Santander: Removal of overdraft/no notice

pixie83

Hi everyone,

Ok, so I have a bank account with Santander and had an overdraft of 1250 which I used up to the limit. In January I moved abroad and have just been able to start making payments back to Santander to pay back the account. Between January and April/May I had no international money transfer options available with my new account in Dubai with HSBC. They are a bit weird here, and as such my account went over the overdraft limit by about £100 in those months, as they added charges...as you would expect. All fine and expected. I have since paid back £400 to bring the account back into the overdraft limit and when I checked it today as another £200 is expected to land in the account tomorrow I saw a £100 unarranged overdraft charge had been put on the account and the whole overdraft facility revoked.

I had no notice of this happening at all, no emails to the account or my email inbox at all to say the overdraft was being revoked. I was planning on paying back £200 a month until it was clear but a £100 a month charge is going to make it last waaaay longer.

I've emailed Santander to ask if there is anything they can do? Am I within my rights to ask them to stop these charges at £100 a month, or do I need to suck it up and pay it back faster? I completely understand a charge as the account was dormant, but £100 a month and no notice of the OD being taken away seems a bit unfair? Has anyone experienced anything similar? I've been a customer of theirs for about 10 years and always paid back everything when I needed to, they also knew I had left the country.

Thanks for your help!

innovate

The T&Cs suggest they can do it without advanced notice "where it would be reasonable". Since you have accepted those T&Cs (by opening and using the account), it seems you will have to grovel to get any lenience. Certainly doesn't sound they broke any of the T&Cs.

We will usually give you 30 days’ notice of our intention to change your Arranged Overdraft limit or repay the whole or any part of any overdraft, however we may do either of these things without advance notice to you where it would be reasonable for us to do so.

Source: clause 7.4 b) in https://www.santander.co.uk/csgs/StaticBS?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1223428688943&cachecontrol=immediate&ssbinary=true&maxage=3600

aridjis

can you turn it into a loan, and pay back a certain amount per month? That would surely be cheaper than having them charge you an extra £100 per month

pixie83

I've emailed them so will have to see what they say. I live abroad now so don't recieve any postal mail about my account and rely solely on email comms with them. I figured they would have some sort of T&C allowing them to get away with it.

Lets hope they can switch it back. But as I am no longer a UK resident I won't be eligible for any loans I guess. The annoying thing is I am trying to pay back my dues despite not living in the country and so many people abandon their debts when they leave; I'm trying to pay back what I owe and get penalised for it! (

Unless I tell them to pass it to a debt agency and can then pay back in chunks with no additional fees on?

innovate

If you tell them you permanently don't live in the UK any longer, they will probably a) not believe you and b) not be cooperative. And your credit files will be shot to pieces.

Best clear it up honestly.

Gizmo247

What is happening to your postal mail. Santander may write to you from time to time. If they get that mail returned, you become a high risk.

pixie83

I'm not too worried about my credit file and I had to tell them I was leaving the country back in December. All my banking with them is online. They have known for months I had moved. That isn't so much the problem its the not telling me the OD had been revoked. But they have a clause saying they can do it anyway, so will see what they say. I'll prob just pay it back faster in 2/3 months instead and take the £300 hit if they wont switch it back. Its just annoying more than anything!

imperial-dan

I had this happen to me on a student account.
I repaid mine at a monthly rate but with some arguing (especially seeing as they had started applying charges without any notice) they agreed to stop the fees and just let me repay the amount.
That said they refused to return the first £100 they had charged and when I filed a dispute such that they would rectify my credit rating etc they did nothing despite promising to at least investigate the dispute.
Awful customer service, never using them again.

pixie83

I am hoping that after a sensible discussion with them they will let me pay it back at £200 a month. Either they can have the money, or I'll ask them to pass it to a credit agency and pay them £200 a month until it's clear. I don't mind who. If they had given me some notice, I could have had this discussion with them before they pulled the plug.

The annoying thing is, over here there are no branches of the bank here, no way to send money to that account at all, until my account here with HSBC (which isn't even HSBC they just license the name) had activated international money transfers after 12 weeks. Everything I had set up in the UK had fallen behind, but now we're getting somewhere and the others have been fine about it apart from Santander. Boooo to the banks!

I have to say the one thing about living in Dubai, it makes you not want to be in debt. Its illegal here, miss two payments and you go to jail! Could you imagine if they did that in the UK?

innovate

pixie83 wrote: »

Its illegal here, miss two payments and you go to jail! Could you imagine if they did that in the UK?

:eek:

No such risk here since the prisons are at capacity as it is.

Good luck with your negotiations with Santander. Please come back and tell us the result

pixie83

Absolutely! I have a feeling it'll go along the lines of "tough, we can do it" but if its anything other than that, I'll be sure to let you all know!

Yeah, the banking system here is rather different. So many expats absconded the country because they racked up so much debt, that anything comes with a jail term now. The car parks are littered with sandy cars that have been abandoned by their owners! It's crazy.

Fingers crossed Santander pull through, it'll get sorted one way or the other!

Thanks x