Setting Up Standing Orders

mgarl10024

Hi all,

A bit of a question here, but also a note to other savers in case the same thing happens to them.

We (OH and I) signed up for two Santander Preferred Accounts as per http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-accounts#santander and also took advantage of their reward (regular) saver accounts too (one each).

The Santander Preferred account gives you 5% on £2500, so I transferred £1000 (all we had) to my OH's account. I then set up the Standing Order to pay the £250 into the reward account at the right time.
However, on the day, the Standing Order failed to pay. When she spoke to Santander, they said that they felt the £1000 payment was suspicious and wanted to know where it had come from. They also wanted to confirm that the Standing Order was really set up by her, even through we confirmed it all with their OTP codes sent to her mobile at the time. As they couldn't instantly get in touch with her (my OH has no recollection of being contacted), Santander put a block on the account, blocking online access and refusing the Standing Order payment.
To be fair, once they had spoken with her, they immediately sent a payment and reset her access and Standing Order - but it was a good job that we checked otherwise we'd have lost interest.

To keep the Preferred Accounts topped up, I went onto our joint account with Halifax and set up two Standing Orders. However, I suddenly became locked out of the online access. When I contacted Halifax, they said that setting up the Standing Orders had triggered suspicions and that they wanted to make sure it was me - so demanded that I answered a lot of questions from my credit file (financial associations, past addresses, etc.). I then had to log back in and set up my Standing Order again!

So, the question: Do others find that setting up a couple of Standing Orders is this complicated? And are they reliable? I would have thought this was bread and butter stuff to a bank, but both of mine involved here seemed to put a lot of hoops in the way (which they argue are for my protection).
And for others: If you've set them up, make sure you check on the day of paying that they actually go through.

Hope this helps someone,