Santandar credit card

Fighter1986

JandK2021 said:

Thanks for the replies, i went through santandar complaints process before i came here, they werent interested and kept saying see T&C's. I have now received their "once in a lifetime good will gesture" to refund the interest of the first month. 

The interest was minimal, so the gesture seems lost on me. It was more about the hidden balances within the interest free period that could catch someone else out and be alot worse for them if they made more significant purchases.

I now know the purchase amount i have to pay off to stop the interest, so i will clear that and pay off the card asap. I will also be moving the current account i have had with them for 5 years.

I agree that other card issues like the Barclaycard mentioned above are more transparent in their allocation of payments, by way of telling the customer that they allocate payments to whichever interest free offer is ending soonest. 

The fact Santander don't do this and don't mention it in their hierarchy of payments could make them on the line or over the line of breaching a regulation.

If they've sent you their full and final response you could take it to the ombudsman mentioning the above. 

JandK2021

Deleted_User said:

JandK2021 said:

Thanks for the replies, i went through santandar complaints process before i came here, they werent interested and kept saying see T&C's. I have now received their "once in a lifetime good will gesture" to refund the interest of the first month. 

The interest was minimal, so the gesture seems lost on me. It was more about the hidden balances within the interest free period that could catch someone else out and be alot worse for them if they made more significant purchases.

I now know the purchase amount i have to pay off to stop the interest, so i will clear that and pay off the card asap. I will also be moving the current account i have had with them for 5 years.

There is no hidden balance, the only people caught out are those who don't read the terms and conditions.

Unless you have a good reason, like a switching bonus, moving accounts is petty and meaningless, your gesture will be completely missed

The purchase balance is part of the overall balance, they don't tell you what is remaining on the purchase balance in the statement just the overall balance, so will be very easy to get stung even if someone read all the terms and conditions, you still dont know what the balance is, so cant pay it off. By not assigning the money to the interest free offer that ends first it is their way of guaranteed interest charges at the end of the free period. (Unless you pay the balance in full)

I will be switching for a bonus offer, may mean nothing to them to lose one customer bit will make me feel better.

jay1804

JandK2021 said:

Deleted_User said:

JandK2021 said:

Thanks for the replies, i went through santandar complaints process before i came here, they werent interested and kept saying see T&C's. I have now received their "once in a lifetime good will gesture" to refund the interest of the first month. 

The interest was minimal, so the gesture seems lost on me. It was more about the hidden balances within the interest free period that could catch someone else out and be alot worse for them if they made more significant purchases.

I now know the purchase amount i have to pay off to stop the interest, so i will clear that and pay off the card asap. I will also be moving the current account i have had with them for 5 years.

There is no hidden balance, the only people caught out are those who don't read the terms and conditions.

Unless you have a good reason, like a switching bonus, moving accounts is petty and meaningless, your gesture will be completely missed

The purchase balance is part of the overall balance, they don't tell you what is remaining on the purchase balance in the statement just the overall balance, so will be very easy to get stung even if someone read all the terms and conditions, you still dont know what the balance is, so cant pay it off. By not assigning the money to the interest free offer that ends first it is their way of guaranteed interest charges at the end of the free period. (Unless you pay the balance in full)

I will be switching for a bonus offer, may mean nothing to them to lose one customer bit will make me feel better.

On a side note, what CRA did the Santander hard search show up on? 

molerat

The only order of payment information I can find for Santander cards put payments towards purchases before balance transfers but only against items that have appeared on a statement - the date of offer ending and future rates are of no relevance - that is likely where you have tripped up.  My Santander statements have always been very clear on separating the different balances so it should have been fairly easy to pay off only what was necessary.  Seems like a case of not understanding the terms unless of course they have allocated the payments incorrectly which is pretty unlikely.