Santander Refund Letter

teddysmum

I'd hand the reply into a branch so you know it hasn't strayed into the hands of a con artist.

System

It actually looks to me like they've made some error with your old account.

They are likely refunding you the interest on an overdraft or other borrowing you used but don't want to tell you why - hence the cryptic letter.

The only way to track it back (to the source) will be the redacted reference at the top plus address.

jamie_02

Don't try and investigate via the envelope or the number in the letter, you're simply opening yourself up for more grooming by any suspected fraudster. If they're good, they'll get more knowledge of your personal details from you without you realising. At the very least, they'll mark you down as someone nibbling the bait, and someone who has a Santander account, which, again, reveals more personal information.

It's easily solved. Go into a branch, show them the letter and they will be able to direct you to the right department if the circumstances are genuine. If not, they'll be able to keep the letter to assist their fraud department. If you have to call Santander, use the number on their website.

The letter seems to me to be a fake/fraud attempt. My parents had a very genuine-looking letter from Lloyds recently, except they haven't banked there for over 40 years so it was easy to call out as fake. It's possible this letter purporting to be from Santander just happened to end up with a Santander customer this time (you). It is very vague, asks you to return your bank details (which surely they have?) and the LinkedIn profile is full of spelling mistakes in the job titles, something surely a person holding those jobs would never do on a recruitment site. In all, I think it's a very elaborate grooming scam.

teddysmum

People at a branch should be able to find out full details, either from their data base or by calling the appropriate department.

robatwork

BugSmurf wrote: »

Again, thank you for all your responses. I think what I'm going to do is respond to them in the prepaid envelope (which has the correct address and po box for Santander) and ask them to send me a cheque for the amount and see what happens then!

Can you scan in the customer acceptance form and the envelope and post them up.

Also those who are 100% convinced it's a scam - what is the mechanism of this scam where it's a genuine santander phone number, and the form is returned to a genuine santander address?

Note I'm not 100% sure it isn't a scam, just open minded at this point.

Here's the link to the letter for easier clicking https://imgur.com/gallery/3y0yF

mt99

There is no way of telling whether this is a scam or real the only way to check is to take it into a branch

you might want to consider contacting Narine Peters and telling her that sending out letters as vague as this is not doing the campaign against phishing any good

eskbanker

Just looking at the letter again, the interest calculation of £104.46 on £1,958.59 would suggest that, at 8% gross, the alleged overpayment event giving rise to the compensation and interest was exactly 8 months ago, which seems a tad unlikely on an account that's been inactive for over six years!

They do say that they've added "interest to compensate for any loss of interest you may have earned had we refunded the overpayments earlier" but that's not how it would work - if they'd deprived you of money through overpayments they'd have to be reimbursing interest from when the overpayments happened, not from another arbitrary date when they could have refunded them!

schiff

In May 2016 I had a payment from Santander described as Interest Rate Adjustment 2009-2015.

In June 2016 I had a payment from Co-op Bank described as Refund of Overcharged Fees. Years after the account had been closed.

So payments for past years do crop up, even out of the blue, though IIRC both these payments came by cheque.

In this matter I subscribe to the view that a visit to a branch is called for

robatwork

Let's hope the OP has now had a chance to call/visit and verify if it's bogus....and will be good enough to update the thread.

BugSmurf

Hi All,

Just a quick update as I managed to get in to a branch at the weekend.

It appears to be real. Lady on front counter thought it looked dodge, so refereed me to someone else. Next person thought it looked dodgy too but checked my account status (Closed) and then rung the number. Of course they were closed on a Saturday but the number showed up on her internal system as being a true Santander number.

So I've called them this morning myself and have said that I don't want to give my bank details by post, can they send me a cheque? They said yes, I just need to write "Cheque" on the return form and sign it and they will send me a cheque!

Ill let you know if one actually turns up!

Cheers

Smurf