The unclosable bank account (Santander / Abbey)

pmduk

BusinessIsBusiness wrote: »

At a guess that would explain why there was such a delay receiving an acknowledgement weeks after sending the request. It would have to be internally forwarded to the correct dept to work on the request. if just sending an unrelated request to the address on the letter it can take weeks to go to the right place.

Surely most companies now scan letters on receipt? There should be no need to physically forward letters.

rb10

pmduk wrote: »

Surely most companies now scan letters on receipt? There should be no need to physically forward letters.

Regardless, they've got problems if their internal mail is taking more than a day or two.

daveyjp

Foggster wrote: »

My mum took over the Treasuers job on a small club account about 18 months ago. The previous signatories were not longer available to switch the account to the new signatories.

The signatories have been in to Santander (nearest branch 25 miles away) on 3 separate occasions with various forms of ID and they have been unable to close this account.

We are at a total loss on what to do. They seem to have done half a job because the other signatories have been removed from the account but the new ones havent been added. Santander have got themselves into such a muddle. In theory - no one can touch this account!

Sounds just like Natwest. I resigned from being a treasurer as we couldn't get signatures changed after 12 months of trying.

rb10

daveyjp wrote: »

Sounds just like Natwest. I resigned from being a treasurer as we couldn't get signatures changed after 12 months of trying.

The high street banks are notorious for being useless at changing signatories of group/organisation accounts.

Best bet is to switch to a specialist provider - i.e. Unity Trust, or (if you are a registered, exempt or excepted charity), CAF.

jonesMUFCforever

daveyjp wrote: »

Sounds just like Natwest. I resigned from being a treasurer as we couldn't get signatures changed after 12 months of trying.

If previous signatories were unable to sign to say that they wished to resign then I'm sorry the bank in this case acted correctly.
Your mum should have opened a new account.

BusinessIsBusiness

rb10 wrote: »

Regardless, they've got problems if their internal mail is taking more than a day or two.

Lol- as if it's because the mail itself is slow. As with anything incorrectly addressed it takes longer to arrive to the correct place. Everything is electronically scanned. However it needs to arrive to the correct dept to be scanned onto the correct queue/ workstream etc

BusinessIsBusiness

Foggster wrote: »

My mum took over the Treasuers job on a small club account about 18 months ago. The previous signatories were not longer available to switch the account to the new signatories.

The signatories have been in to Santander (nearest branch 25 miles away) on 3 separate occasions with various forms of ID and they have been unable to close this account.

We are at a total loss on what to do. They seem to have done half a job because the other signatories have been removed from the account but the new ones havent been added. Santander have got themselves into such a muddle. In theory - no one can touch this account!

The problem is Santander business accounts don't have counter access, so unless you are in a branch with a local business manager. They will be useless as they don't deal with with business accounts. Is this an old old abbey treasurer account? Sounds like one as the bank aren't able to add new sigs onto these old accounts. Also they appear on the system differently to other normal business accounts whereby trustees/ operators (signatories) are not linked like they normally would be. So to an untrained personal banker eye it would look like there are no sigs on the account currently. Which isn't the case. They are like old passbook accounts.

You need to call Santander business customer service, as they would be best to advise what is going on, rather than going through the personal banking staff in branch. Unless you get through to someone who knows what they aretalking about they may just fob you off. Complain and speak to a manager and they will then get it resolved. As someone else mentioned because these accounts are so old and completely out of date with the records banks hold, they are hugely problematic. Its usully just as much the clubs fault as the banks for not updating the account with any changes when they occur. As someone else mentioned you would be best just opening a new account from scratch.