Santander preferred current account

tryingtobegood75

morning,

I've a couple of questions regarding this current account. My wife is thinking about switching, (with HBOS since childhood but poor customer service). She works part time, take home pay 800pounds per mth and always in credit.

Good deals switching to this account but her pay is below the 1000pounds minimum. Does the account need to have 1000pounds deposited in a lump sum ? She also has child tax credit (134pounds) go in plus I could set up a SO every month, (I'm with First Direct) to make it over 1000pounds - would this work ?

Also we have a mortgage with santander - joint mortgage. Would she get the extra 100 pounds for switching ?

thanks in advance

Gromitt

tryingtobegood75 wrote: »

I've a couple of questions regarding this current account. My wife is thinking about switching, (with HBOS since childhood but poor customer service).

Have you read up about Santanders customer service?

tryingtobegood75 wrote: »

Does the account need to have 1000pounds deposited in a lump sum ?

No, as long as 1K per month is credit from a non-santander account, she's fine.

Andyboy

forget the customer service smokescreen. We did this last year and they were no worse than any other bank in my opinion. Money for old rope as my dear nan would have said......

stephimoon

Hi

Thought I would jump on this thread to see if anyone could help. My husband is thinking of switching to the Preferred Account, but already has an overdraft which he is slowly getting out of (a remnant from student days). Would it be possible to transfer the overdraft to the Santander account or would he have to pay off the overdraft with HSBC first before switching? I.e. open the Santander account overdrawn?

Another thing is we get tax credits paid into his current account. Would we have to contact HMRC to switch accounts if he goes ahead with it? Or could he keep his old account open to accept the tax credit payments? He will have his salary paid into the Santander account, and would transfer the tax credits from HSBC if keeping the account open was an option. Just asking because it's such a hassle to get through to HMRC.

Hope someone can help. This is the first time either of us has taken the plunge to switch current accounts.

Thanks,
Steph

hermante

stephimoon wrote: »

Hi

Thought I would jump on this thread to see if anyone could help. My husband is thinking of switching to the Preferred Account, but already has an overdraft which he is slowly getting out of (a remnant from student days). Would it be possible to transfer the overdraft to the Santander account or would he have to pay off the overdraft with HSBC first before switching? I.e. open the Santander account overdrawn?

Another thing is we get tax credits paid into his current account. Would we have to contact HMRC to switch accounts if he goes ahead with it? Or could he keep his old account open to accept the tax credit payments? He will have his salary paid into the Santander account, and would transfer the tax credits from HSBC if keeping the account open was an option. Just asking because it's such a hassle to get through to HMRC.

Hope someone can help. This is the first time either of us has taken the plunge to switch current accounts.

Thanks,
Steph

Santander can match the overdraft depending on his credit rating, once the account is open then you can transfer something out to pay off the HSBC one. You should keep the HSBC open, and can easily transfer the tax credits from there by faster payments.

However if you are planning on having a permanently negative balance in Santander, make sure you look at the overdraft charges first, and a lot of the bad customer service issues come from overdrafts and things like that.

bargainlover100

Yes as above but also if he does it in the next week he will qualify for the switch incentive £100/£200/£300. They may ask for proof of his existing overdraft at hsbc in order to match it but they offer 0% overdraft for the first 12 months on the preferred account. After that the overdraft fees are quite considerable..due to be £1 a day in an arranged overdraft from the 16th of March.

lanza

Do you want to be financially ruined ? YES ?

OK go and move to the Santander then.