A&L and Santander - the positive side

chequeout

Hi all

I've seen a lot of negative comments and really bad experiences in these forums concerning the massive problems with the change from A&L to Santander.

These problems must be truly awful - and I would hate to be in some of the positions that I have read about on these forums. The claimed rudeness and real, massive problems caused from any incompetence on their part is unforgivable and I don't blame many of you for wanting to leave them if this is the case.

However, I'm a big believer in fairness and putting an opposing point so I want to state that my own experience with the transfer from A&L to Santander couldn't be more different. I've had an A&L Premier Current Account since August 2008. Never had any problems whatsoever with it. Since the transition to Santander, this good service has continued. I have had uninterrupted online access, all direct debits have gone through on time, no unwarranted charges have appeared and there have been no problems at all.

I recently lost my A&L debit card and they sent a replacement Santander one within a week and in the meantime I had easy access to cash over the counter at various Santander branches (I actually used three in different towns / areas and all gave me money with no problem at all when I produced my passport as ID)

I just think it's important to state that not all of us have experienced such huge problems (although I do agree their call-centre operatives can be incredibly rude and snotty when I have had cause to ring them on a few occasions....)

And - please note - I do not work for Santander in any way whatsoever, I just think it's important for readers in these forums to see that not everyone has had problems with them (although, for the massive problems many seem to have experienced, they do need to get their act together, granted).

Many thanks.

chequeout

I bet I've jinxed myself now.........

blueberrypie

chequeout wrote: »

I bet I've jinxed myself now.........

*sits back and waits* ;-)

adindas

chequeout wrote: »

Hi all
I've had an A&L Premier Current Account since August 2008. Never had any problems whatsoever with it. Since the transition to Santander, this good service has continued. I have had uninterrupted online access, all direct debits have gone through on time, no unwarranted charges have appeared and there have been no problems at all.
.

I have Premier Direct current a/c. Sofar I never got charge such as underfunding fee, etc as I am playing by the rule. When 1 year pass I just closed it because I do not see any benefit to keep put £500 with so little interest.

chequeout wrote: »

Hi all
I do agree their call-centre operatives can be incredibly rude and snotty when I have had cause to ring them on a few occasions....)
.

For some customers like me this is a real annoyance. Sometimes if you were lucky you got the person who are competence and understand what they are doing. But in many occasions they just keep transferring you from one dept to another and at the end they can not sort it out.
Sometimes you are transferred to nowhere (like a death zone, keep you waiting nothing happen) so you just need to hang up after wasting so much time.

Imagine you have spent a lot of time, not to mention the phone call cost.
The conversation is sometimes close the dialogue of the deaf (I am exaggerating, I know :-)).

MAY I invite the Santander's senior management to test it himself and see what his experience is. I am banking with most UK high street banking, BS so I could easily compare my experience.
Regretfully I have to say in term of their phone customer services (not all though but in average) they are on the bottom of the league.

I think if they want to survive they have to do something about it, get them trained do not let the new person in frontline without being supervised .....

But I love Santander product for obvious reasons, their product in term of interest rate is hard to be beaten by other banks.

ADINDAS

knightfox

I can believe that there are cases of good response from Santander. What gets me is the number of threads on here which are about Santander every time I logon. There are of course good reasons for this, people have problems. Some people are still upset about their bank / building society being taken over.

I have just joined Santander. After 6 weeks I have finally got internet access to my accounts. I have two savings accounts, the bank account is coming from RBS. But what I find is that apart from the mistake they have made on my set up listing me only living at my house since I opened the account.

But the computer systems is horrible. RBS has a much better online system.