Santander Zero Exchange Rates - a nightmare discussion

izools

chattychappy wrote: »

Ha ha ha! Yep I know, you're not alone about Santander. Loads of threads from people who have had problems with them.

I must have been very lucky! Had to phone them a few times when I set up the account, and again during December (from abroad) when the card got blocked.

Nevertheless, your disloyalty has been duly noted!

Oh, your time will come with Santander. It does with everyone, eventually...

fawxes

yorkshireboy, I know it won't be exactly that rate on the day of transaction but I wanted a value that i could use to compare against buying Euros to take cash on holiday or using my normal bank account debit card in a cash machine etc., purely for comparison. As far as checking rates occasionally, I go abroad once a year so the exchange rate changes could vary enough to cause me problems, I have limited funds, I agree changes day by day wouldn't be an issue.

I've not had a reply from the complaints department yet.

Although prople who've used the cards without trouble seem to like them, and they do seem to offer a good deal, the trouble I might have to go through if a problem arose just isn't worth the effort unfortunately, it's a shame really but there are other options.

Roger1

chattychappy wrote: »

Nevertheless, your disloyalty has been duly noted!

I'll try to do better in future.

OK, how about this? (Going OT but just to add to the Santander experience). The phone rang this morning. Nobody there. 1471 showed an 01922 number.

Another call this afternoon purporting to come from Santander. First question: 'what is the first line of your address?'. Hmmm. Perhaps it was Santander, perhaps not. Cheekily I pointed out that I do not give information to callers willy nilly. Anyway, without having that info, the person said he was calling in connection with our Santander mortgage.

We have no Santander mortgage.

Er, it's about your Santander buildings insurance. No, no Santander buildings insurance either.

After finishing the ludicrous conversation, I checked which number had called. Yep, the same 01922 number.

Anonymous calls, cold calling, trying to find out confidential info. Probably breaching the banking code. If it was Santander, it was poor. If it wasn't, then it was quite a good try.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming ...

yt8019

Can anyone confirm that Santander can not use any exchange rate other than Mastercard's official rate?

What I'm worried is that they could advertise 'zero' handling fees, but hide the commission by using a higher exchange rate. (Like the '0% commission' marketing trick you see in ForEx booths)

olympian

Roger1 wrote: »

I'll try to do better in future.

OK, how about this? (Going OT but just to add to the Santander experience). The phone rang this morning. Nobody there. 1471 showed an 01922 number.

Another call this afternoon purporting to come from Santander. First question: 'what is the first line of your address?'. Hmmm. Perhaps it was Santander, perhaps not. Cheekily I pointed out that I do not give information to callers willy nilly. Anyway, without having that info, the person said he was calling in connection with our Santander mortgage.

We have no Santander mortgage.

Er, it's about your Santander buildings insurance. No, no Santander buildings insurance either.

After finishing the ludicrous conversation, I checked which number had called. Yep, the same 01922 number.

Anonymous calls, cold calling, trying to find out confidential info. Probably breaching the banking code. If it was Santander, it was poor. If it wasn't, then it was quite a good try.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming ...

You'll probably find this was Homeserve calling you from Walsall with "special offers on heating and boiler cover for Santander customers" or something similar... They know you've got a Santander product, as your details came to them from Santander, but no idea which one!

YorkshireBoy

yt8019 wrote: »

Can anyone confirm that Santander can not use any exchange rate other than Mastercard's official rate?

Condition 15.3 details the conversion rate to be used, but section 20 (especially condition 20.3[e]) allows them to change it...

http://www.santander.co.uk/csgs/StaticBS?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1223409233516&cachecontrol=immediate&ssbinary=true&maxage=3600

Barnetbear

If you have used the Zero abroad to withdraw cash from a main bank's ATM, could you please post and let me know if you were charged any fee for the withdrawal at all. I know some small shops' ATMs do charge, but if you used your Zero in a large bank's machine overseas I'd appreciate knowing if there was actually a fee.

chattychappy

Just noticed in Taiwan that China Trust bank now wants to charge (you are warned). Cathay United Bank is still free.

Not sure if that helps!