Santander Fees are bringing me down

Tottonian

Thanks for the replies & advice, I will just have to try not to spend to much in to our overdraft, It did bring me down all day yesterday thinking “How the hell did I get in this state & why the charges are so high”. Would love to swap banks but I hold 1 full time job & a part time job so more or less work constantly & find it hard to get time of in banking hours, I will try to do this next week. We find it hard to make ends meet as it is & to have £190 taken out of the wages that are accounted for is hard.

Naf

Tottonian wrote: »

Thanks for the replies & advice, I will just have to try not to spend to much in to our overdraft,

Would love to swap banks but I hold 1 full time job & a part time job so more or less work constantly & find it hard to get time of in banking hours, I will try to do this next week.

Try online, perhaps. Best to be able to get the switch done sooner rather than later, as these charges have taken you over your overdraft once again, so that will be further £5 daily fees. Ensure that any DD/SO that will not get paid when requested is cancelled and make other arrangements, otherwise you'll find yourself with more £25 fees, and these are the real killers.
How much of your overdraft you use is irrelevant these days (correct me if I'm wrong, I believe everywhere has moved to a daily fee structure?). Whether it's £1 or £1000 it's still 50p per day (with Santander; Halifax are £1 per day). So by all means max out the overdraft if you need to and can't stay out of it altogether just yet (I know I can't). But definitely get another account, even if only a basic, opened ASAP.

MrsTinks

Use a days holiday if you have to - but get your account and your bills account away from there.
You need to be the one in control of your money, not them!
I sympathise with your problem - it's a heck of a lot of money to loose for frankly nothing... But banks are in this to make money, never ever think that there is such a thing as a nice bank - nice individuals certainly, but NOT nice banks!

Naf

MrsTine wrote: »

But banks are in this to make money, never ever think that there is such a thing as a nice bank - nice individuals certainly, but NOT nice banks!

Unfortunately this is true, unless, of coursed, you have large amounts of money with them at which point the tables do turn.
Even for the staff; at one time there were special staff accounts, staff mortgages, credit cards etc. etc. etc. Now even that's knocked on the head in a lot of cases. I used to work for one (Santander incidentally) and the staff mortgage was worse than some of the customer deals, the staff credit card just combined a couple of benefits from different customer cards but didn't get a batter rate, access to a couple of savings accounts without having to meet some pointless criteria that customers need to, and staff just got a (very) slight discount on the account with a monthly fee. Nothing really worthwhile to be honest.

DS4215

Switch to a new basic account and add Santander O/D to your dmp. Make sure it is above the limit and move the direct debits....

PeterJohnson

DS4215 wrote: »

Switch to a new basic account and add Santander O/D to your dmp. Make sure it is above the limit and move the direct debits....

Also I had this issue with Lloyds and I asked to speak to a senior. They agreed to put a temporary sliding overdraft in place which ensured I avoided future charges. This reduced over 6 months and therefore I was only paying back the original charges. I know Santander and not helpful but ask if they can put a temporary arrangement in place so it doesn't keep going up.

Worth a shot, also agree with everyone else, get away from the current arrount ASAP.

Naf

Santander's collections dept can do this, have seen it in the past.

clareabella666

i sympathise with you, on the 27th of this month they are taking £127 out of my account! So all tax credits next week will be gone to santander.

Im in a catch 22 situation, can't get another current account becasue my credit rating is so poor and i cant seem to get accepted for a basic bank account ( have tried 2 online and got refused) cant visit banks instore to apply as i am in the middle of nowhere and can't drive so im stuck for now.

Originaly i switched from LLoyds which were just as bad to alliance and leicester which i had absolutley no hassle with until they changed to santander, since then iv had nothing but problems, when they first switched they closed down my online banking and i had to wait months to set it up again, then they kept blocking my card ( fraud protection apparentley just because i want to spend £5 or £10 on bingo) and ridiculous bank charges ontop. To anyone out there that is thinking of switching to these monkeys then please don't!

elsiepac

Tottonian wrote: »

