Santander 123: Anyone had problems getting money out?

ChopperST

This always happens with me with Santander as I do a low test payment to check the money hits the other account before doing the larger transfer once verified. Regularly have a hold up with Santander but its not a bad thing IMHO.

BJV

I use Santander for my business and personal accounts. They are rubbish! Thank fully I do everything on line so never have to talk to them.


Last year I tried to buy a cooker online and because I know what they are like I called to let them know before hand. My payment was declined. It was the last of a run out models of a very expensive cooker and as it was the last one it was a massive discount. I told the cooker people to try again. Again payment declined. After two hours one the phone Santander blaming cooker people cooker people trying to take payment and me getting more and more frustrated Santander decided to process the payment. It was them stopping the payment all along


All they would say is that it was for my protection ! Really!


Santander in a nutshell - online good anything else don't bother.

colsten

BJV wrote: »

I use Santander for my business and personal accounts. They are rubbish!

If they are as rubbish as you say, why do you still have accounts with them?

gterr

Well, here we are 5 days after initiating the transfer (3 business days) and the payment has not arrived at its destination, nor has it been recredited to my Santander account. Moreover, the secure message I sent on Saturday has not been answered. Phoned them half an hour ago and was told by the front-office guy that the payment appeared to have gone through OK, and I needed to check it really hadn't arrived at husband's account. Told him I'd just checked and it hadn't. Now I have to phone again tomorrow when there's someone in their back office to ask for a trace to be placed on the money.


Not sure what my rights are now. Do I have to wait until they've traced the money before I get it back, or can I ask them to recredit my account straight away?


Should I try another transfer, or is that going to complicate the issue? We do actually want to use the money!

colsten

Are you sure you used the correct sort code and account number?

mgarl10024

colsten wrote: »

If they are as rubbish as you say, why do you still have accounts with them?

I wasn't the original commenter, but I also have personal and business accounts with Santander.

I'd say that they do screw up fairly frequently. I recently did 4 ISA transfers for myself and my girlfriend and I think they only managed one correctly - they got her NI number wrong, transferred one of mine on the wrong day and then looked for my other transfer in the wrong building society!

The reason I stay is because they are keen to put things right, and usually offer a sweetener when they get things wrong. They also tend to offer the best rates.

Overall, it's a judgement on the value of your time. At the moment at least, I know to expect issues when I ask them to do something, and am happy that the better rates and sweetener balances out the additional time taken to get anything done.
Others, of course, may make a different judgement.

lejog2003

gterr wrote: »

I appreciate that sometimes anti-fraud measures can hold up transactions, but does anyone have any ideas what kind of things trigger this (so that I can avoid it in the future)? Was it doing three payments one after another? Something else? Just random?

I worked on software for Fraud Detection a few years back and can assure you that the one thing you'll never know is the rules the banks use to define what they consider to be a suspect transaction. Otherwise the fraudsters would know how to avoid the checks! Even on the systems I worked on and installed I have no idea how the banks configured them, but the software would allow them to set up almost any rule they want to.

lejog2003

gterr wrote: »

Well, here we are 5 days after initiating the transfer (3 business days) and the payment has not arrived at its destination, nor has it been recredited to my Santander account. Moreover, the secure message I sent on Saturday has not been answered. Phoned them half an hour ago and was told by the front-office guy that the payment appeared to have gone through OK, and I needed to check it really hadn't arrived at husband's account. Told him I'd just checked and it hadn't. Now I have to phone again tomorrow when there's someone in their back office to ask for a trace to be placed on the money.


Not sure what my rights are now. Do I have to wait until they've traced the money before I get it back, or can I ask them to recredit my account straight away?


Should I try another transfer, or is that going to complicate the issue? We do actually want to use the money!

No dont try another transfer, you may well end up with making two payments! Get onto your husband's bank to see if what Santander are saying is true, they are claiming that the money has been sent and the problem is at your husband's bank's end. Sure until they trace the money Santander won't be sure, but they won't recredit your account until the money is traced - it may be with your husband's bank.

Archi_Bald

Agree, don't send any more money until you got to the bottom of where your earlier payment went to. If it has really left Santander but has not arrived in your husband's account there is now really only one logical explanation: you sent it to a different account.

wurley

There was a report on Radio 4 a few weeks ago about people not being able to access their money in a current account.

There is something called 'ring fencing' where a company you order online with ring fence the money in your account until the order is shipped. (John Lewis do this as ab example) when the order is sent they then debit your account - Apparently sometimes the 'ring fence' isn't removed (oversight I guess) and people find they can't access their money.

If you call the bank they should be able to tell you if any of your money is being held in this way (usually, as an easy check the amount in you account will differ from the amount available)

:beer: