MSE News: Santander says 'sorry' for customer service chaos

woodsgill

We changed our A & L accounts to 'new' Santander accounts last month. All seemed to go well, we did all the 'changing' in a Branch, and it looked as if there would be no problems. We were assured we would receive a list of Direct Debits , so we could decide which ones we wanted to transfer. When nothing happened I phoned Santander. The first Customer adviser knew NOTHING about it. At the third phone call, I found out that there is a 'Switching' team (this had not been mentioned before). They informed me that the Branch should not tell customers that Direct Debits would be transferred, as it was up to the customer to do it themselves! I was irate, and asked them what sort of Bank they were running - for their own or customers benefit. They said that if we had been transferring from another Bank they would handle the Direct Debits. I had to ring off as I was so angry. A few minutes later I had a call from Santander saying that they understood I had a problem. I was transferred to 'Complaints' where I was still very angry at our treatment. The outcome was a £40 into our account for all our trouble, a list of our Direct Debits (read out over phone) and a promise to tell all Branches what actually happens.
I contacted all our Direct Debit, but some even with the new details, are being refused by Santander. Nightmare.

AnonymousForObviousReason

worldtraveller wrote: »

IMHO any customer "service" phone system that goes through the "key" options available and then simply just cuts you off, before always finally allowing you to key an option to talk with a real person, is pointless & demeaning. I wouldn't open an account with them if they paid me!

Actually they do pay you £100. :rotfl:

And you're quite right not to take them up on this gamble.

suityou69

The bottom line here is with the way the mergers and acquisitions have gone

Lloyds + HBOS
Co-Op + Britannia

etc etc

This is something were going to see a lot more of, stands to reason there's going to be some "bumps" along the way

Id say Lloyds and HBOS have a bigger customer base than the Spanish lot?? Wonder what will happen when they try and merge there databases and systems together..........

knightfox

suityou69 wrote: »

The bottom line here is with the way the mergers and acquisitions have gone

Lloyds + HBOS
Co-Op + Britannia

etc etc

This is something were going to see a lot more of, stands to reason there's going to be some "bumps" along the way

Id say Lloyds and HBOS have a bigger customer base than the Spanish lot?? Wonder what will happen when they try and merge there databases and systems together..........

Some of Lloyds group companies have to be sold. They have been given longer to allow this to happen. So I dont think they will need to merge their systems together.

knightfox

bitman wrote: »

when living in the algarve years ago i had a banco santander bank account and credit cards for about 5 years with great service, never ever had any issues with them. had my own business and personal contact at the faro branch, just a phone call was enough to arrange things. years later when i came to the uk and noticed that abbey national became santander i was very happy. so i switched over to santander.

[rant]
everything i had with my banco santander i have NOT found it here in the UK and i tried a couple UK banks. but this UK santander... mama mia what a bunch of amatuers if you ask me. i feel really sorry for the people here in the UK and their banks as for me they all sucks!

anyway the move to the abbey / santander was and still is a nightmare. the last issue i have with them is that they stopped the dd i used to pay my santander home insurance? yes, they cannot process (found this out by spending many phone calls) dd from santander to santander. not sure in what time or how they are managing doing business but enough is enough for me.

i still hoop at some point that the UK (if i'm still around and i'm counting my days to leave) will switch over to the € zone so i can close all my UK accounts and move back to my 'old' and trushed dutch and spanish banks to do my bank business.

[/rant]

I cant see with all the major problems going on with the Euro zone that the UK would even benefit from us joining now. Maybe you should ask a german how they feel bailing out Greece / Spain & Ireland.

UK Santander is a seperate company from Spain Santander. There is also a serious amount of talk that UK Santander will be floated on the stock market as early as before Xmas. So then it will not even be connceted to Spain depending on how much share capital they keep.

knightfox

As for me... all I want is the chance to run a small savings account online. I opened over a month ago & have failed on three attempts to get codes that work on the internet.

fiish

I took up the £100 offer from Santander to open a current account with them and have had no major problems at all. Switching my payments went smoothly and they were prompt in sending out my card and PIN letters. 3 months in and the account is working well so far.

The only issue I encountered was that they got my DOB wrong which meant I could not pass any security checks over the phone (managed to log on to internet banking and see the error), but I just had to go to a branch with my driver's licence and it was resolved in a few minutes.

There is a bit of inconvenience in having to visit a branch to process a change of address, but I appreciate this being done to protect the account as I was hit by fraud a few years back.

AnonymousForObviousReason

fiish - glad you're having a fairly hassle free time ... report back on how it goes (either way)

pkilburn2

Well I must say that you have all made my day. Nice to know that Santander are consistent

I have power of attorney over my sisters account and since they took over there has been nothing but problems. I don't think they have ever heard of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and their (Santanders - not the customers) legal responsibilities.

I have got so fed up with them that I am now looking to move accounts but have a cunning plan.

Rather than close the old account I am going to leave a pound in it and wait for them to chase me up. Then I can respond as they do. Ignore them!!!

If all of us did that I think they might finally start to take notice.

Fellow readers what do you think?

Paulgonnabedebtfree

pkilburn2 wrote: »

Well I must say that you have all made my day. Nice to know that Santander are consistent - BAD

I have power of attorney over my sisters account and since they took over there has been nothing but problems. I don't think they have ever heard of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and their (Santanders - not the customers) legal responsibilities.

I have got so fed up with them that I am now looking to move accounts but have a cunning plan.

Rather than close the old account I am going to leave a pound in it and wait for them to chase me up. Then I can respond as they do. Ignore them!!!

If all of us did that I think they might finally start to take notice.

Fellow readers what do you think?

I think you should leave a penny in it. After 3 months add a penny. Another 3 months withdraw a penny (electronically to save inconveniencing yourself) - just to stop the account becoming dormant.