Santander international transfer incompetence

Clumsoethewonderdog

Hi, your thoughts please. 
I have a Santander UK account. I also have a Santander Spanish account which I recently opened. I attempted to transfer money from the UK account into the Spanish account. There was a charge of £25 for this which I paid. All the details were correct such as the IBAN number etc. A week or so later the money never made it into my Spanish account and reappeared in the UK account and they kept my £25 charge. I telephoned Santander and was told to telephone the Spanish branch. This made my blood boil, the way I see it is that I paid Santander to transfer this money and they failed and kept the charge of £25. I opened the Spanish account with Santander to keep it simple. Is it so hard for them to pick up the phone and speak to their colleagues across the water and sort this. I feel like I've had my pants pulled down by Santander. Am I being unreasonable? Am I missing something here?

born_again

Something must have been wrong for it to bounce back.

Hoenir

Clumsoethewonderdog said:

 Is it so hard for them to pick up the phone and speak to their colleagues across the water and sort this.

That's not how banks work internally.  If the details for the transfer were correct. Then the issue is with your Spanish bankers. You need to speak to them directly todetermine what the problem is. 

born_again

Is it so hard for them to pick up the phone and speak to their colleagues across the water and sort this. I feel like I've had my pants pulled down by Santander. Am I being unreasonable? Am I missing something here?

Santander UK has nothing to do with Santander Spain. They are separate entities, with no direct contact.
Even between santander & santander a int transfer may go via 3rd party co's
.

Clumsoethewonderdog

Thankyou for your comments. I just find that it is very poor service. To me if it says Santander above the door then that's who you deal with. 
Santander UK didn't have a clue why it bounced back and it looks like they are keeping my £25

retiredbanker1

Very easy to make mistakes with IBAN;s eg 0 and O, I and 1 etc

Scotjock

I would aslo be asking why it was 25 quid- even with the "parent" overlords not sure why it wouldn't be a SEPA payment?
https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/current-accounts/making-international-payments

retiredbanker1

Scotjock said:

I would aslo be asking why it was 25 quid- even with the "parent" overlords not sure why it wouldn't be a SEPA payment?
https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/current-accounts/making-international-payments

Perhaps made the mistake of sending £'s rather than Euros?

PRAISETHESUN

All this aside, you're much better off using specialist currency conversion services rather than letting your high street bank manage currency conversions. You'll get charged big fees (probably on both ends) and lose a good chunk from the poor exchange rate they use for the conversion.