Santander stopping alerts - why would they do that?

boingy

They might be doing it from a software maintenance viewpoint. Every bit of functionality you can remove from a software product makes that software quicker, easier and cheaper to maintain and test going forwards. Or maybe it's not working well enough for some customers and attracting complaints about alerts being delayed or not arriving sometimes - email and texts are not guaranteed to get through. There could be loads of other reasons too. 

UncleK

Yes, could well be something like that - but that's a subset of "can't be ar$ed" in my book,,,,,,,,,,,

uk1

UncleK said:

Yes, could well be something like that - but that's a subset of "can't be ar$ed" in my book,,,,,,,,,,,

My sentiments exactly.  

Santander was purely a secondary account for us, but it seemed to me an appropriate moment to move some savings and a current account balance so I have (hopefully) just successfully opened a First Direct account and if it works earned £175 for the effort. 

GeoffTF

UncleK said:

Yes, could well be something like that - but that's a subset of "can't be ar$ed" in my book,,,,,,,,,,,

I expect that we are getting close to the truth here. The alerts system needs an upgrade and Santander does not want to pay for it. We already have the nonsense of the box that says use the pay existing payee on the left and not the one below. The other factor is that there are persistent rumours that Banco Santander is trying to sell the UK business. Whoever buys it is going to move everyone over to their existing system.

Section62

boingy said:

They might be doing it from a software maintenance viewpoint. Every bit of functionality you can remove from a software product makes that software quicker, easier and cheaper to maintain and test going forwards. Or maybe it's not working well enough for some customers and attracting complaints about alerts being delayed or not arriving sometimes - email and texts are not guaranteed to get through. There could be loads of other reasons too. 

As has been mentioned a few times now, Santander aren't getting rid of these alerts completely, they are just reducing the options available - so if "software maintenance" is the excuse, and true, then that would imply they have two different alert systems (one for the types being retained, one for the types being stopped) - which is possible, but would mean they bizarrely developed two different alert systems providing virtually identical functionality.

username

Section62 said:

boingy said:

They might be doing it from a software maintenance viewpoint. Every bit of functionality you can remove from a software product makes that software quicker, easier and cheaper to maintain and test going forwards. Or maybe it's not working well enough for some customers and attracting complaints about alerts being delayed or not arriving sometimes - email and texts are not guaranteed to get through. There could be loads of other reasons too. 

As has been mentioned a few times now, Santander aren't getting rid of these alerts completely, they are just reducing the options available - so if "software maintenance" is the excuse, and true, then that would imply they have two different alert systems (one for the types being retained, one for the types being stopped) - which is possible, but would mean they bizarrely developed two different alert systems providing virtually identical functionality.

How have people overall found the Santander email options? I remember before they outsourced all of their branch cash machines to Cashzone and redid the software there were options to email things from the cash machines (like a balance or receipt or whatever). Despite having a valid email address registered, I found they never generated emails.
Was this case for anyone else, and perhaps this could be a factor in why they're retiring the email aspect due to the unreliability of delivery.

UncleK

I found the emails from cashpoints good, like when paying in cheques. Overall, I am reasonably happy with Santander - not perfect but considerably above average. The chat service on their web page is useless, but they answer the phone quickly, so that's fine instead.

Section62

username said:

Section62 said:

boingy said:

They might be doing it from a software maintenance viewpoint. Every bit of functionality you can remove from a software product makes that software quicker, easier and cheaper to maintain and test going forwards. Or maybe it's not working well enough for some customers and attracting complaints about alerts being delayed or not arriving sometimes - email and texts are not guaranteed to get through. There could be loads of other reasons too. 

As has been mentioned a few times now, Santander aren't getting rid of these alerts completely, they are just reducing the options available - so if "software maintenance" is the excuse, and true, then that would imply they have two different alert systems (one for the types being retained, one for the types being stopped) - which is possible, but would mean they bizarrely developed two different alert systems providing virtually identical functionality.

How have people overall found the Santander email options? I remember before they outsourced all of their branch cash machines to Cashzone and redid the software there were options to email things from the cash machines (like a balance or receipt or whatever). Despite having a valid email address registered, I found they never generated emails.
Was this case for anyone else, and perhaps this could be a factor in why they're retiring the email aspect due to the unreliability of delivery.

I've not used the cash machine facility, but the ones I've got set up for low/high balance and large outgoing payments work absolutely fine for both text and email.

IIRC the T&C's do say there is no guarantee you'll get the alert (on time/ever) so if people have complained about issues then Santander could simply point them to what the T&C's say.

username

UncleK said:

I found the emails from cashpoints good, like when paying in cheques. Overall, I am reasonably happy with Santander - not perfect but considerably above average. The chat service on their web page is useless, but they answer the phone quickly, so that's fine instead.

Ah that's good to hear they worked for someone and they weren't a figment of my imagination. 

GeoffTF

Section62 said:

boingy said:

They might be doing it from a software maintenance viewpoint. Every bit of functionality you can remove from a software product makes that software quicker, easier and cheaper to maintain and test going forwards. Or maybe it's not working well enough for some customers and attracting complaints about alerts being delayed or not arriving sometimes - email and texts are not guaranteed to get through. There could be loads of other reasons too. 

As has been mentioned a few times now, Santander aren't getting rid of these alerts completely, they are just reducing the options available - so if "software maintenance" is the excuse, and true, then that would imply they have two different alert systems (one for the types being retained, one for the types being stopped) - which is possible, but would mean they bizarrely developed two different alert systems providing virtually identical functionality.

Santander’s IT system may consist of a variety of legacy systems sewn together, and that nobody fully understands how everything works. It is possible that the transaction alerts come via a different route to the balance alerts. It is also possible that upgrading the alerts that they have to provide is cheaper than upgrading all of them.