Santander - anyone else royally annoyed with them right now?!

daisy_jean

Basically, my pay was supposed to go into my bank yesterday.

The transfer was initiated from a Santander business account on Monday, which should have been through the Faster Payments system and been received that day/night.

As of this morning - nothing had arrived, so I telephoned Santander to see what was going on.

Basically, it would seem my sort code had changed (which I probably should have noticed but didn't... ), but they were supposed to let me and my employer know about this via letter (they didn't). Anyhows, my old sortcode ceased to work from January 1st, so they told me the original payment would bounce back to the originating account, and that my work would have to process the payment again.

Fine, fair enough. Went and spoke to my boss, who I have to say was lovely about it all (she's had her fair share and more of crap from Santander it would seem), and she reinitiated the payment to the correct sortcode. Again, her banking said it was via faster payments and should reach me within 2 hrs (usually it does, any other previous month).

So far, nothing. Now, she said if I hadn't received it by the morning, she would pay me in cash for my DD's, but it's still very annoying on Santander's behalf.

Has anyone else had problems with new sort codes and wages payments? I could scream at them right now, and this month I will be switching everything back over to my HSBC account and getting shot of it. The telephone advisor this morning, was lovely and helped as much as she could, confirming that payments should be fairly instant, but the system just seems like crap :mad:

izools

Typical Santander.

Why on earth would they go about changing sort codes? They already did this with all the banks they've taken over so why do it again? To what end?

Sometimes I think someone in charge of decisions at Santander purposefully do stuff like this for no reason other than to cause bad publicity and cause customers to leave. What other logic is there to this?

Although I can't say I'm remotely surprised. It is Santander.

Make sure to raise a formal written complaint. Keep chasing until you get a satisfactory response. Demand compo.

daisy_jean

izools wrote: »

Typical Santander.

Why on earth would they go about changing sort codes? They already did this with all the banks they've taken over so why do it again? To what end?

My account was originally an Alliance and Leicester one, so I can only imagine the change came from that. Still would have been nice for them to contact me regarding it though, rather than assuming I would notice (which I didn't - when logging in my eyes usually divert straight to the balance... or lack of! :eek:)

izools

daisy_jean wrote: »

My account was originally an Alliance and Leicester one, so I can only imagine the change came from that. Still would have been nice for them to contact me regarding it though, rather than assuming I would notice (which I didn't - when logging in my eyes usually divert straight to the balance... or lack of! :eek:)

Yeah, but they already changed all the allicance and leicester sort codes and account numbers a few years ago. Again? Crazy mofos.

Never mind. Typical Santander.

Good move going back to HSBC, they're a great bank.

molerat

I doubt if I could count the number of e-mails and letters I received telling me that sort codes were changing and that they were informing those who needed to know and keep tabs on it if something should go wrong. Let alone the new debit cards, cheque books, paper statements if you failed to turn them off and it staring you in the face when you log into your accounts. Sorry op but you must have been living on another planet to have missed it.

Lansdowne

There was no reason for Santander to change the A&L sort codes, plenty of other banks have merged and kept the original ranges of codes. They took the operations of a proper bank (A&L originally Girobank) and dismantled the entire infrastructure, forcing it into the Abbey National model (ex building society with a basic bank account operation) rather than the other way round. The whole business model of the merger was based on 'rationalizing' all their accounts onto the great computer system in Spain.

Since credits into the old sort codes were redirected into the Abbey ones for all this time, there should have been e-mails and letters stating this was going to stop in 1st Jan. I certainly never received such a communication.

izools

molerat wrote: »

I doubt if I could count the number of e-mails and letters I received telling me that sort codes were changing and that they were informing those who needed to know and keep tabs on it if something should go wrong. Let alone the new debit cards, cheque books, paper statements if you failed to turn them off and it staring you in the face when you log into your accounts. Sorry op but you must have been living on another planet to have missed it.

Molerat, just because you received stuff from Santander confirming this doesn't mean OP did.

Whilst I'd typically point out to posters the error of their ways, in this instance we need to consider this is absolutely typical of the kind of !!!! up Santander are likely to make.

callum9999

izools wrote: »

Yeah, but they already changed all the allicance and leicester sort codes and account numbers a few years ago. Again? Crazy mofos.

Never mind. Typical Santander.

Good move going back to HSBC, they're a great bank.

Unless I'm remembering it wrong (which I could well be!) mine only changed last year. And as I remember, the old one worked concurrently with the new one for a while. I changed all my details a long time ago, but maybe they worked together as a back-up for those who were slow until 1st January? If that's the case, it seems more like an oversight than an actual problem. Like above, I was told about 10 times by internet banking and got a letter in the post about it.

I must say I personally prefer Santander. Never had an issue, online banking is far easier to use, 5% interest (though I'm on a legacy account) and I can use the card in their Spanish ATMs for free.

daisy_jean

callum9999 wrote: »

Unless I'm remembering it wrong (which I could well be!) mine only changed last year. And as I remember, the old one worked concurrently with the new one for a while. I changed all my details a long time ago, but maybe they worked together as a back-up for those who were slow until 1st January? If that's the case, it seems more like an oversight than an actual problem. Like above, I was told about 10 times by internet banking and got a letter in the post about it.

I must say I personally prefer Santander. Never had an issue, online banking is far easier to use, 5% interest (though I'm on a legacy account) and I can use the card in their Spanish ATMs for free.

There was no need to be rude in your first post. Yes I stated I may have missed the whole sort code change, but it was certainly not due to not paying attention to information sent to me.

I did not receive a letter about the sort-code change. I open every single letter I receive from A&L/Santander and once I was finally able to switch to paperless banking, all I ever received was countless information letters trying to get me to take out either a loan or a credit card, which is very very annoying as I don't want either. But I always continued to open these, in case something important came.

I have never received an updated debit card either - mine is currently still an Alliance and Leicester one, as it my cheque book. Both still work perfectly fine with my account, and I've never had a problem as of yet. I have also been able to transfer money from my HSBC account into my Santander account using the old sortcode, right up until 2 days ago. Hence not thinking there was a problem with any of this.

CleanShirt

daisy_jean wrote: »

All I ever received was countless information letters trying to get me to take out either a loan or a credit card, which is very very annoying as I don't want either. But I always continued to open these, in case something important came.

Next time you are speaking to someone from Santander- just ask them stop all marketing on your account. It will stop then..


Izools- as the OP said, it had changed only once, but they never noticed and the old one has now become redundant.. so they aren't changing it every two minutes really are they.