Is it time to end "Santander Bashing"?

scott_lithgows

lowflyer wrote: »

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.

In Scotland if you go to an ex tsb branch you could easily be transferred accounts and all back to Santander if/when they buy it.

Bank of Scotland is becoming the Scots version of Lloyds,up here its really them RBS,Clydesdale or Nationwide and YBS for a basic account.Barclays have a few branches and Cumberland bs if your near Dumfries.

Not a lot of choice really!

eschaton

someone wrote: »

I was reading one of the threads on here which was a query about how a specialist Santander product worked. The first reply back was the typical "Santander Bashing" that has gone on for a long time on here.

It just felt unhelpful, counter-productive and unneeded.

I personally move to them for the £100. There was one slight hitch which was sorted out with one letter + revived an account credit for the issue. I have in total have 4 accounts with them.

Recently moved my ISA from them due to the rate dipping after the bonus period and was really impressed with how quick they handled it, even though it had to go via the receiving back. Much quicker than my last ISA transfer.

It does seem that the majority of issues stem from the A+L merger which didn't go so smoothly. Obviously transferring accounts between different bank systems is going to be right pain for them and it didn't go too well.

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

Seeing as I joined Santander last year when they had no merger to worry about and were !!!!!, then I would say they deserve the continued bashing.

I admit I only joined for the £100 and interest rate, but left after 3 weeks with no interest in the £100 after !!!!! service.

flexrider

To The original OP:

I beleive in fair-ness from your question i briefly seen on page one is that you have had not any brief experience of bad services form Santander so far however im not here to bash them their Track Record in volumes speaks for their self. BBC's Watch Dog
has been indated with people asking what can be done in past shows,

many blunders and recent form last year the media with also more today showing up of their problems added to that Many great members here contuined to write posts up about the service, i cannot see the service being good in 6 months form what i have experienced and read so far,

There was one i remember about how they would not let ' a pair of twins close or transfer the money over' Due to mistaken identity on each other accounts, which was written here, Would love to find that one for refernce. Think there was over 60 posts about it if i am right of errors made by the bank with out any A&L transfers involved.

In your defence you ask us to stop bashing them.

Well im a very sorry from my experiences i have had mixed emotions and have been with a lot of banks for business accounts and personal, ISA's and the rest of accounts and from my experience the CHESHIRE building society is much better then SANtander which is now Nationwide and only availble also if you live in Cheshire. Best account and Continuaty isa i ever had. Even better then SAntander at 5.7% percent sant's is 4.1 i beleive with no penalty's and chance to invest in stocks of the building society or shares as additrional, This offier is not availabile only to old customers.

Exceptional service also always a smile an hello mr flexrider everytime i go in,

The problem is with banks now is that they are far too commericial and have to operate as a business as well as a bank mostly. Its whats rate they can get your account also gets them intrest on if you go over on your overdraft or things like that:

Its a fact every bank who sees a customer with less then 2k in a bank aco!!!! is a mild risk to take on while someone close to 2million is finanicial free and treated like a VIP to banks...SAd but true! not every one is a millionare mind.

The reason i state that is that no matter who you bank with there retail stores are shops designed for holding/taking money just like Poundland,ASDA, and the rest are for general shopping. which leads on to the questions i need to ask you

1).If you went shopping at asda and used your credit/debit card to purchase something? Regardless of chip and pin would you feel safe knowing that company has them tranaction details until the bankclear the funds to the debtor.
Santander have made blunders here? on this one many times,People receiving fees for using their cards even on there ZERO account which advertises as NO OVERDRAFT FEES ZERO FEES ON USE OF CARD however you need 10k of savings to open the account and good credit check...Which leads on to its all about the banks and nothing about you in rate of return in my options form the date of opening the account,

Santander Are also trying to lose the original Rules Abbey Customers would know very well such as

If you beleive we have done something on the account we will retify it if we can find a fault and you are entitled to a complete credit if any money is taken up on fault findings in account.

However i beleive in my own options this is flawed, My mobile can prove this from 16 0845 calls in a day to their call centre which i still beleive there are people out on the JSA looking for work who could do a better job but struggling because of the system in place which keeps people locked down anyway thats another convosation to be discussed. Back on santander...my point with reference to the sentence above...do they ever help.....NO here is why

When you go into branch you are passed to telephone services unlike my favorate building society i mentioned who try and help u on the spot at the counter? you are to them just another customer? the whole customer services of building rapport and getting to know each other is lost in todays market or work i beleive sorry to say? A good bank like my ches account knows this very well? even had a cuppa tea with the manager also when opening this years isa. try that at santander? usally a point to phone and talk to somone miles away and you are talking to somoene who did that five mins who was asked by there staff to come to branch to sort it out tro be put back on phone again in branch...

Imaging now people coming on saying stop bashing asda,over bad service would you stop....NO!!

reason for this is that knowledge is power and knowing what else are getting form the service determinds your mind to stay/leave the bank or product in question. just like when we shop for stuff at superstores ect, First rule in business is that the customer much feel right first time every time, or you lose them seems the banks dont learn that one to staff? Natwest are trying to give that impression but im not too sure on that?

[Deleted User]

there seem to be so many santander branches in one place i.e. in my local city centre there are 6 santander branches less than a mile from each other
Time to end Santander

flexrider

vinh1000 wrote: »

there seem to be so many santander branches in one place i.e. in my local city centre there are 6 santander branches less than a mile from each other
Time to end Santander

which goes on what i said above you matey all retail banks are money shops, all what a bank is eh? a service?

what would you suggest to end them, There a spanish bank private banking firm with shareholders not a uk one?

flexrider

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.

