Can you close a Santander Preferred Current Account over the phone?

Nine_Lives

Having a bit of a google, i can see you can do it in branch or via post.
Question is can you do it over the phone too? As it's not listed.

My gf's 12 months expires next Thurs & mine expires next Fri, so we'll be looking at ditching it & putting the 2.5k elsewhere .... probably in another P.C.A @ 5%, but as you can't have 3, 1 will need to be closed before another is opened.


Additional question is this....

If you don't pay in £1000 in the month (i think a month is a month from when you open and not an actual calendar month..??) then you're charged an underfunding fee.
If my understanding of how Santander define a month is correct, then next Fri (gf) and next Sat (myself) we'll be into new months.
Assuming we're closing next Sat, will we both need to pay in £1000 and then transfer out £1000 to avoid an underfunding fee the day of closing?

samwsmith1

I'm not sure about closing by phone, but personally I would just write to them to ensure that they close the correct account as there was a thread on here a few days ago about them closing the wrong account after doing it on the phone.

Alternatively there's an option in secure messages for account closure so you could try that first.
If you do either I would also put something along the lines of "I can confirm that both the debit card & cheque book for this account have been securely destroyed and disposed of." Either that or include them with the letter.

Freepost RRTL-RXRL-JUEA
Santander
9 Nelson Street
Bradford
BD1 5AN

YorkshireBoy

K_P83 wrote: »

(i think a month is a month from when you open and not an actual calendar month..??)

The charging period is "statement to statement"...

http://www.santander.co.uk/csgs/StaticBS?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1223419161308&cachecontrol=immediate&ssbinary=true&maxage=3600 (see condition L3.1)

markdavey

I closed my Santander account recently though their secure messaging system through their online banking. Was closed within the day and receive a cheque for outstanding balance within a week (I was also then not charged that month's underfunding charge).

mrchagle

You can close it via secure message - I've done it three times without any issues.

K_P83 wrote: »

Having a bit of a google, i can see you can do it in branch or via post.
Question is can you do it over the phone too? As it's not listed.

My gf's 12 months expires next Thurs & mine expires next Fri, so we'll be looking at ditching it & putting the 2.5k elsewhere .... probably in another P.C.A @ 5%, but as you can't have 3, 1 will need to be closed before another is opened.


Additional question is this....

If you don't pay in £1000 in the month (i think a month is a month from when you open and not an actual calendar month..??) then you're charged an underfunding fee.
If my understanding of how Santander define a month is correct, then next Fri (gf) and next Sat (myself) we'll be into new months.
Assuming we're closing next Sat, will we both need to pay in £1000 and then transfer out £1000 to avoid an underfunding fee the day of closing?

Olimur

Excellent - thanks once again to MSE and the forum users for some great advice. BF and I have been with A&L for 6 years - they are useless and after visiting Santander 5 mins ago, they are no better. Underfunding fees for the old A&L preferred account is £5 per month for not paying in more than £500.

Does anyone know if you can close a joint account using the secured messages?

markdavey

Best bet is to try it. If they cant do what you are asking they explain what is required in order to achieve your request by return message.

Olimur

OMG!! It worked. Closed the joint Santander Account by just sending a message using the secure message sender. All I said was close the accounts, didn't mention anything about the cards being destroyed. There was no query regarding it being a joint account. Much more efficient than going into a branch - where they refused to close it, saying direct debits existed, but they had already been cancelled. They tried to claim the other side, ie council, gas etc had to cancel the DD.......they should try and read the DD guarantee some time!!

Thanks again for the tips - I had been dreading trying to close the account having read so many horror stories in the past.

Nine_Lives

Yeah i closed via secure message on the back of this thread. So did the gf. No problems, was done within 24hrs.

Biggles

I just go into the branch, see the nice man who opened my account, and he opens another one for me, with the £100 bonus and the 5% interest rate for another year.