Has Anyone Moved to Santander 1 2 3?

cepheus

Had to laugh at this which was reported on Moneybox (unless that's another case)

I am emailed on day three and discover my application has been successful. Hooray! But wait – it says I will get my account details, bank card and PIN in 10 to 14 days. I thought the whole point was that this was faster?

No wait – further down I’m told that since I’m using the switch service I will be sent further details separately.

I open the next email, which I find in my spam folder. Now the bank says my account will be ready to use from December 31 in the year 9999. OMG I have to wait until I’m 8,015 years old!

We have an ageing population but I don’t think I’ll last that long.

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-2427955/My-bank-told-7-986-years-switch.html#ixzz2ipiZTxHQ

Gosh think of the lost interest at 3%!

multiply the initial investment by this number (my calculator broke down but excel does it)

3.2967E+102

seabass15

I was encouraged by Santander to open a 123 account on the possibility that I would get a better mortgage rate, as my mortgage is with them . and the fixed term was ending I switched.to them with no problems, at all. but the bad news was that I did not get a better mortgage rate, in saying that it was not guaranteed,that I would.
When my ISA's fixed rate term expired they only wanted to give me 0.5 percent interest if Ifixed it for a two year period which meant I could not withdraw any money,they would give 2.5 % which did not suit me.

Now we come to the worst bit I swithced my ISA and bank acc to Halifax. I had to keep going back to Santander querying what was going on the number of delays and !!!! up's they made. I made a complaint in branch about these mistakes, I was pleased to receive a cheque in compensation for their !!!! up's I am very satisfied that I switched to Halifax

Alikay

I started the switch of our Barclay's joint account to Santander 123 last week and all seemed to go well with Santander's side of it. However, during the process it transpired Barclay's messed up 7 years ago when we moved and made an error with the address change (added new house as a second address for DH rather than replaced). This went totally undetected for 7 years as all mailings came to the new address, but it came to light during the switch and slowed it down as there showed a discrepancy. It also nullified the £45 we'd have got from Quidco for doing the switch (must be wholly online).

Since we're now going to get no financial incentive whatsoever for the switch, I've decided to abort it, and may (if I can be bothered) switch to First Direct at a later date.

To be fair to Santander, their bit was going fine, but after 34 years with Barclay's and with 16 direct debits per month to switch, I want a bit of a cash sweetener to do it, and now that won't happen. We will still leave Barclay's at some point.

innovate

seabass15, it appears you had several misunderstandings, such as:

You can get up to £10 a month in cashback for your ISA if you have a 123 account, but there is no offer for 'a better' mortgage if you have a current account with them. I am actually not sure there is any bank that offers a better mortgage deal just because you hold a current account with them?

As to the ISA: at the time Santander offered the 2.5% 2-year fixed term ISA, they also offered a 2% instant access ISA. Halifax didn't have any matching offers.

It always pays to shop around for ISA, mortgage and current account offerings, and you don't have to have all your finances with a single bank. In fact, you rarely do get the best deal overall if you don't spread yourself about. Also, it is risky if you don't have at least some funds in an unrelated bank or building society, just in case of a major meltdown such as we saw with Natwest/RBS/Ulster.

It appears that your requirements for a current account aren't met by the 123 and that you couldn't get the benefits of cashback and interest. In this case, it is of course the right thing to choose an account that meets your requirements.

YorkshireBoy

innovate wrote: »

seabass15, it appears you had several misunderstandings, such as:

You can get up to £10 a month in cashback for your ISA if you have a 123 account, but there is no offer for 'a better' mortgage if you have a current account with them. I am actually not sure there is any bank that offers a better mortgage deal just because you hold a current account with them?

Santander do/did such an offer...

http://www.santanderforintermediaries.co.uk/library/lib_103.pdf

A quick google shows there are several banks doing such deals, eg Co-op...

http://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/mortgages/mortgages-ca-customers

bfgun

I originally moved from RBS to Santander to take advantage of their free overdraft facility.

That was prior to Santander shelving the buy of the RBS branches.

To me it seemed a no brainer as I was paying about £30-40 per month to RBS in fees and I was going to end up as a Santander customer anyway.

I took the Santander Premier account which cost me £20 per month but gave me loads of insurances that I would have normally bought.

However, they subsequently withdrew the Premier account and I transferred to the 1-2-3 account.

I have been pleased with the amount they are paying me but I am sceptical as to how long this account will last and how they can afford to do so.

Is this just another way of pulling in new customers knowing that most customers will rarely change their bank account on a regular basis?

Crater

cepheus wrote: »

I have seen a baffling DD appear on my list by LLOYDS BANK PLC - CARD SERVICE except I don't have a card with them! Do they manage other companies cards?

A problem is the terminology of the DDs don't stay the same when they transfer!

I might cancel it for the time being, hopefully that option doesn't erase the details for good.

I've made a complete list of DDs and one standing order with our present account for the year and hope this will help to keep any switch on the rails ... if our Barclays account has anything wrong, it won't show till we try and switch, as we have been with them/here for over 25 years.

Thanks for the warning about "terminology", i have come across this with purchases but I haven't switched a bank before.

Crater

Update: we have started, that is applied, to "switch" and of course the bank has to open a whole new account for us, it's a separate process, makes entire sense when it finally sinks in, but nobody tells you that beforehand :eek:

Now we are wondering if our rather low income last year (not much over the state pension - which we don't get yet! Since the govt moved the goalposts) will stop us from getting a new account.

And apart from that, I have to run around to the branch with ID to "update my profile" to take account that my Santander ISA has a shorter version of our address on it than our "old" bank account, and I'm wondering if any more of these "differences" will come to light, for instance, I don't know how my husband described his profession to the "old" bank over 25 years ago ... as you find on drop down menus, there are job descriptions computers accept and nowadays you have to describe yourself in a way the menu recognises ... tough for all those turtle wranglers out there.

"7 days my foot!"

Archi_Bald

To be fair, the usual smallprint does say the 7 days are for the switch only, not for setting up a new account and do the switch.

Though lots of people, incl. ourselves sometimes, forget to acknowledge that.

http://www.paymentscouncil.org.uk/switch_service/faqs/

Q18
Are account opening and account switching all part of the same process?
A18
Account opening and account switching are separate processes. Your new bank or building society has to carry out ‘know your customer’ security checks as part of their account opening process. Once these are complete to the satisfaction of the new bank or building society, you can choose and agree your switch date.

Crater

To be honest Archi Bald, I didn't exactly expect it to happen in 7 days, because although I have nearly zilch experience of bank stuff these last 20 years, things always take longer than advertised. But they always home in on the "switch" as if it applies to new customers as well as existing ones. I'm beginning to understand things about "delays" that appear in the papers - the process in reality probably isn't much different from what it was before the "new deal". No matter really, except there are other things they don't make clear until you actually trip over them.

Having done a rough cast off of our self-employed income, I am now wondering if they will accept a revise on our monthly income. We are not used to trying to quote monthly income (we don't get it), we are used to working from our annual accounts, and last year was not very good. Monthly for the 7 months so far this year is nearly x2 (still not a fortune, but better) but I don't know if they will accept that. I will have to ask.

I wonder how people who rely on their state pensions manage in credit check situations?