Santander 1-2-3 - Online Debit Card Transactions

ladams888

Six weeks ago, following advice from the MSE website, I opened a joint Santander 1-2-3 account. When I try to use the debit card online, Santander block the transaction until I have confirmed by replying to their text with the letter "Y" to confirm that the transaction is mine. Annoyingly the texts fall outside of unlimited texts package - so I end up having transaction blocked and then paying the the privilege of it being unblocked. I phoned Santander to complain and they passed me to their fraud department who said that the transaction was possibly fraudulent as it was outside of my normal spending pattern. Of course it was outside of my normal spending pattern! I have only had the account (and debit card) for six weeks so I don't have any sort of spending pattern - using that argument means that they will block absolutely every transaction (and charge me to OK it) until I have built up a spending pattern. I have now told them that I do not want them to contact me by text at all - to which they replied that if they spot a potentially fraudulent transaction, they will still block it and then write me a letter about it!

Firstly, I think their policy is ludicrous - I have previously been with Lloyds, Natwest & Barclays and they have never tried to unilaterally block any transactions. Secondly I think it's a cheek that simply by texting the letter "Y" to them costs the price of an overseas text (they confirmed that the number sending the text is an overseas number). Somebody is making money out of this.

I have now resolved only to use my NatWest Visa card or my Amex card for online transactions and only use the Santander Debit card in Santander ATMs.