Santander won't refund for their mistake!

RichieMajor

I'll try to keep this to the point...

I fell into the vicious cycle of payday loans and after months of going round in circles borrowing I decided to enter an IVA to clear my debts once and for all (and others from years ago)

The IVA was approved and I was advised by the debt management company to call my bank and cancel any direct debits, standing orders and Continuous Payment Authority ( CPA ) to the companies involved in my IVA as I will be making one affordable monthly payment to the debt management company from then onwards.

I called Santander on the 22nd May and asked to cancel any further payments to my creditors which i named and were due payment on the 25th, they said my request will be actioned in 24hrs. I was also advised that if a payment was taken by any of the payday loan companies then Santander will refund my money in 24hrs of letting them know. At this point I'm thinking all was good my finances will finally be under control.

On the 25th May I check my bank balance to see that Wonga had taken £425 from my account. Okay massive inconvenience but no problem I'm thinking I'll just let santander know and I'll get a refund.

Anyway after a long drawn out call to Santander customer services it quickly became clear my money isn't coming back as easily as they said it would and I suspect they didn't cancel the CPA for Wonga! - please note other companies I asked to put a stop on were indeed stopped bar Wonga. i asked them to confirm which companies they had stopped and as suspected all were stopped bar Wonga.

Okay just a slight mistake I'm thinking, these things happen so let's get it right this time... again during the call I quickly realised that I won't see my money any time soon...call ended and felt totally cheated by my bank. So I called back strait away and spoke to another customer sevice to see what this one would tell me...didn't help at all basically told me to put in a complaint so I did.

Fast forward to today i received a call from complaints who basically said sorry blah blah blah but I won't be getting a refund because Wonga took the money using a different name "Wonga.com"instead of "Wonga" Very disappointed at their response I ended the call and got straight onto the debt management company to see if they can help. As expected - Head - Brick wall. You can see where this is going...

In a nut shell I'm now totally broke currently in unauthorised overdraft and that money I'm trying to recover is to get me to work and pay council tax for the month.

My question is what can I do because surely there is no fault on my behalf here and I'm still £425 down and probably miss my council tax payment which we all know do not mess about when it comes to receiving their money!

I commute 80miles a day and don't have a penny to put in my fuel tank so I will be missing multiple days at work due to the incompetence of the "reputable" bank santander.

Please someone advise what I should do I feel so cheated and deffo looking at loss of earnings because of this mistake by Santander who seem to void themselves of any responsibility.

EachPenny

Didn't your IVA provider tell you to close your existing current account and open a new basic account with a completely different banking group?

mt99

Hi I am not sure if I can help but it does seem to me is that if you cancelled all your direct debits then no money should have been taken by direct debit. if wonga took a direct debit under a new different name wonga.com then you can definitely challenge that and the bank should refund the unauthorised direct debit to you. You have quite a strong level of protection when it comes to direct debits.

if on the other hand the money was taken via a debit card using a continuous payment authority then your protection is not quite strong but you still notified the bank to cancel all your cpa's and therefore the bank should not have paid it out on an existing cpa. If wonga took the money via a brand new CPA which they called wonga.com then you sould complain to your bank that this new cpa was not authorised by you

jonesMUFCforever

[QUOTE=mt99;72653881

if on the other hand the money was taken via a debit card using a continuous payment authority then your protection is not quite strong but you still notified the bank to cancel all your cpa's and therefore the bank should not have paid it out on an existing cpa. If wonga took the money via a brand new CPA which they called wonga.com then you sould complain to your bank that this new cpa was not authorised by you[/QUOTE]

You don't cancel ''all '' CPA'S you cancel them all individually.
In this case I think the Wonga payment might have been at pending stage ie too late to stop for this month but all subsequent payments will be refused.
If Wonga have agreed to the IVA they should refund you not Santander as Wonga is holding your money.

EachPenny

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

If Wonga have agreed to the IVA they should refund you not Santander as Wonga is holding your money.

Isn't that going to depend on the terms of the IVA and the actual date it started though?

The OP hasn't actually stated the start date, but if it was on or after the 25th then wouldn't wonga have the right to take the money and keep it?

RichieMajor

Thanks for you comments everyone.

Would you believe that after all this larking around on the phone with Santander telling me no im not entitled to a refund. I've just seen that they have in fact refunded me the full amount!

No notice at all just dropped the money in my account sometime between midday and now. It was only midday today they was telling me a stirn "No"

Was not expecting to see my money at all!

I sense they realised they cocked up and covering up quickly.

Relieved to say the least

Again thanks everyone for the info on this subject.

Shakin_Steve

If this money is all you have to see you through the month, withdraw it, now!

Flobberchops

A technical question, was the payment to Wonga actually a DD, or a card authority payment? Some banks have a policy of not actioning recurring card payment disputes specifically for payday loan companies (presumably they found people were taking unsecured payday loans and then cancelling the instruction to avoid paying anything back).

McKneff

Just get the money out fast and open another account with another bank