Debenhams Credit Card ongoing issues

sue_marie

Hello. Santander operate the Debenhams card that I opened in August. I set it up to pay off in full every month. In September I realised they had only taken the minimum amount so rang (Delhi?) and was assured it would be sorted and the interest returned. The same happened in October and November, each time involving costly and frustrating 0871 calls. Each time I trusted Santander to resolve their error and ensure that I was paying the full balance each month. When I got November's bill (to be taken from my account mid December) the balance was nearly £1900! I rang India again but the adviser clearly didn't know what kept going wrong. I decided to write rather than waste time on more calls, and wrote that the situation was ridiculous and that I now had a massive bill to pay just before Christmas. The response was totally unsympathetic and offered £25 to cover the cost of the numerous calls. The full balance was taken on 14 December, which caused obvious financial headaches for Christmas. I've just had December's bill and they've added £35 interest charges. I'm also worried that just the minimum balance will be taken again and another massive bill will accrue. I've tried calling them using a number found on Say No to 0870 but the line just went dead after it connected. I have never had cc problems with Halifax and regret getting lured into the cashback offering from Debenhams. I'm getting to the end of my tether and any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks x

YorkshireBoy

What did your statement (produced and sent some 15 or more days before the payment due date) say would be collected?...min or full DD?

Why are you suffering "financial headaches" at Christmas? You spent money, you budgeted for it, they didn't collect it, so you still have it don't you? Or maybe you spent it on something else instead?

But the way forward is to make a formal complaint.

sue_marie

Hi. After I rang them about October's statement they said they'd take the full balance in November but when I got November's statement they'd only taken the minimum payment again. That's why I ended up writing. I should have kept quiet until January because they then took the full amount on 15 December. I'm not good with keeping a close eye on my spending I'm afraid - which is why I set all bills up as monthly direct debits and pay off credit cards in full each month. That way I don't have to worry about mounting debts because it's all cleared by the end of each month. I kept believing Santander when they said they'd resolved the payment error so wrongly assumed I'd got more money to spend than I actually had.
I can't find November's statement but December's says they'll take the full balance mid Jan.
Who do I make a formal complaint to? I thought that's what I did in my letter to Santander that resulted in the £25 credit for phone calls. I now want the interest of £37.49 returned plus someone to apologise for the problems that have gone on each month since I opened the account.

YorkshireBoy

You need to start your letter...

Ref: Formal complaint re account number xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Santander

I wish to...

They then have to respond within 5 days (usually just an acknowledgement), and give you a final response within 8 weeks.

If you don't get a final response within 8 weeks, or you do get a response you're not happy with, you can then take your complaint to the FOS.

The FOS will almost certainly rule in your favour (based on what you've posted here). You'll be awarded your financial losses and be put back in the same position had the issues not arisen. I suspect you'll also be awarded an additional sum (for the distress and inconvenience incurred) on top of the £25 already paid.

Go to the Santander website and search "complaint" for further information.

chanz4

this one is easy, they have online management.

dalesrider

Not defending Santander here at all....

But if you knew they had only taken the mim payment and called them to advise of this.
Why did they not ask or you offer to pay the balance off on each call. Rather than letting it build up month after month.

sue_marie

chanz4 wrote: »

this one is easy, they have online management.

Hi. I've not been able to get online at all - it doesn't recognise the account number,

sue_marie

dalesrider wrote: »

Not defending Santander here at all....

But if you knew they had only taken the mim payment and called them to advise of this.
Why did they not ask or you offer to pay the balance off on each call. Rather than letting it build up month after month.

They never offered and I never gave it a thought. Silly I know, I made several mistakes. Just kept expecting them to get it right next time.

Roger1

As a longstanding Debenhams cardholder whose service went down, down, down when GE sold their UK cards to Santander, I'm more sympathetic to sue_marie than some of the comments above.

Santander really are the pits when it comes to customer service, as their regular appearances in newspaper money problem columns at the weekend confirm. IME they are difficult to contact and still force customers to use dreaded revenue-producing customer-unfriendly 0871 phone lines.

I had a similar problem to sue_marie. I set up a DD to pay in full each month and gor the confirmation from Santander that from then on they would collect full payment by DD. Of course, they didn't. :eek: To cut a long story short, I sought help from a local branch of Santander. I have to say that they at least were very helpful and made calls on our behalf, eventually leading to a result. Curiously, Santander bank branch staff had no internal number of their own; they had to use the same 0871 number as customers... and wait ... and wait ...

More recently, they failed to collect the payment on time and charged a default fee , saying that it would be refunded. I am waiting to see how they treat this in this month's statement.

Things may be different in future. Santander are selling their cards to SAV Credit who have featured in MSE's pages before. We'll see.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/12/20/uk-santander-britain-cards-idUKBRE8BJ0SP20121220

pb3

Roger1 wrote: »

Things may be different in future. Santander are selling their cards to SAV Credit who have featured in MSE's pages before. We'll see.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/12/20/uk-santander-britain-cards-idUKBRE8BJ0SP20121220

Thanks for the heads up. I notice the article describes SAV Credit as a "specialist credit card lender" - read subprime.

If this goes the way of the past Opus acquisition of Citi cards then it looks like I'll be closing my Santander zero and Debenhams cards.

Roger1

Re-reading the Reuters story, I see it's the Santander store cards that are being sold to SAV. I'm assuming that Santander's Zero card and other Santander-branded cards will stay with Santander.

Whether it's a case of frying pan and fire, I'm not sure.