Is it time to end "Santander Bashing"?

TwistedPsycho

whatyadoinsucka wrote: »

santander is like all spanish companies. and it would appear the payment systems within the company have a long siesta each and every day. as they certainly can't manage to transfer funds on the same day, like most other banks. That is my key complaint.

How strange. My A&L account (now Santander) seems to be on the Faster Payments system all the time, even to and from my wifes Lloyds TSB account.

anamenottaken

TwistedPsycho wrote: »

How strange. My A&L account (now Santander) seems to be on the Faster Payments system all the time, even to and from my wifes Lloyds TSB account.

What amounts are being transferred? I've found £199 and below uses FP consistently as long as a payment has been made to the account previously but between that and the official ceiling, it's very hit and miss.

anselld

TwistedPsycho wrote: »

How strange. My A&L account (now Santander) seems to be on the Faster Payments system all the time, even to and from my wifes Lloyds TSB account.

£300 max presumably. Still pathetic.

scott_lithgows

ses6jwg wrote: »

A foreign owned bank that has kept thousands of British people in jobs and taken on hundreds more in the middle of a recession.



Foreign owned they might be, but they've done far more for our British economy than the British banks have.

When English RBS transfers to Santander,some towns could have 4 santander branches,its only a matter of time before they announce massive job losses.

Perhaps they have an eye on Northern Rock and/or LLoyds tsb branches and accounts which are to be sold and once they are Santander will pick the most suitable branch an close the rest.
(Hopefully Coventry bs will get Northern Rock)

I,ve actually got Santander shares due to the takeover of A&L so I profit from their customers misery!

The best way to Santander bash is to not have any accounts with them or even use their cash machines.

masonic

scott_lithgows wrote: »

The best way to Santander bash is to not have any accounts with them or even use their cash machines.

If you've had a problem and just vote with your feet and not tell anyone about it, others are surely doomed to fall into the same trap. When I banked at A&L, I came across all sorts of useful tips here from others who had fallen foul of some of A&Ls weird ways. No doubt if those people hadn't come to this forum and had a moan, I'd have fallen into some traps I managed to avoid through heeding their warnings.

Serfur

Looking at what Santander had to contend with, particularly at Abbey and A&L when it took over, it's hardly surprising it's in such a bad state.

It should be remembered that Abbey was taken over by Santander in November 2004. Within weeks of the takeover the CEO and IT Director were replaced and over the following few months many senior roles were filled by Spaniards. During the first few years following acquisition there were many redundancies at Abbey - reports suggest in the region of 5,000.

Shortly after the takeover, reports started to appear about chaos in the probate department. There were even allegations that the department was so overwhelmed that some correspondence was shredded unprocessed (see the forums on Moneysupermarket.com). These allegations were never confirmed by Santander but were consistent with the many complaints appearing in newspapers about lost probate documentation and ignored correspondence.

Replacement of the Abbey systems with the Spanish IT system seemed to take place mostly in 2007 and was the subject of a barrage of complaints on this forum and in the media. The BBC Watchdog programme repeatedly covered Abbey in its 2007/8 series culminating in a survey that placed Abbey bottom for Customer service (81% dissatisfied or very dissatisfied).

A Watchdog viewer selected as typical & speaking in early 2008 said, 'I've been with Abbey for 11 years and never had a problem until this last year and then its been one problem after another and I haven't been able to resolve anything. I think their service has deteriorated quite badly'

The Santander response in early 2008: 'We apologise to the small number of customers who have had service issues while we have implemented one of the biggest IT projects in UK banking but that process is nearly complete. We are working hard to improve our service and would rather be judged on our performance in the future'.

So having changed the top management, got rid of thousands of staff (and thousands more will probably have turned over since 2004) and replaced the IT systems, it is surely fair to hold Santander management accountable for the continuing problems.

masonic

Serfur wrote: »

So having changed the top management, got rid of thousands of staff (and thousands more will probably have turned over since 2004) and replaced the IT systems, it is surely fair to hold Santander management accountable for the continuing problems.

You can certainly hold Santander responsible, since it willingly embarked on this project, but Santander UK has been a giant construction project since 2004 and will continue to be as it acquires the RBS branches later on. If your house needs major renovation works, you would generally move out while it's done. As an ex-A&L customer who chose not to become a Santander customer for precisely this reason, I can tell you I would have made the same decision no matter who was taking over.

Cmdr_Bond

It is quite clear to me, when you see identical S branches, which ones they are planning to keep. Whilst they are all re-branded and re-decorated, only the biggest branches seem to have any staff (these seem to be mostly the ex Abbey branches). I presume they have contractual obligations re leases for the properties. Also note that the ex B&B branches are Santander AGENCIES, who when charged with a simple act such as a change of address, have to POST it to THEIR head office.

7sefton

Cmdr_Bond wrote: »

It is quite clear to me, when you see identical S branches, which ones they are planning to keep. Whilst they are all re-branded and re-decorated, only the biggest branches seem to have any staff (these seem to be mostly the ex Abbey branches). I presume they have contractual obligations re leases for the properties. Also note that the ex B&B branches are Santander AGENCIES, who when charged with a simple act such as a change of address, have to POST it to THEIR head office.

Not true: old B&B branches have become Santander branches; old B&B agencies have become Santander agencies. The same with A&L. Abbey hardly had any agencies left in their network when Santander took them over back in 2004, so most ex-Abbey branches are rather large town-centre branches.

lowflyer

Like many here I have been looking to move away my current account from Santander.
I had decided on Lloyds, but now I'm back to square one as all the branches of Lloyds TSB Scotland seem to be destined to be sold off.
Is it purely a matter of inconvenience (i.e the local branch becomes another bank), or if the current account was opened in a branch will it be transferred to the highest bidder.