Santander ( A&L) Poor Customer Service

jumpforjoy_2

I have held an Alliance & Leicester Current account for over 20 years, good credit rating & only once have I gone overdrawn, not my fault, my wages were paid in late.

I wanted a small loan for a car purchase.

Alliance & Leicester online quoted 8.9%, but when I spoke to an advisor in the branch I was told A&L were slow to provide the funds online so I booked an appointment with an branch advisor.

At the appointment I was told I could not have the 8.9% but i could have around 11%.
I disputed this rate & was then offered 9.5%, She processed my application and it came out at 12.9%!

4 different interest rates for the same amount over the same term in only 20 minutes.

I was then treated to the staff member racist views on arabic men because she saw I had been on holiday to North Africa whilst checking my passport ID.
As I was desperate to purchase the car I signed the agreement.

After consideration & the offer of a rate of 7.16% from the post office, I rang the branch to cancel the agreement.
I spoke to the Branch Manager & gave the reasons for cancellation, The attitude was 'couldn't careless' and she did not offer an apology.

I wrote a letter explaining the situation to the Santander MD.
A week later I received a response the Head of Complaints stating they are trying to resolve my complaint but no offer of an apology.

Over 2 weeks later & still no response from them, I have now opened an account with another bank & will close the Santander account ASAP.

What a Bank, badly trained branch staff with poor attitudes & openly racist views, an MD who fails to answer letters from people who are helping him resolve problems with his business & ultimately pay his wages & a Head of Complaints who fails to understand the importance of a small word - Sorry!

AnonymousForObviousReason

I also got a letter not saying sorry (just they don't know what went wrong) and a £30 goodwill in resolution. It also left me feeling cold as well, all I wanted was a sorry, this is why you had your problems and we'll look at improving in future (good will of £5 for extra phone calls would have done with a decent letter). I guess cash offer is less costly in the short term compared to proper investigation to sort their issues.

ses6jwg

Let's put this into context.

1. There was no excuse for racism from the adviser- I would make a personal complaint against them. I work for Santander and I am certainly not racist so please don't tar the entire company as a racist company!

2. It is quicker to process a loan in branch than online.

3. The 8.9% rate is a typical rate (i.e. what 66% of customers get). The adviser should have explained that this rate is indicative only and is not guaranteed. That is what I always do. To qualify for 8.9% you must have paid £1000 into the account for the last 3 months, otherwise standard rate is 11.9%.

The 8.9% is also for loans between the sums of 7 - 14k. Did your loan fit these criteria?

4. When the adviser then submitted the application the rate you were given was based on your credit score. It is at this point that you can then decide to go ahead or not.

5. You have a 14 day cooling off period. This should have been explained during the Terms of Business (PLEASE TELL ME THE ADVISER WENT THROUGH THE TERMS OF BUSINESS IF NOT THEY SHOULD BE DE-AUTHORISED.)

AnonymousForObviousReason

@ses6jwg - I've notice you post in other places and are always fairly balanced in my opinion, please don't take this as a direct criticism of you but rather at the organisation you work for.

Your response of saying lets put this into context misses the point as the rest Santander has done. At the moment there is a large amount of anger and criticism of Santanders systems and its poor customer service (both phone and in branch), what there seems to be is a complete lack of willingness to listen to what people are saying, there is also poor communication, it would be easy to say in a letter it'll take us at least 4 weeks to investigate properly sorry for the long delay. Also giving a customer 4 different quotes or leading them to believe there are 4 different ones is not good.

Finally how hard is it for someone at the end of a phone when someone calls to cancel a service to give 30 seconds to say, sorry you haven't been happy with our below aimed for standards, is there anything we can do to change your mind and I hope you will consider us in the future.

Customer service isn't hard but is done so badly by so many.

jumpforjoy_2

ses6jwg wrote: »

Let's put this into context.

1. There was no excuse for racism from the adviser- I would make a personal complaint against them. I work for Santander and I am certainly not racist so please don't tar the entire company as a racist company!

2. It is quicker to process a loan in branch than online.

3. The 8.9% rate is a typical rate (i.e. what 66% of customers get). The adviser should have explained that this rate is indicative only and is not guaranteed. That is what I always do. To qualify for 8.9% you must have paid £1000 into the account for the last 3 months, otherwise standard rate is 11.9%.

The 8.9% is also for loans between the sums of 7 - 14k. Did your loan fit these criteria?

4. When the adviser then submitted the application the rate you were given was based on your credit score. It is at this point that you can then decide to go ahead or not.

5. You have a 14 day cooling off period. This should have been explained during the Terms of Business (PLEASE TELL ME THE ADVISER WENT THROUGH THE TERMS OF BUSINESS IF NOT THEY SHOULD BE DE-AUTHORISED.)

Hi
Thanks for taking the time to cover some points raised in my post.

1. I would not like people to think I thought all Alliance & leicester staff were racist, unfortunately this advisor made comments of that nature.

2. Unfortunately It seems Alliance & Leicester / Santander are quicker online as the advisor told me although my application was made & approved on a Saturday, the money would hit my current Account until the following Friday.

3. Heres the rub, I wanted £5,000 over 60 months and entered this into the Alliance & Leicester Personal Loan calculator on their website - Hey Presto 8.9%, this was confirmed by the advisor at the time. Try it you will get the same result today.
As for funding my account, I can confirm I deposited considerably more than £1000 in the past 3 months.

4. Credit Score - I am aware of credit scoring as I sold retail credit for almost 30 years.
I have a small loan ( £100 per month) ending in April next year
As I have stated I have been in credit for over 20 years with the exception of 24 hours 8 years ago & I was not at fault.
I pay my 2 credit cards off each month & have never defaulted on a loan in my life.
I have checked &there is nothing wrong with my credit rating.

I find it strange neither the Advisor nor the Branch Manager bothered, or even offered to speak to an underwriter on my behalf.

5. The Advisor did go through the terms of business & I took advantage of this by cancelling the loan on the Monday.

I did not realise what a mess Alliance & Leicester / Santander were in until I started reading the posts on here.

It is unfortunate that good staff like yourself, who care about customer service, are being let down by management who fail to respond to a valid customer complaint.

I have been loyal to Alliance & Leicester and feel betrayed by them hence I am closing my account.

Thanks again for addressing my concerns, more than Richard Harris Santander Head of Complaints has bothered to do, & good luck for the future.

As Anonymousforareason states it doesnt take long to say sorry.