Santander can't get anything right!

Melmoneysaver

This is mainly a whinge about Santander

Last week I opened the loyalty cash ISA 3.5% transfered £5,100 in and job done, or so I thought.

Today I logged into my online accounts and see that £94 has been transfered from my current account into another account in my name, I started to panic as I knew I hadn't authorised this and couldn't see where they money had gone, I called them and apparently another ISA has been opened for me! they blamed the branch and refered me to them for a call back

then about 2 hours later I logged in again and low and behold another £94 had been transfered so I called again

they have opened 2 ISAs, as well as they main one last years allowance had been transfered into and transfered £188 in total from my current account to them!!!!, god knows what kind of isa as they didn't tell me.

they have transfered the money back into my current account and closed the other rogue ISA's but I just know that it will screw with this years isa allowance, I tried to raise a complaint about it and asked to be reimbursed the cost of calls and they just said they would refer it to the branch so I dont hold out much hope there.

I just can't believe the imcompetance, im truly gobsmacked that this kind of error can be made and I'll be writing in with a formal complaint regardless of if the branch bother calling me back or not.

/end rant

tommy060289

seems strange. I thought you could only open one ISA per year anyway!

Ive been with once bank all my life and although they are expensive to borrow money from (something I dont do) they have a very good and stable system, something that I hear a lot of people dont seem to have

Niksan

Melmoneysaver wrote: »

I just can't believe the imcompetance

I can, and even if they were currently offering 10% for an ISA, I'd avoid it, I think Santander amplify the phrase, no pain, no gain.

beardiedog

I think the in(competence) of staff differs across the company.

My branch, which is out of town, has always been really good but my niece who used to bank at the main branch in town had all kinds of trouble. The lies they told were unbelievable.

Munro_Bagger

On 24/03/11, I made an online application for their ISA, because I wanted to be ready for the new tax year. On 31/03/11 I chased Customer Services asking for progress and on 05/04/11 they told me to 'visit a branch, present your ID etc and your reference number'. As I've never held an account with them, I went in yesterday (6th), armed with;

- ID & deposit
- online ISA application reference number (started with the letters 'OLA')
- screen print showing the summary page of my ISA application
- copy of the email dated 05/04/11 I received from Customer Services.

The cashier couldn't find an account in my name, despite all the information I provided. In the end, a very helpful member of staff sat down with me. He suggested that my application might not have been processed because I applied before 5th April, and so the system believed I wanted the ISA for the 2010/11 year. Because I hadn't been in to provide my ID and activate the account by 5th April, my application had been cancelled.

He was very apologetic and went through the application process with me there and then. I now have an account number and should receive my cashcard shortly (I hope). Once I have that, I can register for online banking.

Whilst I can't fault the guy that dealt with me in the branch (Durham), Santander's overall approach to customer service hasn't impressed me. I'm now beginning to wonder what I've let myself in for...

trinidadone

I am having trouble with both santander and Halifax. A few weeks ago I transferred my santander ISA account into my Halifax ISA. I wanted to deposit this years ISA allowance, but could not. I have been told my Halifax today, is they are waiting for paperwork from Santander.

I telephoned Santander, and logged a complaint. The complaints section was rubbish, told me to ring the Santander helpline in the morning. Santander have rubbish customer service

psychic_teabag

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that you ought to be able to pay this years deposit without waiting for the transfer to complete. There are three steps here :

1. open isa with zero deposit
2. transfer contents of old ISA to new ISA
3. pay this years deposit into new ISA

The first should already have happened, and the second is in progress. The third does not need to be conditional on the second.

If you were transferring an ISA into which you had already subscribed this year, I think step3 would be blocked until the transfer completed, in order to ensure that the rule about only subscribing to one ISA in a year could be upheld, but that's not the case here.

So I don't see that what you are trying to do would break the ISA rules, but obviously Halifax are entitled to their own policies.

