I Hate Santander

Dr_Crypto

Secret account for "personal expenses"
Secret internet access dongle
Stress of moving house

Sure your hubby hasn't been mis-selling somewhere 🤣

Mchambers

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 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 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, 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?

I won't have it or tolerate it. Sant is a wonderful back and cannot be faulted ! Just wonderful :rotfl::rotfl:!

Flobberchops

Both parties are wrong. The husband should have understood what he was getting into (one does not "accidentally" sign up to a DD) and Santander should uphold even a stupid customer complaint - let Currys or whoever pursue the complainant for cash, it's not within the bank's remit to make lawyeristic judgments.

sheramber

When I wanted a new Pay as You Go phone several places only offered Pay aS You Go on a monthly contract. I eventually got one that I topped up needed from Tesco.

My son has a Pay as You Go monthly contract for his phone.