Santander; not a good start

Crazy_Jamie

This is a lengthy rant about Santander. Just because I want to get it out of my system.

So after much deliberation my fiancee and I decided to move all of our banking to Santander from Barclays and Halifax respectively. It would have been Nationwide, but they required pay slips from me to open an account. Given that I am self employed and don't get payslips, I clearly didn't meet their criteria (!).

We had a nice chat in branch at Santander with one of their assistants, and to be fair the paperwork was completed efficiently. We were switching to a 5% interest current account, and whilst the £100 switching bonus was no longer applicable (or so we were told) that didn't bother us at the time. We made it clear at the time that we would be using internet banking almost exclusively, and that we would be setting up numerous accounts each once the initial account was set up in order to manage tax and such.

We both received confirmation letters dated 19/09/10 confirming our account details and that the switching process had begun. We both signed up to the online banking straight away, which would involve us being sent out a registration number and passcode in two separate letters (so four in total). The timeframe for these letters to arrive was ten working days (so two weeks, then). We both received our passcodes in the first few days of October, dated 29/09/10. We were both advised that the registration numbers would follow a couple of days later if we didn't already have them.

Fast forward two weeks. The switching process is complete (meaning that our direct debits are now going out of our empty Santander accounts), but we have not received our registration numbers yet and have no access to online banking. We both transfer some money into the accounts to cover any potential liabilities, and both call to find out where our registration numbers are. We are both told, in separate phonecalls, that 'they must have been lost in the post' (really?) and that a new set will be sent out to us, but the old set will not be canceled in case they turn up. Mine has still not turned up.

My fiancee's registration number turned up yesterday, though, and this morning she tried to set up her online account. She was prompted to change her registration number and passcode, and she did so, before being kicked out of the system. She tried to log back in and couldn't. She called them up and was told that the system was down. She tried to log on tonight and still couldn't get in. She called them up and was told that there was a fault with her details (apparently they have two systems, one is showing her details as the initial set, and one as the changed set). They are calling her back on Friday to see if they can get this sorted (why it's going to take 48 hours I'm not quite sure).

In the mean time I happened to notice that the £100 transfer bonus that we were told was no longer available is still being advertised on their site, so decided to call up to see if we could get that applied to our accounts. I called up and was told to input my sixteen digit card number. I did so, and was told I hadn't. I did it again, and was told I hadn't. I did it a third time, and was told that I hadn't input my date of birth (what?). I input my date of birth, and was told my balance. I was asked to press 1 if I wanted to speak to someone. I did press 1. I was cut off.

Are we just being desperately unlucky here, or are Santander really this bad all the time? It is the worst first impression I've seen since Tiscali. My fiancee and I are now seriously considering just moving elsewhere as soon as this whole debacle has been sorted.

dacouch

They are normally this bad.

j9mcl

They are this bad and more. Expect your cards to be cancelled without reason as well. They did this 6 times to me before I moved to the Nationwide. Best decision I ever made. UK call centres, can call my branch direct, no cancelling of cards etc.

I know you said that Nationwide needed payslips but I'm sure if you went into a branch they would be able to help you.

uk-tyler

That's not bad for Santander, expect it to get worse.
A lot worse.

winnie81

You've had it good so far for Santander! Sorry to say but it only gets worse (well did for us!) we moved our accounts to Nationwide and so glad we did :j

Didn't need payslips for any of our 4 accounts with Nationwide and we applied in branch?

Claire

kev.s

hey thats a treat compared to the hassle they normally cause, wait till you experience their "ghost transactions" they lost £1500 of my money and it took them over 4 months to repay it, they also wiped out my bank account where my DD's come out of and expect me to pay £174 in charges even though my DD into the account was still being processed, hence the reason i now have a complaint with the ombudsman...not that they will do anything as their just as bloody bad to deal with

GillsMan7

I work for myself and I give myself payslips, so being self-employed shouldn't preclude you from having payslips. Although I am running a Ltd company so I need to keep personal income and dividends separate, which won't be applicable if you're a sole trader or similar.

tbw

The best thing you can do is accept that Santander are going to give you the roughest banking ride of your life!!! They are, without exception, the absolute worst organisation I have ever had the misfortune to deal with.

What on EARTH posessed you to even consider them - there has been so much else in the press and online about them, they are about disasterous as Spanish Fly!

Crazy_Jamie

Nice to see it only goes downhill from here.

It has actually gotten worse. My fiancee received a call back this evening, and was told that the passcode she was putting in was wrong, and not the one she had changed it to. She insisted that it had to be right, not only because she had put that passcode in twice when changing it, but because she had written it down. She was told point blank that she must be wrong because their systems do not have faults with individual accounts. That is when I took the phone and explained thoroughly why the probability of Santander being in the wrong was significant higher than my fiancee being in the wrong. It was something along the lines of comparing the chances of a customer making the same typo twice in quick succession, but that typo being so obscure that she couldn't guess it herself (she has tried every combination she can think of), with the chances of a bank that had already told us two wrong things regarding this issue telling us a third wrong thing. To my mind that's quite clear cut; but apparently not to Santander.

She now has to wait for another registration number and passcode. After being transferred to a manager I was told that the reason for the delay with the other documentation is because they are having 'problems' with their distributor. So not only are Santander customer services people telling customers lies regarding their post being lost in the mail, they are also more than willing to allow this continuing issue to inconvenience a new customer whilst making no attempt to correct it. Excellent.

I think the decision is now all but made that we won't be staying with Santander.

GillsMan7 wrote:

I work for myself and I give myself payslips, so being self-employed shouldn't preclude you from having payslips. Although I am running a Ltd company so I need to keep personal income and dividends separate, which won't be applicable if you're a sole trader or similar.

For all intents and purposes I am a sole trader, though personally my circumstances are a little more complex than normal. In any event I cannot issue myself payslips, though. I'm still not entirely sure why Nationwide required payslips (was never really explained properly). The simple fact is that, for whatever reason, they required one in my case, which was the quickest way to end my relationship with them.

tbw wrote:

What on EARTH posessed you to even consider them - there has been so much else in the press and online about them, they are about disasterous as Spanish Fly!

Ironically I had seen a lot of that press, but brushed a lot of it off as media sensationalism. The individual stories that I heard were so specialist I didn't feel like they had any application to me.