I Hate Santander

Peter999_2

Guess I'm going to buck the trend of everyone else, but the fact is Santander should honour the indemnity guarantee and refund the money. Santander would then submit an indemnity request to EE who will refund them the money and then chase the customer.

However, it does look as though your husband has unfortunately taken out a contract with Currys/EE and bought a contract dongle instead of a PAYG dongle. I nearly fell for this myself a while back and nearly bought a £9.99 one until I read the small print and bought a PAYG one for £24.99 instead.

Is this the one he bought? :

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/phones-broadband-and-sat-nav/broadband/mobile-broadband/4gee-mini-pay-monthly-mobile-wifi-10146703-pdt.html

phillw

Peter999 wrote: »

Guess I'm going to buck the trend of everyone else, but the fact is Santander should honour the indemnity guarantee and refund the money. Santander would then submit an indemnity request to EE who will refund them the money and then chase the customer.

You only get a refund if there was a mistake, the OP hasn't provided any evidence that it was a mistake.

PeacefulWaters

norbury10 wrote: »

Just had to email the CEO office with this. I hate Santander, I have lost count of the number of times they have messed up with anything that isn't a basic enquiry.

Dear Sir

I am emailing you on the back of yet more appalling customer service and banking knowledge from Santander.

My husband and I have banked with you for a number of years. Each time we contact Santander for anything which isnt straight forward, Santander messes up royally.

The latest debacle started a couple of weeks ago.

We moved house in November last year, and as is common with all house moves there is a period where you will not have internet access. To overcome this my husband went to Currys to buy a pay as you go wifi dongle, to give us internet access for approximately 3 weeks until Sky got us reconnected.

A couple of weeks ago my husband noticed that a number of direct debits had been taken from one of our accounts which my husband uses solely for buying petrol and personal expenses. The direct debit was from EE who was the supplier of the a pay as you go wifi dongle my husband had bought. We cancelled the direct debit immediately and telephoned Santander to request a direct debit indemnity, under the direct debit indemnity guarantee scheme.

I worked for a High St bank for a number of years, so I am fully aware of our rights regarding this scheme. We did not authorise EE to take a monthly payment from our account by direct debit, as far as we were concerned we just wanted some temporary internet access which is why my husband asked for a pay as you go. The monthly payment suggests we had entered into a contract, which isnt what we bought or asked for.

The wording of the direct debit indemnity are as follows;-

The Direct Debit Guarantee protects customers from payments taken in error. In the case of any incorrect or fraudulent payments, the payer is entitled to a full and immediate refund from their bank. The Direct Debit Guarantee (or the “Direct Debit Indemnity”) is the Direct Debit scheme's customer protection.

EE have quite plainly taken these payments in error from our account, therefore we should be refunded immediately as per the direct debit guarantee with all the payments they took.

However Santander seem to think that their customers should not be covered by this scheme. We contacted Santander last week to find out why we hadnt yet been refunded,only to be told that the request had been refused. The reason we were given is that we must have known the direct debit was being set up as EE claimed a £2 payment from our account on the day to verify the validity of the direct debit. The logic of this reasoning totally escapes me.

If we were knowingly setting up a direct debit, we would have set it up on the account we have with yourselves which is expressly for the purposes of paying direct debits, not from the account where my husband buys petrol and other personal expenses. In addition why would we purchases a monthly contract wifi dongle when we only needed it for 3 weeks until SKY connected us?

On the back of this lack of customer service I took to Twitter. Your service here was also ineffective. which prompted a young man called Patrick to contact me. All he could do was repeat verbatim what we had previously been told, that the indemnity was declined because we must have known we were setting up a direct debit, in effect calling us liars. The only evidence of which your bank has, is the fact that EE took a £2 payment from our account to verify our account for direct debit, which to me and any other sane and reasonable person isnt evidence at all.

On reflection I think either one of two things have happened, my husband was missold at Currys (ie lead to believe he was buying what he asked for) or that EE have made an error.

All we want is for Santander to do the right thing and refund us as per the Direct Debit Guarantee, instead you seem to be more interested in insinuating that we have knowingly entered into a direct debit with EE, which is simply not the case.

This quote is taken directly from the direct debit website:

Responsibility for re-paying any money taken in error* however, rests with your bank under the terms of the Direct Debit Guarantee.

If you cant resolve this correctly, then I will be escalating this to the FOS.

I look forward to your response.

Regards

Has anyone else had similar bad experiences with Santander?

Sometime less is more.

Cut the crap and get to the point.

vacheron

Wouldn't your husband have had to give Currys his sort code and account number for them to enter him into a PAYG contract with EE?

Did your Husband not think this was odd when he was purchasing a PAYG device, which (as far as payment is concerned) is no different to purchasing a kettle?

missile

An easy mistake for a bank employee to make <LOL>

wizzywig27

missile wrote: »

An easy mistake for a bank employee to make <LOL>

Maybe he is a cleaner? Or works in the staff canteen? He might work in the mortgage dept.? He could also work in the credit card dept.


But either way in todays world a tell-tell sign youare signing up for something that requires regular payments in giving bank details, I agree.

MoneySavingNovice

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

....Cut the crap and get to the point.

Totally agree.

Recognising the efforts of PeacefulWaters, this letter is still far too long. Even after the proposed edit the OP still needs to cut the number of words by 50% at least. Long letters are not fully read.

• Say in the first short sentence the outcome you require.
• In the second short sentence what you want them to do..
• In the third short sentence why this needs doing.

i.e. keep it short and straight to the point as this eliminates any ambiguity.

Zanderman

OP, as others have pointed out, your letter is ridiculously long.

And, as must be obvious, your argument is with EE, not the bank.

You say "We did not authorise EE to take a monthly payment from our account by direct debit,"

But EE cannot set up a DD without your account details, so you must have given them. Why would you do that for a one-off purchase?

You also say "On reflection I think either one of two things have happened, my husband was missold at Currys (ie lead to believe he was buying what he asked for) or that EE have made an error." - which is an admission, by you, that this is not a bank error. It is your husband's or EE's. Not the bank's.

So why start a thread blaming the bank?

And why write to the bank demanding action? It's not their problem, it's your's.

eskbanker

norbury10 wrote: »

I hate them, unfortunately we are stuck with them because my husband works for them.

Not for much longer I suspect - his life at work won't be worth living once word of this spreads around the office!

"Isn't that the guy who not only messed up a simple purchase at Curry's but failed to spot an ongoing direct debit for nine months afterwards. Not only that but then couldn't dissuade his wife from misguidedly blaming the bank because she thought she knew what she was talking about and not only that but she complained straight to his boss's boss's boss's boss rather than following the standard process? And you should have seen the letter!", as they all roll around the floor giggling....

teddysmum

Indeed it is EE who need to be approached.


Last month I noticed a payment to AA breakdown, which was the wrong time of year for ours, which is AA but through Saga; there also being a similar payment in two previous years, the first one being a week after my husband paid a friend's AA insurance by card (She was unwell and paid him in cash ).


I rang the AA accounts dept and was told that, as her previous policy had free breakdown and she hadn't cancelled, they assumed she still wanted it, so took payments.


I pointed out that no permission was given to charge our account and there had been just a one off insurance payment made by card, to help someone who was unwell. Also,the lady knew nothing about breakdown, which she didn't need as her long term illness meant she could not drive.


The CS person said they sometimes did that, admitted it was wrong, immediately returned all breakdown payments to our account and cancelled the direct debit (the bank confirmed this)


The problem was not the bank's. It was the AA at fault for making assumptions.