the direct number, after much waiting, it was eventually found.

He then went outside to phone the call centre again, and was told that his student account had ended on 31st of August, and no longer had an overdraft facility. He explained that he was due to start the 2nd year of his course, and was told that it must have been an error, and to return to branch to set it up again.

My partner went back into the branch, again, informed them what he had been told. A nearby colleague of the cashier said that it had happened to a few student accounts. He was then told he would need to bring all his ID details and course details again to set up the account. My partner politely told them that it wasn't his fault the student account had been cancelled, and asked to see the manger to lodge a complaint.

The manager was ill but apparently should be back tomorrow. The cashier took all his details, and said they would sort it out, and would be in contact with him later today. They didn't get back in touch.

Tomorrow, he is taking all his letters about confirmation of place and loans from last year, and all his letters about the start of term and this years student loan. He is also taking his bank statement (which arrived a couple of days ago, but we hadn't got around to opening) which show charges against the account which should have never happened. I made sure that I paid money into his account over the summer so that he wouldn't go into arrears when direct debits went out. Most worrying is what this might do to his credit rating, which isn't great as it is. (Again, thanks to Abbey, see mini story below.) Is it possible to get condemning information like this removed from credit reports?

He has a direct debit due out by the end of this week, which won't clear unless they sort it out sharpish. His student loan is due to be paid in on 20th September, and we're worried that Abbey/Santander will just suck it up with their bank charges and leave us with nothing to pay for his books and supplies this year. (Thank goodness rent etc isn't an issue for us, as my earnings cover all our household bills, only just mind, we really need his loan to help!)

No letter has been received to say that Santander would be changing his account. Once first Student Loan payment has cleared, seriously contemplating finding another bank to get a student account with, however, given our luck with student loans this year (another long story...) I seriously doubt how easy it would be getting the payments changed to a different account!

Having done some searching on the internet, I have found many horror stories about Santander, but nothing about student accounts, and just wondered if this has happened to anyone else? We await tomorrows visit to their branch with bated breath!

(Mini Story: A few years ago, my partner was unemployed and claiming JSA. Despite him asking Abbey several times to cancel direct debits, and not to authorise transactions on the account, direct debits continued. Being no money in the account, each time this happened, he was charged a fee. And on top of this fee came the unauthorised overdraft fee, and interest at a high rate for having an unauthorised overdraft. Eventually these charges amounted to over £900 and we wrote a letter using MSE format quoting the test case, as my partner qualified as a hardship case. Eventually, all charges were dropped and the account was returned to nil, however, we were never informed of it! It was only when we went to go sort out his student account in his first year did we find out!)

Lokolo

Banks can withdraw overdrafts without notice anytime they want. Although this only usually happens if said person doesn't regularly use the account. Assuming he has DDs then the account is in regular use. But they can still do it if they wish. And reading your mini story, they most probably did some checks, saw he was getting into trouble and because of previous history, removed the overdraft facility.

If you want to complain then you should write to the address;

Complaints,
Santander,
PO Box 5129,
Milton Keynes,
MK9 2YN

edit

and your mini story. Banks can cancel DDs but the companies can set them up again and take the money. The only way to stop this is to deal with company directly. So infact, it wasn't entirely the banks fault.

jojo_modjo

It wan't just the overdraft that was cancelled, it was the entire student account, they just converted his account back to regular old current account. Despite the fact he is still a student. The account was never in trouble, I made sure I paid money into it over the summer to keep him in the black.

Lokolo

See what happens tomorrow

But write the complaint anyway to get the charges reversed.

olly300

If your partner has had 2 bouts of Abbey causing him significant trouble it's would be now time look at moving banks.