Without Santander, it is unlikely that Abbey could have continued in its current form as it was inefficient and demoralised
Without Santander, B&B would have gone kaput because of a dodgy mortgage book

Not entirly true

Santander bought A&L abbey and the rest because there a spanish bank without U.k residence of trade just like other banks,abbey was not in any finicial hardships it merged with santander then since the abbey and sant are shareholder owned ot was a shareholder buy out of abbey for evidence google santander buyout of abbey and you can see the full details on wikipedia.

How many people have our "British" banks such as RBS, Lloyds and Northern Rock laid off in the last 3 years? The answer is thousands upon thousands. Yes Santander made some cuts after acquiring these businesses mostly in back office functions such as HR which were being doubled up on, but theyve taken on more front line

staff:

LLoyds is only british because the goverment bought the 42.2 percent stake the rest is split up of other people in the pies? owning ther company offshore name hence the evidence here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyds_TSB

However when that gets sold off which will be soon the way the coalitioan are spending and saying other things such as "were in this together...haha rememebr that one when fat cats form the RBS were asking for more bank bonuses :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:were is ours? lol"



http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/mortgages/santander-to-recruit-600-staff-following-rbs-branch-acquisition/1017936.article

Meanwhile, at other UK banks...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7533113.stm - "Northern rock unveils job losses"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/epic/rbs/7978529/RBS-horror-story-as-UK-job-cuts-top-20000.html - "20,000 jobs cut at RBS"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/08/lloyds-banking-group-job-losses - "LTSB job cuts top 26200"

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/225503 - Barclays cuts 1000 jobs



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

guy missed one link which i have provided...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyds_TSB

go do your homework? you know lloyds tsb could of owned Abbey in 1991 making no sdantander around today but the conservate goverment and who-ever else makes the deicisons made the bank attempt unsuccessful?

hate to admit i like your british spirit? shame we relay on europe too much these days for everything

Cmdr_Bond

flexrider wrote: »

To The original OP:

... There was one i remember about how they would not let ' a pair of twins close or transfer the money over' Due to mistaken identity on each other accounts, which was written here, Would love to find that one for refernce. Think there was over 60 posts about it if i am right of errors made by the bank with out any A&L transfers involved. ...

Sounds very close to my own (and my twin brothers) problems (see sig). Although our problem was not to do with closing accounts or transferring funds, but having our profiles merged and allowing me to access his online accounts with MY login details.


I have to repeat my signature here - up until now I thought all banks were as bad as each other, but I am now of the opinion that Santander is as bad as the rest of them put together...

Is this Santander , probably - does it reflect my true feelings towards them and what I feel to be their non-existent customer service, most definitely.

StacFace

DeeMarie89 wrote: »

They sort out card fraud instantly

That's probably the one good thing about them. Nobody would ever be able to use my card if I lost it because even I can't! 3 times in the last week my card has been declined because of "standard security checks" and each time I phoned up, was passed from person to person, on hold for ages and even when told each time the problem was sorted and I could use my card it happened again about 3 transactions later. The first time it happened it was for a box of paracetemol costing 39p!

I think the reason is because so many people had no problems whatsoever under A & L (including me) and then after the Santander switchover something crops up once every week or two. I've had multiple payments declined both online and when using my card in shops, I've had payments made up to 3 times when I only went through the payment process once (not card failed and tried another twice), at one point they declined my wages being paid into my account for 3 weeks sending them back to my employer, setting up my phone contract with them was a pain, standing orders seem to have been randomly cancelled after months of paying fine and some have also reappeared a couple of weeks after being cancelled. The list goes on, and now they've put a block on my account when doing one of their "routine security checks" and when I went into branch on Thursday as it was in town the payment got declined I was told that the account was down as being blocked until 5th May and there's nothing that can be done to lift the block!

Hence why I feel I have full right to complain about them constantly and will be moving banks now the bank holidays are over. I wish I'd done it sooner but kept putting it down to the switchover everytime something happened.

Degenerate

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.

Without Santander, it is unlikely that Abbey could have continued in its current form as it was inefficient and demoralised

Without Santander, B&B would have gone kaput because of a dodgy mortgage book

Without Santander, Alliance and Leicester would have gone to the wall for punting dodgy PPI loans and endowments.

What utter rubbish. They didn't buy any of these assets at a loss. Abbey had some issues but was was sold at a price that reflected this. Their "inefficient and demoralized" service certainly didn't improve after the takeover. A&L had funding issues, but a respectable asset book for the knock-down price Santander paid. B&B was bailed out by the taxpayer and only the perfectly solvent savings operation sold on to Santander.

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

Tosh. They simply had enough cash available at the right time to make opportunist purchases for a tidy profit. Do they feed you this "Santander the savior" propaganda at work or something?

pmduk

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.

Whilst I usually appreciate your loyalty to Santander, how long do you seriously think this employment situation will last?

You mention that Santander has taken on hundreds of staff in this country. In the main this has been to deal with complaints. What do you think will happen to them when they achieve the customer service nirvana we are constantly being promised?

It's a matter of time before they realise the money they're wasting having branches competing with each other on the same high street. It's happened before with other banks, Nat West comes immediately to mind, they used to have several branches on one high street then rationalised their network.