Advice on reclaiming A&L/Santander undefunding fees?

manic_cow

Hi, I have an A&L 'Premier' Current Account which I haven't used in nearly a year and last time I used it it had a 0.00 balance. I've now found out that I've been charged a £5 underfunding fee and a £10 overdraft fee each month since about feb, coming to about £100 in total. I'd been checking my statements from Nov to Feb but after that lost track as I'd just bought a house for the first time and had many other things on my mind. Foolish I know, but devastating nonetheless.

Santander agreed to refund £25 of it as a good will gesture and on 10th Oct I paid the remaining £75 and attempted to close my account only to be told I had to wait for fees which would appear on the next statement, due on 25th Oct, at which point I could close my account. I accepted this, put £500 in for a couple of days to ensure no further underfunding fees would appear for the next month and phoned back upon receiving my statement, only to be told that October's fees had been added to my account on the 18th, therefore meaning I'd owe another £10 in overdraft fees which would show on next month's statement! :mad: "Just pay in another £500 this month and pay off the £15 which shows on the October statement, phone in November to pay the £10 on that statement and you can close the account" they told me. Quite frankly I don't have £500 to move around so I argued this and they eventually said "Ok pay £25 now and you can close the account today". I've done this and am currently praying I won't get told next month that they couldn't close the account because there's more underfunding fees

So after all that I have 2 questions -

• is there any possibility of reclaiming the £100 I have paid in fees? I'm aware I should've been more careful with checking my statements, but £100 of charges for an unused account seems unfair to me.
• do you think I have a case for complaining that the original advise they gave me about closing my account was wrong, meaning I've had to pay £10 more in overdraft fees than I should have?

No matter what, I shan't be dealing with Santander again. If I've ever been unfortunate enough to incur charges from other banks such as Halifax they've always sent a letter to notify me rather than just a statement and I would've paid attention to that immediately. I feel like the customer service advisor I spoke to on 10th Oct was either intentionally unhelpful or just didn't understand the terms herself and I'm gutted that I'm £100 down, especially in the run up to xmas

Thanks for any help anyone can give me, and for taking the time to read this.