Santander stuck bank transfer please help!

Cbas09

Hi All and Happy New year!

My husband has a Santander current account and I have a First Direct current account. For credit history reasons and a few other things we have separate bank accounts. We then reconcile our expenses at the end of each month and as a result, he transfers some money to me to settle up with the bills that come out of my account. 

About 8 weeks ago now, he tried to transfer a sum of money to me and I am yet to receive it, from his Santander account. He's phoned their customer services team multiple times, escalated it, got it raised as an incident but the money is still lost. It hasn't gone into his account or mine.

We have looked into contacting the financial ombudsman but haven't had much experience of this. 
Last month he managed to transfer the money to me, from the same account. Then he tried it last night and this lot seems to be stuck now as the previous one that was successful took a matter of minutes to come through. 

Really he needs to switch banks as this is terrible service and this is something he's looking into. Plus this is adding up to be a lot of money for us.  However, does anyone have any advice as to how we could get the original money back please (and potentially yesterday's transfer as well)?

Tia

Charlotte 

RacingDriver

Before you can take it to the Financial Ombudsman you need to raise it as a formal complaint with Santander.

https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/customer-support/how-to-complain

Cbas09

Right ok, thanks a lot for this. I'll make sure this is done ASAP.

molerat

What is his Santander account showing as to what happened to the money under payments & transfers / faster payments summary ? 

Cbas09

There isn't a record of it at all. There was only a discrepancy in the balance amount. He's spoken to them yesterday and today and it sounds like we might be closer to a resolution, fingers crossed! 

robatwork

Some things to check:

Did he use the same saved FP details that have been used previously?
Can he make another £1 FP to someone else?
Can he make another £1 FP to you?

Thrugelmir

Cbas09 said:

There isn't a record of it at all. There was only a discrepancy in the balance amount.

The account balance changed without recording a transaction? 

Cbas09

robatwork said:

Some things to check:

Did he use the same saved FP details that have been used previously?
Can he make another £1 FP to someone else?
Can he make another £1 FP to you?

Yes he used the same details as before. 
I'll ask him about the other two. 

Cbas09

Thrugelmir said:

Cbas09 said:

There isn't a record of it at all. There was only a discrepancy in the balance amount.

The account balance changed without recording a transaction? 

I know this is odd. At first it looked like the transaction was pending and the available balance decreased. Then, after a couple of days, the transaction didn't show there any more but the money was still gone as well. (The available balance figure was decreased as it was when he sent the money to me). This is why we've been so annoyed about it because we've lost money. It's not give back to him and it hadn't come through to me. 

born_again

If it was a Faster Payment, it would not reduce the available balance as it would show as a debit straight away.

Either he has missed something in the options before sending payment, so in effect it has not been sent, entered a future date (might show a reduction of available balance) or has not made the transaction..

Have you actually looked at his account to check that he is telling the truth & has not spent the money elsewhere? Would not be the 1st person to be hiding a habit they would rather the other half not know about. 👀

If he contacts Santander they can trace the payment.

Cbas09

Thank you all for your comments. I can confirm that Santander have rectified the situation. The money has been credited to my husbands account and he's managed to get some compensation too as it was a technical issue. Closing this topic now.