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

I_luv_cats

Yesterday It took 4 attempts to get cash from my santander account, failed by 2 Lloyds TSB atm and a Santander atm. (it even showed as £30 out / in on a mini-statement.

After advice I tried an inside cash machine and it worked!!!

simax

Paulgonnabedebtfree wrote: »

Just in case anyone fancies a humour break, I've taken some liberties with some song lyrics below

---

Well no one told me about them the way they lied
Well no one told me about them how many people cried
But it's too late to say you're sorry
How would I know why should I care
Please don't bother tryin' to phone them
They're not there.... <SNIP>

Still early in the morning and I've not had coffee - which song is this from? :rotfl:

Paulgonnabedebtfree

simax wrote: »

Still early in the morning and I've not had coffee - which song is this from? :rotfl:

http://www.lyricstime.com/the-zombies-she-s-not-there-lyrics.html

RumPunch_2

simonlavender wrote: »

I have the Santander Zero Credit Card and that is also bad as it charges you 27.95% interest on the withdrawals abroad!

I noticed today that on this card they charge a £10 'dormant' fee. I guessed this would be because there was no activity on the account but what wasn't clear in the charges section was the period if inactivity.

Most people may already have been aware of this but I wasn't. If the account has a 0 balance for 6 months they will apply the charge.

RumPunch_2

Sometime in September (it's all a blur now) we received a reply to our complaint and £25 compensation. We had lost access to our accounts online for August, they had spelt my christian name wrong, my husband's middle name and changed my surname.

It all got sorted but by then we had lost faith and had already opened a first direct account. first direct have been trying since the beginning of September to obtain DD information. I've sorted it myself today as I really am very keen to close the account with them!

When ammending DD details today I noticed that on the Santander Card my name is wrong again.... it was correct in August but in September and October my christian name is spelt wrong and they have changed my surname again. They can't change it again (no surprise there), I've got to go into the branch again. Well, I'm not. I will be writing to complain again!

I_luv_cats

Santander opened an account in error intead of a transfer, so therefore I have 2 accounts on one ATM card.

When I went to Natwest the machine refused to give me any ££ as it must only look into one account.

@ a Santander ATM it lists the 2 accounts!!

Annoying................

adindas

Another IT incompetency is that, when you have a regular saving account(rsa) with them such as Super fixed Rate Monthly saver, or Monthly saver. They can not show it on your internet banking.

Their explenation for that is:
- It is a regular saving and no withdrawal is allowed. So if it was shown in the internet banking, people will be able to transfer it and withdraw the money which is not allowed.

To me this is absolutely rubbish for the following reason:
- Santander could easily block/lock the people to move that money from RSA.
- I have been banking with other UK high street bank such as HSBC, Halifax, Barclays, Llloyds TSB, they could always show my fixed rate regular saving in my iinterner banking.

Majority of people will defenitely want to see that their money that they have put into RSA grow online and they will be able to see it.

ADINDAS

3guesses

The point that Martin's interview completely missed is the fact that Santander's service has been shocking from day 1. I have been with Abbey since ~1995, and while their service was not 100% perfect overall I was really very happy with them and had no reason to think about leaving. Then Santander bought Abbey and literally overnight the bank went to sh*t. It is an absolute disgrace. I know those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, but it really is no surprise that Spain is in the financial mess that it is.

Seriously, why is a Spanish bank buying all of our UK ones and then ruining them?

Paulgonnabedebtfree

3guesses wrote: »

The point that Martin's interview completely missed is the fact that Santander's service has been shocking from day 1. I have been with Abbey since ~1995, and while their service was not 100% perfect overall I was really very happy with them and had no reason to think about leaving. Then Santander bought Abbey and literally overnight the bank went to sh*t. It is an absolute disgrace.

That's pretty much how I saw it too - except that I was with Abbey National from the late 1970s.
Pretty good marketing on their part too at the time. They sounded out local businesses to see if any of their staff wanted to have money taken straight from their wages into an Abbey National saver account. Quite a few of my colleagues did so. Although the company I worked for then is ancient history, I wonder how many of my former colleagues are still with Santander due to A.N's marketing back then. If I'm reasonably happy with a service, I do tend to be pretty loyal. For Santander to push me away to the Co-op (for at least some of my banking) took a lot of doing on their part. I can be quite lazy about things like that. Trust me. For me to start switching it really must be dire.

apt

RumPunch wrote: »

I noticed today that on this card they charge a £10 'dormant' fee. I guessed this would be because there was no activity on the account but what wasn't clear in the charges section was the period if inactivity.

Most people may already have been aware of this but I wasn't. If the account has a 0 balance for 6 months they will apply the charge.

Santander claims never to have levied this fee, but it's a good idea not to give them the chance.