Is it time to end "Santander Bashing"?

Dr_Cuckoo3

Santander are more ethical than Lloyds Banking Group(inc Halifax & BOS), Royal Bank of Scotland Group (inc Nat West) , Barclays and HSBC according to The Ethical Consumer website http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/FreeBuyersGuides/money/currentaccounts.aspx

So Santander are the most ethical mainstream bank

pmduk

Dr_Cuckoo3 wrote: »

Santander are more ethical than Lloyds Banking Group(inc Halifax & BOS), Royal Bank of Scotland Group (inc Nat West) , Barclays and HSBC according to The Ethical Consumer website http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/FreeBuyersGuides/money/currentaccounts.aspx

So Santander are the most ethical mainstream bank

Surely all that is proved by that report is that even the companies that contribute to a low marking for ethical banking aren't dealing with Santander?

As we don't know whether that is through choice or for other reasons such as a bank declining their business , I'm not sure you can extrapolate anything at all from that report.

POPPYOSCAR

ses6jwg wrote: »

There is no need to admire... it's a job like any other. I think people assume we have to deal with hordes of angry and abused customers all day long but we are lucky to see 2 a month these days. Though I admit during integration there was quite a few problems.

The type of branch and area we work in, we see very little of the supposed atrocious customer service talked of in the press, although I do appreciate it goes on. Our branch consistently scores 90+ % in customer surveys.

Santander as a company are not bad to work for payrise was in line with inflation this year where as other larger banks such as Lloyds have got revolts on their hands for the poor rises they are giving to staff, and the closure of branches.

I have to bank with Santander and have done for around 18 months, and apart from the annoying lack of FPS I've never had a problem.

When we were in the local branch two weeks ago we had a complaint(as posted) and so did both the people either side of us, also we saw and heard another women before us keep saying "you are not listening to me" over and over again.So thats 4 complainers within a few minutes!!

Altarf

someone wrote: »

Is it not time to look at Santander again and not jump to any conclusions?

Nope, they are still cr*p.

I did an online transfer last week for a reasonable, but not huge amount of money. This was not the first transfer of this type I had done. Everything appeared to go through correctly.

Came home from work and there is a recorded message on my machine from "Alliance & Leicester" saying that there was a security problem and could I call 0845xxxxxx. And that this was not a sales call and I must call.

Since the message used their old name and I would never call back a number given to me and provide security details, only a published number, I called their main number and spoke to the security team and asked if they had called me.

They had no idea.

After 10 minutes where it became clear that they would struggle answering difficult questions such as "which way is up", they advised me that they could see no reason why they would have called me, so they obviously had not called me.

10 minutes later the phone rang again, with the same message, but this time it realised the phone had been picked up, so the automated system started to ask some security questions, and the questions that it was asking made it clear that it was Santander and they were asking about the earlier transfer.

I called back to the security team. This time they did decide that they knew which way up was, and admitted that it "might" have been them calling, but they couldn't be sure, as they system didn't record such automated security check calls.

So in answer to your question, no it is not time to end Santander 'bashing', and on my recent experience the management should be taken out to the car park and severely chastised until they admit how rubbish they are.

thatsean

I agree with the OP - I moved for the rates and the switching incentive, and have had no problem. Recently I was contacted by their card fraud team regarding use of my card that I'd not authorized, and they were great. I understand many customers have had problems - just like al the other banks, but based on my experience I can only recommend them.

meer53

My Santander nightmare was in the last 6 months, i don't think the majority of problems relate to when they aquired A & L. I just think they're absolutely sh*te at providing adequate customer service, when you get a standard letter response to a complaint which is not even filled in correctly showing a customer relations department number which doesn't work, it doesn't fill me with confidence. All i was advised to do was to contact MY OWN bank for more information regarding my issue. As i work for MY OWN bank (who had looked into it for me and had been unable to resolve it) and had advised Santander of this in my complaint letter, it was patently obvious that they hadn't even looked into my query, BUT, it had taken them the full 8 weeks which they are allowed to respond. After 8 weeks, and a standard letter response, it took me another 2 days to get to speak to their customer relations department to get an answer to my problem.
My problems were with 2 Santander store cards, not with a bank account, i would never bank with them, i'd rather keep my cash under my mattress.

kadinolog

thanks for post

Pitlanepiglet

They seem pretty crap to me. My nearly 91 year old MiL has just moved into residential accommodation, she had a A&L account that became Santander. She tried to do a change of address before she moved but was told she couldn't do it by phone - she couldn't get to the branch as it was 7 miles from her as she can't get on a bus and didn't have anyone to take her. They told her that she should do the COA at her new local branch. My OH went in with her the other day and they said she needed to bring in proof of identity, she doesn't have a valid passport, she doesn't have a valid driving licence, she doesn't pay council tax or any bills other than BT. He was told that she should bring in her BT bill which they then took in to be told it wasn't sufficient.

She is currently unable to register her new address, she has none of the requisite ID and they are unable to confirm her signature as they don't have access to the specimen signature on the account. So were it not for the fact that she is paying for mail redirection Santander would be happily sending statements to her old address (actually they sent her statements to someone else a few months ago and cost her £40 in taxis fees to resolve it).

Whilst I was in there paying in a chq for her, the cashier greeted the lady ahead of me with "hello Mrs X" before she got to the counter - it's a small market town where most people know each other - Mrs X carried out a transaction using a card and then wanted to transfer some money out of an account that she hadn't brought the card with her - the cashier said she was very sorry but she couldn't transfer the money without Mrs X bringing in ID!

I'm trying to get MiL to move to Lloyds - they might be rubbish at times but they aren't as much hassle as Santander. I have no idea how we're going to resolve MiL's change of address and Santander have no suggestions either.

Degenerate

The short answer to the Ops question is: No.

pmduk

Surely the test of any company is how well they deal with any problem that arises? This is usually where Santander fall down. They're able to magnify a minor problem that should take minutes to solve into a months-long saga that is solved only by escalating the problem. Check the money problems column in today's Guardian for an example, although any money problem page in any national newspaper will probably have similar items.