Santander Rant :mad:

Willow_K

I recently opened a House of Fraser credit card which is run by Santander. Hands up, I completely forgot to set up the Direct Debit for it so missed the first payment.

Friday night I started to get automated calls from their payment line. I make it a point never to go through security when someone calls me, as I know people who have been caught out by this in the past. When I realised that it was about a late payment, I made a note to myself to call them the next day to pay it.

When I tried to call up on Saturday afternoon, I discovered that their customer service / payment line was closed until Monday morning.

Over the rest of the weekend, I got numerous calls, many of which were dead on the other end, a couple went into the automated payment system and the final one was from a real human being (albeit Indian based call centre).

When I called up this morning to sort out payment and set up the direct debit, I asked to be put through to their complaints department.

The guy on the other end explained that they were legally obliged to let people know about late payment - I said I was fine with this, but as I had a policy of not giving out details to people who phone me, I couldn't meet their demand for payment as their lines were closed.

He kept trying to tell me I could have left a promise to pay - err no, because that would have meant going through the security questions and half the time there was no one there anyway.

I finally had enough of going round in circles with him, so I asked him to remove my number from their records. He then tried to tell me he was unable to do that because they needed to be able to contact me. I pointed out that they had both my address and email and could contact me that way.

He then agreed to remove my number but tried to tell me that if I missed a payment again, it would be re-instated on my record! I have now set up the DD so I won't miss a payment but.....

:mad::mad::mad: .....anyway.

I now intend to put my complaint in writing and send them the template letter asking them to remove my number from their records. While I own my mistake of missing the payment, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect to be able to contact them if they feel it is acceptable to contact me (at least six times on a Sunday :mad:).





And breathe.......that's better - sorry for the rant!

redpete

Don't they have an on-line system that allows you to pay them whenever you like, or could you not have used your bank to make on-line fast payments to get the money to them near instantly?

As they can't guarantee that you will receive and read either an email or a letter it seems reasonable that they ask for a method of communication where they know that it has been successful.

Willow_K

No - couldn't log onto the online system and the bank payment wouldn't have gone through on a weekend, so the calls would have continued.

I wouldn't have had a problem with them calling me - if I could have called them back.