A&L account closure - closing withdrawal

AnonymousForObviousReason

payless wrote: »

after hearing bad press about telephone/postal closure ( and not keen on £5 underfunding fee again / not found myself happy enough to transfer business to A&L) .. I went to a local Santander( ex Abbey) branch, took over an hour for them to close our ( 1 each) current account and ISAs...
well at least its now done.

Well practice makes perfect, sure they'll be lightning quick soon.:)

jambosans

Just to help clarify, the Santander* (i.e. A&L) T&C's state:-

Santander wrote:

18.4 If you, or we, close your account, then:
a) where you are in credit, we will help you switch to a
different account, or give you back your money plus
any interest you have earned, less any pending fees
and interest you owe and less any payments you have
requested before the account was closed; or

Sounds to me like the money is deposited in a holding/ suspense account and then issued via cheque directly to the customer (which is common practice amongst other banks).

Link to PDF T&C's below:-
http://www.santander.co.uk/csgs/StaticBS?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1223407123779&cachecontrol=immediate&ssbinary=true&maxage=3600

*Even if you go looking for the T&C's on the A&L website it re-directs to the Santander T&C's page.

Dagobert

It just seems strange that the account was closed on 24th Aug and no confirmation or cheque sent in 5 weeks?!

pmduk

Unfortunately there is nothing strange about poor or missing customer service from santander.

jambosans

Dagobert wrote: »

It just seems strange that the account was closed on 24th Aug and no confirmation or cheque sent in 5 weeks?!

I agree, but as pmduk suggests it's probably down to Santander's inept customer service in completing the most simple back office tasks.

Dagobert

I just received acknowledgement of closure and a chequeover the £1 balance.

Letter and cheque are dated 25th August! That takes the biscuit. Was that a result of my recent complaint or is that just how long it takes them to process account closure?

jen245

Bloody better not, they told me 7-10 days. Ive been waiting just over a week for my cheque and closure confirmation, they've got until Monday, and if I havent got it, I'll be on the phone to them! :mad:

MoneySavingNovice

Dagobert wrote: »

I just received acknowledgement of closure and a chequeover the £1 balance.

Letter and cheque are dated 25th August! That takes the biscuit. Was that a result of my recent complaint or is that just how long it takes them to process account closure?

Much quicker than usual - the complaint must have helped.

sujman

I closed my A&L/Santander account a couple months ago. Got written confirmation and a cheque for £0.09, presumably to cover interest owed.

However, I recently found I could still access my account online and they are continuing to charge the £5 monthly underfunding fee.

Initially, I thought the closure process was quite simple and straightforward! Looks like I'm still gonna have to put some effort into it!

rahulswarnkar

I requested A&L account closure last week over the phone. The guy asked me where to transfer the existing funds. I gave him my other account details and he did the transfer - easy peasy!

Now the system is still letting me log in and I can see a transfer of 3p interest to the account mentioned by Dagobert. It is a Santander account with sort code 0901**. Probably I will receive a cheque for 3p in few days. Just wondering, will I bother cashing that cheque and could they have done this more efficiently by calculating any interest etc before making the transfer! :think: