Santander - Loan payout delayed/cancelled

hughes_jh

Hi all,
Please forgive me for being a newbie and posting my problems on here, but not sure where else to look for the advice I need.

I recently bought a car at a car supermarket and paid a small (£200) retaining fee. As their finance rates were too high I went off and arranged my own loan. Santander seemed attractive so I went with them.

All went ok with the application, they gave me their advertised rate (I think it was 7.8%) and sent me a letter dated 17th January to say the money had been paid into my Cahoot account (owned by Santander!) and would take up to four days to clear.

So here we are on the 21st, four days later and no money shows up in my account. I phoned Santander this morning and got some indifferent response about "we'll look into that for you." I phoned again this afternoon and was told that they have had some issues with payments into Cahoot acounts.

They said in all likelihood the loan agreement will have to be cancelled and a new application sent out. Now, all of this will take up to two weeks more (and I still don't know if this payment issue will be resolved then, maybe the same thing will happen to me again?)

The problem is, that on the receipt of the confirmation letter, I arranged to collect the car today and had to book a day off work (the place is about an hour away and will only despatch cars mon-fri) AND I sold my old car which the buyer is coming to collect tomorrow!!

What can I do? Are they able to behave like this?

The guy on the phone said "you'll have to play the waiting game" I went mad at him for being unprofessional and told him my job contract stipulates that I must have a car (particularily as my employer pays me a car allowance!) He clearly had a case of POETS as he didn't seem too fussed.

Please help!!!

hughes_jh

Can anybody help please?

I'd be ever so grateful

Hax

To be honest, I can't see that there is much that can be done. You've made arrangements without actually having the finance available - always a "risky" game to play.

You could try phoning the car dealer, explaining the situation and asking if they will give you some more time. They may not - in which case, you will forfeit your deposit.

As for the selling of your own car - is this a private trade? Has any money changed hands yet or agreements been made/signed? Again, it may be worthwhile calling the buyer and explaining the situation to them. As I see it, you have two choices:

1. Continue with the sale as agreed - the buyer drives away happy and you're left without a car
2. Cancel the deal and return any money paid to you. Obviously, it would be better to cancel it before the buyer arrives to collect the car - I would imagine that they would be pretty annoyed if they had spent any time and money getting to you to collect the car only for you to turn around and tell them that the deal is off. Calling them will at least save them this time and money.

As for Santander - I wouldn't think you really have any comeback with them - problems happen (apparently more often to Santander than most!). It's also known for lenders to change their minds at the very last minute too.

I think the only positive you can take from this is the lesson of not to count your chickens before they hatch - or, in this case, not to make financial commitments until you have the money firmly in your account!

hughes_jh

Hax, thank you for your feedback. Just to clarify, the only reason I made commitments was because I received a letter from Santander confirming the money had been paid into my account and would take up to four days to clear.

***UPDATE***
After constant calling I agreed with Santander that they would send out a new contract to sign and upon its return they would pay the money by CHAPS under a new account from them. This was on Friday 21st and confirmed on Monday 24th. The person specifically said this letter should be sent out on Monday but no later than Tuesday. Now its Wednesday and no letter received. I phoned up to ask and was told that it hasn't been sent yet!

I'm at a total loss as to what to do. I feel as if I'm being held to ransom as I could've walked away from Santander long ago and had a loan from someone else.

The guy I spoke to today couldn't/wouldn't answer my questions;
- What was the reason the original payment didn't happen
- If I sign another agreement, am I legally bound to the terms of TWO loans?
- When will the new letter be sent out?

I originally applied for this loan on the 8th January, 18 days ago (and counting)!!!

Hax

To be honest, if I were in your position, I would just take my business elsewhere and tell Santander to stick the loan where the sun don't shine

With regard to the new loan from them, you haven't received any paperwork and therefore haven't signed anything so you can't possibly be held accountable for that loan yet. And with the original loan, one of the conditions of that was that you would receive the money - which you haven't so you can't possibly be held accountable for that one either.

My thoughts are that at this point in time, you are free to go wherever you like and are not currently tied into anything with Santander.

What's happening with the garage you were going to get the new car from? And what about the sale of your current car?

Hope you manage to get this all resolved to your satisfaction soon.

Hughessj12

Hi, Just about to start a thread, but see that my husband has beaten me to it!

The situation with santander is quite worrying. My husband has signed and returned a loan agreement with them and he has received a letter stating that the funds have been transferred and even been given details of his first payment date.

Now I understand that because we have not received the money that we are not liable for it, however, santander do not seem to know where the original money is. We have not received an explanation in writing, or a cancellation in writing, we are therefore reluctant to get another credit agreement with this one in limbo (having read complaints about santander since this started, the fact that we have not received the money will not prevent them from damaging our credit file if they believe that we have a loan with them - I expect that when loans are issued the collection of payments is with a different department and I expect that they do not talk to the new business part of the business).

So we have the following issues:

1. We have not had a satisfactory explanation of what has happened to the money, what is happening in the bank to put it right, or when we can expect the money. So we can't really take our business elsewhere
2. We have placed a deposit on a vehicle on the back of the loan agreement that we signed, which we could now lose (would the bank be liable for this as they have caused the loss and not delivered on a contract)
3. We have the further issue of my husbands present car that we have sold...

I don't want to get on the "I hate banks" bandwagon as I am fully behind trying to keep the finance industry that we have in the UK (what else would we have our manufacturing industry is decimated) but these guys are really taking the p**s and should at least train their staff to a sufficient level so that they can explain to their customers what is going on.

hughes_jh

Hax wrote: »

To be honest, if I were in your position, I would just take my business elsewhere and tell Santander to stick the loan where the sun don't shine

What's happening with the garage you were going to get the new car from? And what about the sale of your current car?

Thanks Hax,
In hindsight, I should've moved to apply elsewhere, but they kept telling me it would be resolved in a few days so I didn't think there would be any benefit. I've now started the ball rolling on this one.

The garage are in a similar position to me I suppose, do they cut their ties with me and see if they can get a new buyer, or try keep the current deal on the table. I've also had to fob off the buyer for my car completely. I can fall back on webuyanycar.com but this is £600 less than the private buyer was offering.

I am amazed by how non-plussed Santander are about this. I thought that when I had a letter saying the money had been paid ad then it didn't arrive that I might be in some sort of position where they were defaulting on payment and would have to pull out all the stops to get the money accross.

Even the complaints guy (yes, I finally lodged a complaint) said he would "send an email to make it as priority," its hardly the feedback you want to hear!

Hax

Just out of curiosity (and I'm sure you have done this already) but have you checked to ensure that the account details that Santander are paying the money into are the correct ones?

Otherwise, someone else could be sitting with your loan in their bank account and you could have a bit of hassle trying to get the money back.

Hax

Hughessj12 wrote: »

I don't want to get on the "I hate banks" bandwagon as I am fully behind trying to keep the finance industry that we have in the UK

I find that statement a little ironic - what with Santander being Spanish

hughes_jh

Hax wrote: »

Just out of curiosity (and I'm sure you have done this already) but have you checked to ensure that the account details that Santander are paying the money into are the correct ones?

I find that statement a little ironic - what with Santander being Spanish

Even more ironic, my current account is with cahoot, which is owned by.......... Santander.

So Santander can't even manage to transfer money to their own banks.

And yes, account details checked and double checked and verified. Santander say the payment failed

Hax

Well, that's me out of ideas... Looks like another Santander cockup

I do hope you get it all sorted out soon though!