Abbey/Santander

therealblob

I would like to warn everyone of a potential trap that I fell in to with Abbey and now am scared will happen too with Santander.

I used to bank with Abbey National but left in June '08 because I was sick and tired of their procedures regarding visa purchases. On many occasions I would check my balance online in the morning and it would have sufficient funds to cover either a visa purchase via chip and pin or a cash withdrawel. A few hours later I would find myself overdrawn because Abbey were allowing shops to present purchases 3-4 days later at any time during the day. I found that because of this I was incurring several charges on a monthly basis.

After being constantly fed up with having to check my account 3, 4 or 5 times a day I decided to change to the Alliance & Leicester. Result fantastic service. I never had a single problem. i knew that if I used my card with chip and pin or online it came off my available balance immediately. No charges no hassle.

But now................

Having being taken over by Santander it seems that my nightmare has returned. Today having checked my account at 9.30 this morning I had £28. No problems. 2 visa purchases totalling £10.30 and a cash withdrawel of £10 at 1pm leaves a little under a tenner. So this evening I try and book my monthly grocery shopping online for Saturday and I know as I get paid tomorrow there's no worries.

But there is. I find I'm overdrawn. How come? i call customer services and ask what's happened as there are no purchases showing on my online statement. Apparantly 3 or 4 transactions have gone through late afternoon/evening. Why is this I ask? This never happened before with A & L I state. The customer services rep says that unfortunately this is how it's going to be for some time.

I have a very bad feeling about this and I feel it should be made public. I believe that this practice solely benefits the banks in generating extra income through charges. It means that you have to almost keep checking your account hourly for fear of using your card and incurring a charge.

Has this happened to anyone else? If so what did you do to combat this? Why can't all banks use the same system as A & L?

Ultimately I don't want to change my account again as I had got used to A & L and was very happy with them but I am very fearful for myself and anyone else who might fall into this trap.

AnonymousForObviousReason

Okay, to get this straight I HATE santander, they are a terrible, terrible bank - run for the hills is my usual adivce

BUT I really don't understand what you're getting at. If you live close to your limit, I think it's up to you to keep in enough credit to ensure the money you've spent won't put you into debt.

Sorry really want to be anti Santander but cant do that in this case.

therealblob

The point I'm trying to make is that no matter how close you get to your limit, and come the end of the month it normally is pretty close, this never happened with Alliance & Leicester. I knew that if I had £10 in my account the day before I got paid, any transactions I had made the previous day or before had already been taken off my available balance regardless of where, with whom and how immediately. I knew I had that £10 there and if I needed to buy anything I could.

Now I can't because the way transactions are being put through is not an immediate deduction from my available balance.

jen245

This is the reason I switched. My balances were always wrong, although I always try to keep a note of what I've spent anyway. Money would appear randomly in my account disappear the next day, transactions would come off my available but be added back on the next day, it got very confusing, and the online banking is now very unreliable. Switching is really the only thing you can do to be honest

blueberrypie

therealblob wrote: »

I would like to warn everyone of a potential trap that I fell in to with Abbey and now am scared will happen too with Santander.

I used to bank with Abbey National but left in June '08 because I was sick and tired of their procedures regarding visa purchases. On many occasions I would check my balance online in the morning and it would have sufficient funds to cover either a visa purchase via chip and pin or a cash withdrawel. A few hours later I would find myself overdrawn because Abbey were allowing shops to present purchases 3-4 days later at any time during the day. I found that because of this I was incurring several charges on a monthly basis.

While some banks deduct debit-card purchases from your balance immediately and some don't, the customer should never expect to use the "available balance" facility in the way you seem to want to - i.e. to keep track of your money. The majority of debit cards do not require authorisation for every transaction, and in those cases the bank cannot even be aware of the transaction until the retailer presents it for payment. The customer could have written a cheque - again, the bank would not be aware until it was presented for payment.

You are expecting your bank to manage your spending for you - that is not the bank's job. It is up to you to keep track of what you have in your account and what you expect to go in and out.

tellmeitsfriday

Exactly - you mustn't rely on the bank to sort out your budgeting.

That's what your spreadsheet is for... Make a list, keep a running total. If it's the same as your bank statement figure great, if not you know there are a few more things to debit.

e.g. I know my bank balance is £75 out because I went to Sainsburys yesterday. If I spent that £75 again and came on here moaning I'd be charged, I suspect I would be laughed at.

Keep a list, a spending diary - you're more likely to be accurate than the bank.... is what I am trying to say x

jen245

While I agree with the above posts about not relying on the balances, I need to point out, that with the changeover from A&L to Santander, the balances on my account, sometimes, in no way related to transactions I had made on my account. I had a few instances where I hadnt even used my card for over a week or so, and random amounts would just be removed from my balance for a few days, and then it would go back to normal. Incidentally, there were also a few occasions where amounts were added on, making it look like I had more in my account than I knew I had, and then a few days later it would disappear. My overdraft doubled for 3 days, then went back to what it was, so potentially I could have spent well over my overdraft limit (not that I would have), and got myself into real bother. I understand that there are going to be teething problems when moving onto different sytems, but for me, there were just a few too many!

[Deleted User]

yep same happened to me overdrawn cause of authorisation issues

therealblob

tellmeitsfriday wrote: »

Exactly - you mustn't rely on the bank to sort out your budgeting.

That's what your spreadsheet is for... Make a list, keep a running total. If it's the same as your bank statement figure great, if not you know there are a few more things to debit.

e.g. I know my bank balance is £75 out because I went to Sainsburys yesterday. If I spent that £75 again and came on here moaning I'd be charged, I suspect I would be laughed at.

Keep a list, a spending diary - you're more likely to be accurate than the bank.... is what I am trying to say x

I think you fail to see the point. It's not about the bank managing my account, I'm more than capable of that nor do I need a spreadsheet. The point I'm trying to make is why can some relatively smaller banks (A&L) have a system, software, methods etc that enable the customer to know with confidence that when they use their card it is deducted from their available balance immediately. That way they have a clear indication of the funds available to them for the following day, and why do some bigger banking institutions (Abbey/Santander) not. There should be a uniform system throughout the banking industry. This would remove any doubt about what is left in an account. Otherwise the customer would have to constantly spend time checking balances online, filling out spreadsheets because there isn't a common method of dealing with this.

To be told by the newly transferred customer services reps at Santander that this is how it's going to be for some time smacks of either a complete disregard for what would be a continuation of good banking procedures or something more underhand. My previous experience with Abbey lends me to believe that it is the latter.

AnonymousForObviousReason

therealblob I have some very bad news for you. The IT in banks is really, really bad. They can't even do the basics like providing an accurate balance of what money they have vs. what money they owe at the end of each day.

IT just isn't a priority for many banks, above getting them doing the minimum because it reduces costs. Interestingly new laws are coming into force next year that will mean banks have to be in a position to provide accurate information if they go into default (regardless of if this is a risk or not). This will require a lot of investment and time is running out, so IT that benefits the customer will be ignored to meet the new regulations.

blueberrypie

therealblob wrote: »

On many occasions I would check my balance online in the morning and it would have sufficient funds to cover either a visa purchase via chip and pin or a cash withdrawel. A few hours later I would find myself overdrawn because Abbey were allowing shops to present purchases 3-4 days later at any time during the day.

You made those purchases, right?

therealblob wrote: »

But there is. I find I'm overdrawn. How come? i call customer services and ask what's happened as there are no purchases showing on my online statement. Apparantly 3 or 4 transactions have gone through late afternoon/evening.

Those transactions were yours, right?

therealblob wrote: »

]It means that you have to almost keep checking your account hourly for fear of using your card and incurring a charge.

therealblob wrote: »

I think you fail to see the point. It's not about the bank managing my account, I'm more than capable of that nor do I need a spreadsheet.

therealblob wrote: »

]There should be a uniform system throughout the banking industry. This would remove any doubt about what is left in an account. Otherwise the customer would have to constantly spend time checking balances online, filling out spreadsheets because there isn't a common method of dealing with this.

I think *you* are missing the point. You are expecting the bank to keep track of your spending. That's not what the bank is there for.

You say you are capable of managing your account - but your examples above show that you are relying on the bank to do it for you. If you were managing your own money, those transactions which went through and made you overdrawn would have been no surprise - after all, they are *your* transactions.

Keeping track of your own spending means you *don't* have to keep checking your on-line balance hourly. It means you *don't* have to have any doubt about what is left in an account. It means you know how much you've spent, you know how much is left - and it doesn't matter if a retailer has already presented a payment or not, because you know what your own situation is. And that is the point that people are making: it is your money and it is up to you to manage it. The downside to on-line banking is that some people have become reliant on it to tell them what they can afford, rather than doing what people did years ago, when you got a monthly (or even quarterly) statement: kept track of their own spending.

Even with the best IT system in the world, a bank's "available balance" could only ever guarantee accuracy if *every single transaction* were authorised at the point of sale. That is not how it works (and not how it ever worked with A&L either, by the way - I think your experience there must have just been luck). It does work that way for very basic debit cards, such as the one my 11-year-old has. He can't make purchases without electronic authorisation. Such a card means the user can't ever go overdrawn, but it also means it can't be used at the hand-held machines on trains, at pay-at-pump petrol stations - or for on-line shopping with some retailers, including grocery. And no cheques either, of course.