MSE News: Santander to charge for 'free' business accounts

BusinessIsBusiness

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opinions4u

BusinessIsBusiness wrote: »

You've missed the point- it would be like offering different eSavings rates to different customers depending on which bank they originally banked with..

I'd hazard a guess that their savings back book does just that.

Little_Miss_Moneysaver

[/QUOTE]
Make clear that you consider the "Free Forever" documentation to amount to a collateral contract that you wish Santander to honour.[/QUOTE]

Thanks again for the update, and more technical language i can put into my now 2-paged response letter (which i shall post soon)! I'm still awaiting the "offficial news letter" from Santander. I did phone them, and they told me they're slowly working through all their customers informing them. As soon as i get my notification from there, i shall post off my complaint letter... and then another one to the FOS in due course.

I did read everyone else's posts, (including those with opposite views to mine!), but i'm still upset about getting charged. I had a closer look at my bank statements, and my company has actually been paying £6k cash on a monthly basis last 6 or so months. So, Santander will end up charging me either £20 or £40 for my business banking. :mad:

They told me they're doing the same charges for people with "corporate banking accounts" - i.e. turnover greater than £250k. So, now, all their customers are getting the same fee structure, whether under or over the £250k turnover.

I did ask the accountant if i could deposit the cash into my personal account, and then transfer it to the biz account, but he said that wasn't a good idea, as the personal bank account bank would soon get wise to it, as it would be regular cash deposits, and consider it a breach of their T&C -and it would be yet more hassle for me.

I agree with other posts - look how the whole PPI mis-selling panned out - the consumer revenge worked out because of the volume of people that took action. Santander can't be allowed to get away with this.... If they do, it leaves the door wide open as the precedent has been set, for HSBC, Co-op etc to do the same.

juliusceasor

magpiecottage wrote: »

[*]If you simply do nothing you will probably be deemed to have accepted the change.

[*]It will not cost you to go to FOS - but Santander will have to pay £500 a time - so it will cost it nearly six years' worth of charges to do so even if it wins.
[/LIST]

You need to allow Santander a chance to respond before going to FOS.

Make clear that you consider the "Free Forever" documentation to amount to a collateral contract that you wish Santander to honour.

another reason not to simply roll over, thank you MagpieCottage

I'd just like to quote further from the BBC article referenced earlier.

BBC wrote:

"Businesses are not protected as consumers are against unfair terms in contracts," he explained.
Marc Gander, of the Consumer Action Group, says anyone in Mr Daniels' position should think about going to the County Court to obtain a judgement that Santander has breached its obligation to treat customers fairly, under the Banking Conduct of Business (BCOB) regulations.
"These regulations set a statutory duty on banks to act fairly," Mr Gander says.
"They are hugely powerful but no-one seems interested in using them."

iamchrisli

I am truely believe no ask no gain, therefore I logged my complaint already. For those having done it, please do it, otherwise you will be counted as "enjoy the charged" by the bank.

I also found this from internet which capture what Abbey National promised at the time I opened the account, I hope it will help others as well.

http://web.archive.org/web/20040701042404/http://www.anbusiness.com/

http://web.archive.org/web/20040701053834/http://www.anbusiness.com/services/charges_interest.shtml

http://web.archive.org/web/20040610072612/http://www.anbusiness.com/services/free_banking_indefinitely.shtml

The terms they were using is "Free Banking Indefinitely" and "Free Banking forever".

janusdesign

well I received the letter almost a fortnight ago and it caught me a little by surprise... if the service was great or vital to my businesses, i'd be happy to pay the charges - but it isn't and I won't be doing so.

I actually dislike the lack of honesty in that letter, if they'd just said words to the effect of "look guys, the credit rating of Santander has crashed and our costs have raised, and so we can't afford to keep free business banking service available"... then I would understood... it wouldn't have changed what I would do in response, but I would have appreciated their position... but to think they're doing me a favour by charging me for my multiple businesses takes the biscuit (or something else).