Perhaps they'll let you open a new ISA for this years money ? I don't know if they have a policy of merging all ISAs into one account, and obviously you might prefer to keep them all together. You could perhaps do that and then arrange to transfer one into the other when the money does finally arrive.

psychic_teabag

uh oh... I've just noticed on the Halifax page :

If you are transferring funds from an existing ISA manager, transferred funds must be received within 28 days of the date you open your account in order to qualify for the reward interest rate (unless the minimum balance of £1 has already been met).

which suggests that if Santander take too long, you might not get the reward ..? That would be annoying to say the least. But obviously that can't apply unconditionally - if it was an existing ISA you were transferring into, it wouldn't make sense to drop the reward if a transfer took too long. Or if you were transferring several and only one took too long. Anyway, might be worth asking Halifax about this.

jh2009

I've had the same problem. I opened the Halifax on 4th April to take a transfer from Santander, with the intention of paying the maximum in on the first day of the tax year (6th April).

I set this up online and opted to "fund later", so that i could pay this years allowance from 6 April. When i went online on 6th April, expecting any transfer to take a few seconds, it would not let me make a transfer from my bank account.

I rang them up, and was told that if you opt at opening to fund the halifax ISA AFTER you open it, the first payment CANNOT be made online, but must be made from a branch or by phone. I had a long phone conversation where they said this was as they wanted to read out a long declaration to me (which id already read and agreed when i opened the ISA) about not subscribing to other ISAs, etc. They then activated the account and finallly arranged the transfer i'd wanted.

Although everything seems settled now, personally there has seemed to have been a lot of unnecessary farting about in the opening of this account!

jh2009

psychic_teabag wrote: »

uh oh... I've just noticed on the Halifax page :

If you are transferring funds from an existing ISA manager, transferred funds must be received within 28 days of the date you open your account in order to qualify for the reward interest rate (unless the minimum balance of £1 has already been met).

which suggests that if Santander take too long, you might not get the reward ..? That would be annoying to say the least. But obviously that can't apply unconditionally - if it was an existing ISA you were transferring into, it wouldn't make sense to drop the reward if a transfer took too long. Or if you were transferring several and only one took too long. Anyway, might be worth asking Halifax about this.

The 28 days is a deadline for funding the account, so i think (but ask halifax) that if you pay in this years allowance at opening or within 28 days it doesn't matter when a transfer is received. The argument then is the date halifax receive the form vs a 28 day transfer limit.

If you're just using it to transfer in an existing ISA I think the 28 days reflects a statutory time limit for the transfer of any cash ISA from date of receipt of the form to completion of the transfer. The 28 days i think probably over does this limit (i think its 15 days but might be wrong) but id assume the only reason for a transfer outside 28 days might be:

1. Incompetence or error by the one or both banks
2. Your old ISA cannot be transferred (eg it may be a 1 year fixed and you have to wait 2 months until the end of the fixed period)

With incompetence/error you can probably get round the 28 days if you keep records of calls/correspondence/etc.

With the 2nd point, then i guess halifax are rightly not wanting to give an open ended guarantee where they have to backdate interest months in arrears while you are clearly earning interest elsewhere.

In some ways, and in theory, im happy if the transfer did take 28 days, as you get 28 days santander interest, plus 28 days halifax (assuming it all works properly).

rjhempel

similar issue with santander.

I opened a halifax isa at the end of march, gave them a transfer form which they posted to santander. It was for a set amount of money to be transferred. santander managed to close my santander isa, and send halifax more money than requested, so halifax have to refuse apparently, as it doesn't meet the request.

complained to santander, told it would be resolved by today. today, nothing, the complaints lady was sympathetic, but at the moment, all my money is floating in between the banks, i have no access to it. I also don't have the original santander isa anymore, so what will happen to the excess that was meant to reside in there who knows.

Can anyone confirm, that when an isa is closed hmrc are told? because I don't want santander to open a new isa and put the excess in it, as that completely changes my plans for the isa this year

this is crazy, i had issues when originally transferring to, I had hoped it one a one off, but nope.

Now I have to wait at least 2 - 4 weeks to see what happens. Max 28 days to transfer from one isa to another, fat chance it will happen. it is already 14 days, I don't see it happening by the 27th April.