Santander Overdarft Charges - ideas?

jjblondie

Hi everyone, superly long time lurker here,

(apologises for the thread title typo)

I've been hit this month by a £20.00 unarranged overdraft fee and a £25.00 paid item fee. I'm usually well on top of my money, logging in every couple of days, but that week my sister took an overdose so as you can imagine, my mind was rather elsewhere and when I paid for my prescription certificate (would've been cheaper to pay for the 2 and not get bank charges!) I wasn't thinking about how much money I did or didn't have in the account.

I've been banking with Santander amongst others since I was a toddler (I'm 19) and have 4 accounts with them, including £6500 in a savings one. I've never let the account run so low before and never used an overdraft etc. In short, do you think I could go into branch and explain all this and they might remove the charges? Has anyone got experience of doing this? Despite the savings above, I can't afford anything at the moment as my parents are divorcing and my mother will need my savings for a house deposit.

Thanks for reading.

Tixy

Most banks will have some leeway in cancelling fees as a goodwill gesture - especially when its a one off like this. I've done it in branch with HSBC a couple of times.
I'm not sure about santander (they don't exactly have a good rep for customer service or even managing people's accounts accurately at the moment) but I'd say its definitely worth a try.

jjblondie

Just to say I went into branch and a nice bank worker said he could only refund £25, but I should try phoning the banking services from their telephone to see if they were willing to do more. Sadly, they weren't, but paying a £20 overdraft fee is much better than that plus £25 unpaid item fee. They've also given me an arranged overdraft for the unlikely event that it happens again.

ses6jwg

Santander official policy is that if you go into an unarranged overdraft by less than £10 then all charges for that statement period should be refunded.

If you have gone over by more than £10 then in the branches we are allowed to refund up to £25 BUT only once per year.