I genuinely don't know if I can be bothered to complain - there's no point ranting on the phone to some poor sap who's probably never ran a business in their life... I don't for one second believe this decision is going to be reversed, so the only outcome to complaining is to cost Santander a few quid when it gets to the ombudsman? that's a little too petty for me to waste my time writing a complaint - saying that, if someone posts a terrifically worded letter, i'm happy to c&p and put a stamp on it!

the reason why I don't think the decision will be reversed is three-fold... firstly, they must have taken legal advice on this, secondly, if it's a loss-making business, logically a court couldn't force you to carry on providing it (that would be ludicrous), and thirdly, even if it did, all Santander would have to do is change the transaction limits to something ridiculously low and then most would be forced to leave.

from my point of view, I believed this was a forever free account - but that promise was made by Abbey National Business and it would be of more use to find any quotes provided by Santander just after the acquitision as to if or how they intended to honour the terms of the account.

magpiecottage makes some interesting points regarding the above, but i'm not qualified to know if his/her points are factually correct.

irresepective of any possible reversal of the decision, i'm gone - you have to have a level of trust with a bank and for me that's no longer there with Santander... i've withdrawn any savings in Santander-related companies out and moved them elsewhere.

they'll never see a penny of my money again - that's how i'll hit them at least... when the new accounts are setup and the balances are transferred (well before any charges kick in), then they'll get a letter from me closing the accounts.

interestingly, have another "free forever" account with a zero balance and never received a letter for it... so I may just withdraw the balances from the account and see what happens about the charges.

looking to the future, I suppose i'll have to go with HSBC... when I first started 15 years ago, I was with Midland and I don't recall any problems... left after the first 18-months when the charges kicked in and moved to RBS and then Santander... yes at some point HSBC might charge, but so be it.

there's also the option of using ING for 12 months to get a bit of interest from the balances.

ironically, I posted a cheque to Santander from a client on Wednesday last week (I only receive a couple of cheques per year - rest pay BACS or online) - it still isn't showing in the account... so its either lost in the post, or there's a problem with the slip and it'll likely get returned to me.. £7.50 isn't going to improve that... and at least with HSBC I'd be able to walk into the branch and hand it over.

for free, I could borderline put up with the service... for a fee, there's no chance.

best of luck to anyone that intends to fight this.

iamchrisli

Once again, I urge whoever wants to leave Santander due to their charge policy, please, please raise a complaint before you switch, and please log it to the ombudsman, because every case they receive will charge case fee of at least $300 from Santander.

nothing to lose guys.....

psdie

BusinessIsBusiness wrote: »

You are wrong in how the account works. .. Cash means coins and notes... so the 12k you are referring to is the amount of actual 'physical' cash you can deposit before incurring the extra 50p per £100. So all of your other standard transactions are free and unlimited- so bacs SO’s etc... Thought it is important to state that before this gets people worried. So in fact most businesses with a turnover below 250k wouldn’t need to pay more than the 7.50- the exceptions being retail shops and other cash based businesses who would opt (or get dragged) to the 20 or 40 accounts etc.

Yep - you could well be right, sorry. The tariff page is somewhat open to interpretation, but on second examination the limit does *appear* to apply to physical cash deposits only. Perhaps someone could clarify with Santander.

Not that this changes the fact they'll be charging at least £90pa for a service marketed as "Free forever", whilst paying near-zero interest on positive balances which earn them signficant additional revenues. Appalling bait-and-switch behaviour, done in the full knowledge that switching business accounts is a massive pain.

BTW, useful contacts:

• Twitter: @SantanderUK (great for public criticism)
• Complaints e-mail: complaints@santander.co.uk
• Complaints tel: 0845 600 6014 / 01908 680123

DruidDonagh

psdie wrote: »

Yep - you could well be right, sorry. The tariff page is somewhat open to interpretation, but on second examination the limit does *appear* to apply to physical cash deposits only. Perhaps someone could clarify with Santander.

I did already and the limit is cash only. The rest will be unlimited. The charges will only apply to the business current accounts, the business reserve and savings accounts will remain as they are. After the change you can you can go into a branch or post office and deposit over the counter.

@janusdesign: ING for me was the worst experience ever when it comes to banking.

cashisking1

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