Deposit Envelopes For Former A&L / Santander

csnann

I have a Santander account that used to be an Alliance & Leicester Girobank account that I run through the Post Office. I recently ordered some new deposit envelopes and the address is completely different, it says "Clearing Centre, Customer Transactions, Bootle, Merseyside, L30 4GB". There is no mention of either Santander or A&L. Is this address correct? I googled it, there seem to be several sections of Santander using that address, Business Banking, etc, so will my cheques go to the right place?

barak

Royal Mail 'Find a postcode' gives the following address for that postcode so I'm sure it's correct -

Santander UK plc
Bridle Road
BOOTLE
L30 4GB

notbritishgas

csnann wrote: »

I have a Santander account that used to be an Alliance & Leicester Girobank account that I run through the Post Office. I recently ordered some new deposit envelopes and the address is completely different, it says "Clearing Centre, Customer Transactions, Bootle, Merseyside, L30 4GB". There is no mention of either Santander or A&L. Is this address correct? I googled it, there seem to be several sections of Santander using that address, Business Banking, etc, so will my cheques go to the right place?

I used to send my deposits to Bootle and put a stamp on. One day the person behind the counter at the sub post office noticed and said "do you want to put this in our bag to Bootle"

Apparently they have a bag go to Bootle every day for other ex-Giro type transactions. So now it goes in there free of charge, although I have also discovered that I can pay a cheque into the Santander branch and it shows on the account immediately.

pmduk

It's probably a hangover from the National Girobank days

BobQ

notbritishgas wrote: »

I used to send my deposits to Bootle and put a stamp on. One day the person behind the counter at the sub post office noticed and said "do you want to put this in our bag to Bootle"

Apparently they have a bag go to Bootle every day for other ex-Giro type transactions. So now it goes in there free of charge, although I have also discovered that I can pay a cheque into the Santander branch and it shows on the account immediately.

I had a National Girobank account which became an A&L account and which I closed a year ago (after 31 years!). Up until then the account always had free addressed envelopes that went to the Bootle address. They used to be FREEPOST that you could drop into any postbox. For the past 10 years or more you had to put a stamp on it to use a postbox but there was also the option to pass the envelope over any post office counter for free. Not sure why you were were never told of it!

The Post Office always has had a bag for Bootle since the 1970s. That was where the Giro cheques used by the Post Office to pay social security benefits were processed and so they had a lot of counter business that went there. Of course these days its mainly automated bank transfers.

Incidently, old A&L current accounts can still pay cheques across the counter for free which are sent to Bootle as I understand but I suspect this will soon be disallowed. Santander does not allow cheques for its new and existing accounts to be deposited through post office counters, you must post them to a branch or use a cash machine at the branch.

samwsmith1

Can I just ask, if the envelopes are exactly the same, how do they know whether it's for a Santander account or Alliance & Leicester Account?
And when I tried paying cheques in at my post office to my Alliance & Leicester account they were refused and I was told I had to put a stamp on it and post it, I now just use First Directs freepost envelopes as it's cheaper.

BobQ

samwsmith1 wrote: »

Can I just ask, if the envelopes are exactly the same, how do they know whether it's for a Santander account or Alliance & Leicester Account?
And when I tried paying cheques in at my post office to my Alliance & Leicester account they were refused and I was told I had to put a stamp on it and post it, I now just use First Directs freepost envelopes as it's cheaper.

They are not exactly the same. If you have a Santander Account (ie one originally opened through the Santander website or branch you do not get envelopes for posting. You go to a branch and use the counter or a machine in the branch.

If you still have an A&L account opened before Santander took them over it appears from the OP that you now get an envelope addressed to a slightly different Bootle Adddress than the previous envelopes that had A&L, Bootle GIR 0AA on them.

Like everywhere else standards at Post Offices are not what they used to be! I have been asked to put a stamp on the A&L envelopes at some sub-post offices in the past, its just poor training. I suspect its partly due to the decline in use of cheques. You just need to explain what they should be doing.

samwsmith1

BobQ wrote: »

They are not exactly the same. If you have a Santander Account (ie one originally opened through the Santander website or branch you do not get envelopes for posting. You go to a branch and use the counter or a machine in the branch.

If you still have an A&L account opened before Santander took them over it appears from the OP that you now get an envelope addressed to a slightly different Bootle Adddress than the previous envelopes that had A&L, Bootle GIR 0AA on them.

Like everywhere else standards at Post Offices are not what they used to be! I have been asked to put a stamp on the A&L envelopes at some sub-post offices in the past, its just poor training. I suspect its partly due to the decline in use of cheques. You just need to explain what they should be doing.

Thanks for that, I have just dug out some envelopes for my old A&L account and some say Alliance & Leicester PLC & others say customer transactions.

The envelopes that I ordered for my new Santander account off internet banking have the customer transactions address as shown below:

BobQ

samwsmith1 wrote: »

Thanks for that, I have just dug out some envelopes for my old A&L account and some say Alliance & Leicester PLC & others say customer transactions.

I'm sure its the same address. They have just dropped the A&L Name. GIR 0AA was never a real postcode. Because it was originally part of the Post Office and called GIRO bank they used this instead of the Liverpool postcode.

Give it a couple of years and you will not be able to use the Post Office Counter at all for the old A&L accounts.

csnann

I thought I would just update to say that the cheque did arrive, its showing in my online account as having been paid into the " Prescott Street Op", whatever that is!