Santander / Alliance & Leicester Complaint

lukem85

A copy of the rant I have e-mailed santander tonight. I have never seen such poor examples of customer service ever! :mad:

"I write because I have never come across such incompetence in my experiences with any other bank.

Today I wasted 90 minutes of my time speaking (or perhaps more accurately on hold) to your customer services and collections line. I phoned because I thought after your initial errors in September you had resolved my problems. Infact you have made them worse.

Firstly the initial problem;

I cancelled a direct debit in August of this year and as result the transfer of my funds to my savings account did not happen in September which was correct.

However, for some reason the direct debit was reinstated by you and £250 left my account again on the 4th October incorrectly. I was unaware of this as I don't use your account on a regular basis due to inept service I have received for the last six months.

This caused a direct debit to Vodafone to bounce on two occasions as there was insufficient funds. It was not until Vodafone contacted me, not you! that I became aware of this.

You then investigated this and admitted your errors. You wrote to me saying that all fees would be reimbursed and £25 would be added to my account as a gesture of goodwill.

Imagine my disgust at checking my account again recently to find you hadn't done this at all.
No £25.
£125 worth of charges leaving the account overdrawn not £25 in credit thus incurring more overdraft fees oh and that £250 direct debit that has now been cancelled twice was back working again! So an account which should be £25 in credit was infact £375 overdrawn.

I phoned your customer services number at 20p a minute from my mobile where a nice and helpful guy said he was sorting it. He closed the esaver so money physically couldn't be transferred and moved the £250 back. Unfortunately he got that far and the line cleared.

In spite of him having my mobile number he didn't call me back (one member of your customer service team informed me tonight that you ban your staff from doing this!!). So i phoned you again at 20p per minute. I got another guy in Customer Services who apologised and credited my account with £10 for inconvenience. He said he couldn't help, he would need to put me through to a different team. He did this so I spoke to a woman in collections who I can only describe and incompetent and rude. She advised me that I should have patience. (after 5 months of errors - I have none with your organisation). She then said she needed to place me on hold whilst she investigated the file. I was then on hold for 20 minutes before she came back on the line to advise that she would credit the fees I'm charged but no compensation for the £8 I have now incurred phone charges tonight alone, let alone previous complaints and that she couldn't put the £25 in the account or credit my overdraft fees as she didn't have access to those letters. She also said that as I didn't use the accounts any longer because of a computer glitch I needed to go into the branch to close it or I would incur further fees.

I advised this was not practical and I had wasted in excess of 5 hours of my time already in total sorting this. She then put my call back through to customer services again who she didn't introduce the call to so I had to explain the whole situation again. And it turns out that she hadn't credited the fees back again!!!!

He then placed me on hold for another 25 minutes coming back to me once to say he was on hold to collections to sort the situation.

I then suddenly was speaking to someone in collections who said did you call us??? Uh no, I was on hold. I believe this to be same women I was speaking to an hour ago who obviously couldn't be arsed to deal with the complaint so put me back on hold without telling me whilst I was mid explanation where I remainded for a further 20 minutes before I just gave up!

All in all tonight I have lost 1hour 30 minutes of my time on the phone to your Customer Services and am still in the same situation apart from £250 is now back in the my current account. I could have done this myself online!

I will have incurred mobile phone costs of £18. So I am not prepared to spend more time on the phone to your customer services.

If I don't hear from you I will make a withdrawal of £35 on Monday which is the compensation I am owed and have been offered by your organisation. This will leave the account falsely overdrawn, you will never be paid another penny from me.

I will also ensure that all other accounts I have with you from a business perspective will be closed and moved. I have never ever experieced such poor customer service and customer care nor such incompetent and rude staff.

I admire that you still use UK Based Call Centres but after tonight give me BT in New Delhi anytime at least I won't have a woman with attitude problem who tells me I should have patience with the bank in spite of their constant errors!"

YorkshireBoy

lukem85 wrote: »

A copy of the rant I have e-mailed santander tonight.

Speaking as someone with experience in getting results by complaining, I'd have sent a formal complaint through the recognised channels.

I also wouldn't have sworn in my correspondence.

I'd have bulleted my concerns clearly and consisely, and summarised the outcome desired*.

I wouldn't have made the situation worse by making threats. Rather, I would have inferred that some considerable goodwill was necessary in order to retain my custom. I'd have played the 'distress and inconvenience' card (directly citing), in readiness for referral to the FOS.

I can understand your frustration, but can't agree with your approach. Good luck though!


* For example, you haven't asked them to make good the damage to your credit file in your "rant".

Loughton_Monkey

I wonder if one day, Wikileaks will publish the entire "Santander Complaints Files".

Would keep us all reading for the next 250 years!

dc

They have messed up again today.

A&L customers online banking cokeup...... bookmarked logon details now take you to Santander Homepage, when logon button clicked the details are different and you cannot logon. he he

DrSyn

Your e-mail is unlikley to have an effect.

Why not send a copy of your complaint asking for compensation to:-
Santanders chief executive.
(Just remember do not be rude or agressive)

If that does not work. Try sending a letter asking for help from the following:-

1. The banking ombudsman
2. BBC's "Watch Dog" and "Money Box" programes
3. The Daily Mail
4. Your MP
5. Any one else you think might help to get you compenstion.

Of course you might get an improved service from another bank.
So why not start using another bank untill this is sorted out?

[Deleted User]

I've had it up to here with Santandcrap today too.

My debit card was not working at the ATM and was also declining online purchases. Phoned customer services who said there was a "block" on my card and told me to go to a branch to have it unblocked. As they couldn't do it over the phone!?!

Travelled the 5 miles to the nearest branch only to be told that there was an "abuse of account" block on my account. Told to go home and phone the collections department to get it unblocked.

Got home and phoned the collections department who said that they have now unblocked it after a a series of security questions.

BUT! Card still doesn't work. I give up now. :mad: