Santander have made me £6000 overdrawn

nikkiddavis

meer53 wrote: »

I read it different, but then i'm confused.

I read it as the £6k belonged to the OP's nan. When she died, the money in the dormant account went to the OP's Mum's joint account. When her Mum died, as the OP was the beneficiary of her Mum's money, this joint account was closed (in error) and the money transferred to the OP ! The OP said this :

"Santander told me it was Nan's money before the paid it into my account, I had not reason to disbelieve them."

Thanks Meer
The whole situation is very confusing! On the 23rd Nov 12, they closed an account and told me it belong to my Nan.

In 12th February 13 we found out that they actually closed an account in my parents joint name.

nikkiddavis

matttye wrote: »

I would think you have a case to have any interest frozen at the very least.

Complain to Santander, tell them the mistake is theirs, not yours, and you spent the money in good faith based on what they told you. Ask them to freeze any interest/charges on your account while they investigate what happened. Tell them you will be taking the matter to the ombudsman if you're not satisfied with their final answer.

Keep everything in writing - the lack of documentation is one of the things complicating this situation in the first place; you don't want to repeat that mistake again!

Send all correspondence recorded delivery and keep any tracking receipts so you can check when/if letters are received.

I asked earlier but you didn't answer; do you still have the letter from Santander where they wrote to you confirming that they had found your nan's account? If so, does that letter confirm that there is £6k in that account? If you don't have it it might be prudent to send a subject access request to Santander with a £10 cheque.

Hi Matt
I have all the paperwork they send to me and all the paperwork I've given to them. I think part of the issue is, they do not keep their own records.

From them, I have the letter regarding the dormant account and the letter dated 22nd March 13 giving me less than a weeks notice that they were going to withdraw £6000 out of my account.

The paperwork I've given to them, a letter explaining the dormant account information (no account number, my Nan's details including all the addresses she lived in from 1915 to 2006). Nan's death certificate 2006, Nan's will, Mum's death certificate 2012, my birth certificate.

This is all the documentation that changed hands.

My frustration grows because I emailed them giving them a detailed explanation on Tuesday 26th March and I scanned in all the paperwork and sent it to them. However, they do not pick up their emails. Branches do not have email. The lady own finally picked my complaint up at 6pm Thursday night does NOT have email. I had to resent my email to her boss as one of the few people that does have email.

It's a joke!

nikkiddavis

matttye wrote: »

I would think you have a case to have any interest frozen at the very least.

Complain to Santander, tell them the mistake is theirs, not yours, and you spent the money in good faith based on what they told you. Ask them to freeze any interest/charges on your account while they investigate what happened. Tell them you will be taking the matter to the ombudsman if you're not satisfied with their final answer.

Keep everything in writing - the lack of documentation is one of the things complicating this situation in the first place; you don't want to repeat that mistake again!

Send all correspondence recorded delivery and keep any tracking receipts so you can check when/if letters are received.

I asked earlier but you didn't answer; do you still have the letter from Santander where they wrote to you confirming that they had found your nan's account? If so, does that letter confirm that there is £6k in that account? If you don't have it it might be prudent to send a subject access request to Santander with a £10 cheque.

The letter from Santander regarding the dormant account, gives no personal details at all. It just says, thank you for the dormant account enquiry, we've found an account in the name of Mrs ####, please come into your nearest branch with the acct passbook (as it was dormant we didn't have), death certificate, my ID, etc.

I gave them all the documents I have.

Its probably been made more confusing is by my Mum death. The reason we didn't look into the dormant acct before that is because my Mum was battling Ovarian Cancer.

gb12345

nikkiddavis wrote: »

The letter from Santander regarding the dormant account, gives no personal details at all. It just says, thank you for the dormant account enquiry, we've found an account in the name of Mrs ####, please come into your nearest branch with the acct passbook (as it was dormant we didn't have), death certificate, my ID, etc.

I gave them all the documents I have.

It would be correct for them to not provide any personal details when they sent you the initial letter - DPA would mean that is what they have to do until they are satisfied that they are providing the information to the correct person.

What happened after you took all your paperwork into the local branch?

nikkiddavis

gb12345 wrote: »

It would be correct for them to not provide any personal details when they sent you the initial letter - DPA would mean that is what they have to do until they are satisfied that they are providing the information to the correct person.

What happened after you took all your paperwork into the local branch?

Hi GB12345
They took copies of them all and sent them off to head office.

2 weeks later out of the blue I received a phone, from the same branch trying to sell me a 123 account and credit car, which I already had. When I pointed this out, the santander staff member quite embarrassed asked if there was anything she could do. At which point I said 'yes' explained about the dormant account. She asked who I'd dealt with and she'd get him to call me back.

It took a couple days, but he did call me back on the 23rd Nov. And he closed the wrong account (my parent account) and told me it was my Nan's account. Over the phone he transferred the money straight into my acct.

I never sign anything, I didn't have to go back to the branch.

In hindsight its shocking at how easy it was. I feel I've made the mistake of trusting that Santander knew what they were doing, and were following their own procedures. Clearly they weren't.

matttye

Write to their head office recorded delivery (special delivery if you want it to get there the following working day) explaining the position and ask them to freeze the interest while they investigate why money from another account was transferred into your account.

Explain that you had already contacted Santander to enquire about any dormant accounts and they had already written to you confirming that they had found your Nans account. On that basis it was your understanding that the money transferred was from your Nans account, not a completely different account which you hadn't even tried to discuss with them.

Say that you don't see why you should be liable to pay fees/interest on an overdraft that has only been used because of their incompetence. You spent money that they transferred to you in good faith and nothing more has been said since.

Send them copies of the letters confirming they had found your Nans account to save time.

I hope you get it sorted but I think you may need to take them to court. The financial ombudsman service can take a long time to investigate.

innovate

matttye wrote: »

The financial ombudsman service can take a long time to investigate.

And you must give Santander (like any other financial institution) 8 weeks to resolve the matter before the FOS will accept your case.

matttye

innovate wrote: »

And you must give Santander (like any other financial institution) 8 weeks to resolve the matter before the FOS will accept your case.

Yep. But if you request and receive (or they send you) a final answer that you're not happy with before eight weeks are up, you can complain to the ombudsman early.

nikkiddavis

innovate wrote: »

And you must give Santander (like any other financial institution) 8 weeks to resolve the matter before the FOS will accept your case.

I can't stay overdrawn by £6000 for 8 weeks, while they tit about!

matttye

nikkiddavis wrote: »

I can't stay overdrawn by £6000 for 8 weeks, while they tit about!

They probably won't take eight weeks to respond, that's just the amount of time you have to give them before going to the Ombudsman unless you've received a final response before that as previously mentioned.

Get the written complaint in ASAP.