Morning all, have had really good advice in the past on here & those who know my problems will agree that this is not looking good.
Santander are a nightmare, Just when I’m trying to get things sorted with the CCCS & get some sort of repayment plan set up with my creditors, 1 step forward & 3 back.
I have a £350 overdraft facility with Santander which to be honest I have to use each month, but was shocked to be charged £190 in fees this month so far ,I think they make there fees up, never want to listen to you. On Tuesday I was shocked to see 6 fees for not enough funs at £25 each for Standing Orders & Direct Debits charged this month for last month charges ?, I spoke to somebody who was not understanding but did manage to get £50 back in fees, £25 good will gesture & £25 for a S/O payment that went out for £3 & took me over my limit , then this morning (Sunday 17th) I noticed I had £5 daily fee for arranged overdraft, then £10 fee for unarranged fee then £25 for Paid Item fee back on the 14/6/2011 which was £6 over which I got charged back then £10 & I added funds to straight away back then. Seem to make you go over then add fee’s on top. The strange thing is I looked around 7.30am yesterday morning & nothing on my online statement saying I was over my agreed overdraft , but looked this morning & have mysteries fees added on it’s impossibly to keep up. This is how it looked.

11/7/2011 Payment of £5 taking me to £325.
16/7/2011 Daily Arranged Overdraft Fee of £10 £335.
16/7/2011 Daily Unarranged Overdraft Fee of £5 £340.
16/7/2011 Paid Item Fee Back On The 14/6/2011 of £25 £365.

Can’t understand why the fess from yesterday were charged if I was in my agreed overdraft & not over. I have absolutely no money what so ever to make back up to my agreed overdraft as I’m on the limit now & with losing £100 already this month it’s really brining me down as I don’t get paid until the 10th of each month, they will charge me £5 per day now for going over & seems to be spiralling out of control because they will then add more charges next month. I did try phoning them this morning at 6.30am (Up early due to me having yet another sleepless night worrying) but there not open for inquiries until tomorrow.
Help please to try & explain or is it a fault of there’s.

Hi, I've not had chance to read the rest of the thread yet so may be repeating what others are saying, however, if you are seriously looking at entering into a DMP with CCCS are you not in the process of opening a Basic Bank Account away from Santander?


Yes, you'll get a few more charges whacked on while everything settles down, but speaking from my personal experience, Santander are one of the best creditors I have dealt with on my DMP with CCCS.

They froze interest on the defaulted overdraft for me and have confirmed it's remained frozen all this time. They were the quickest to respond, in writing, to my DMP letters (I also defaulted on a CC with them ) - in fact, out of my seven creditors originally on my plan, they were the ONLY ones to confirm receipt in writing and also confirm frozen interest.


It seems to me (just from reading your first post) that you are maybe not too far into the process of setting up the DMP?


I would recommend, if you are not already, setting up your basic bank account NOW. Get your next salary paid there. I went with the Cashminder account from Co-Op and have never looked back - can open it over the phone, manage it all online and at the Post Office, and you get a proper Visa Debit card. It only took about a week and a half to open too, which was great for me.


If you're sending out letters anyway, it won't matter that there's another month with a couple of charges, at the moment I imagine they are swallowing up your salary, hence me saying get out now!


Good luck with everything


LC

elsiepac

clareabella666 wrote: »

i sympathise with you, on the 27th of this month they are taking £127 out of my account! So all tax credits next week will be gone to santander.

Im in a catch 22 situation, can't get another current account becasue my credit rating is so poor and i cant seem to get accepted for a basic bank account ( have tried 2 online and got refused) cant visit banks instore to apply as i am in the middle of nowhere and can't drive so im stuck for now.

Originaly i switched from LLoyds which were just as bad to alliance and leicester which i had absolutley no hassle with until they changed to santander, since then iv had nothing but problems, when they first switched they closed down my online banking and i had to wait months to set it up again, then they kept blocking my card ( fraud protection apparentley just because i want to spend £5 or £10 on bingo) and ridiculous bank charges ontop. To anyone out there that is thinking of switching to these monkeys then please don't!

Hi

Try Co-Op Cashminder as I've said in above post to OP. You can do it over the phone and I think I originally did mine at something like half 7 or 8 at night after having a big panic after First Direct randomly closed my account (yeah, I was bad customer to be fair!) when I had pay due in and mortgage due out! The lady was lovely and I was concerned about being accepted, she basically laughed and re-assured me, and then it all went through. I was crying with relief, very embarassing. Was wierd going to HSBC the next day though and collecting all the pay that had gone into my closed down account, felt very nervous walking down the high street with all that cash!!

Good luck

LC x