Looking for Advice - Going Round in Circles

PaganPony26

I applied and was approved for a loan with Santander via a third party website (Experian etc).  I followed all the steps, eventually received my activation code through the post, logged to the portal, submitted the code and received a message stating that the funds would be released within two working days.  A week later, nothing.  Contacted Santander to be advised that nothing was showing on their system; after about an hour on the phone, I was passed to a customer services guy who took a note of my reference and advised me that the number quoted was not correct, and that  'a glitch' had occurred between the TPW and Santander. Whilst still on the phone with him, I then went back through the whole application process directly on the Santander website; I expressed concern at the potential damage another search would do to my rating, and was advised that it was unlikely to cause a second hit due to the space of time between the two, and that one could be removed if both showed up.  He then checked on his system and advised that the application appeared to have gone through fine, and I was given a new OLA number.  I was given to understand that a decision would be forthcoming fairly quickly, but four days later, I'm still waiting for any further correspondence.  I've tried to contact Santander by phone and online chat, but I'm getting nowhere - I can't even get to speak to a human!!  Any advice would be gratefully received.

Ebe_Scrooge

PaganPony26 said:

I applied and was approved for a loan with Santander via a third party website (Experian etc).

First things first - which website did you apply through?  "Experian etc." doesn't help much - was it Experian, if so, was it the genuine site?

PaganPony26 said:

He then checked on his system and advised that the application appeared to have gone through fine, and I was given a new OLA number.  I was given to understand that a decision would be forthcoming fairly quickly, but four days later, I'm still waiting for any further correspondence.

Loans are usually approved (or declined) automatically, but very occasionally the application needs to be reviewed by a human being.  If your application is still being processed, there's probably nothing amiss.  When you say you've waited 4 days for correspondence to arrive - is that 4 working days or calendar days?  Either way it's not a particularly long time - especially if your postal service is anything like ours, being disrupted by staff shortages etc.

I'd agree that the simplest thing is to be able to phone up and speak to somebody, but I know what it can be like!  I wouldn't fret too much as yet - give it a week or so for the letter to work its way through to you.  Sounds like the problem with the original application could have been an IT glitch as you were told, it's not unheard of.  But I would just double-check exactly which site you made the application through.