Santander free forever bank account changes

DullGreyGuy

Smurrfmo said:

clairec666 said:

 Everyone's speculating on whether Santander should be able to do this, and while we all agree that it's all morally wrong, we need someone with specific legal expertise to confirm that it's legally wrong. 

Well as well as being an affected customer I am a lawyer and I can't see how it is legally right.  The legal reasoning and provision used appears to have more holes than a colander when set against the explicit promise made and the very restricted circumstances in which that promise could ever be broken (none of which apply).  But only an Ombudsman can definitively rule on this issue or indeed the courts.  If I was the lawyer who signed this off at Santander I would be a bit worried as the backlash will only grow, as it did last time they tried this.    

So you have a copy of the terms then? Can you not post them? Or are you relying on your memory?

Ultimately the full terms are needed to see what provisions there were for them to vary the terms, if nothing else. There were eligibility criteria in the adverts for the accounts that have been posted so far and even if they couldn't get rid of the account in total they could potentially change the criteria to make it such that almost (or absolutely) meets the criteria for it therefore its a migration for not meeting revised terms. 

Surprised they used "forever", most would go with the more ambiguous "lifetime" with the terms hopefully defining it to be the lifetime of the product rather than customer or bank.

clairec666

Section62 said:

clairec666 said:

...
What I would suggest is:

• Get some legal expertise, instead of endless speculation...

People don't need to get legal advice on this.  The Financial Ombudsman Service is there to deal with disputes between financial service providers and their customers.  The service is free to the end user.

I'm not suggesting anyone pays for legal advice. What I mean is that there's no point endlessly discussing what we think the law should be, most of us here have no legal expertise and unfortunately sometimes the law doesn't reflect what we think is morally right.

janusdesign said:

clairec666 said:

Clearly Santander have tried to do this before and were thwarted, so must have looked into what options were available to them before trying this new approach. 

"must have"? - it's also possible that whoever made the decision might not necessarily have known about the free forever legacy situation of 20+ years ago.

Maybe I'm being too optimistic that people know how to do their jobs properly I assumed that a business the size of Santander would have a large and experienced legal department, and they would have considered the implications of going down this route. Particularly as they are trying a different approach from last time.

Section62

janusdesign said:

...

clairec666 said:

Clearly Santander have tried to do this before and were thwarted, so must have looked into what options were available to them before trying this new approach. 

"must have"? - it's also possible that whoever made the decision might not necessarily have known about the free forever legacy situation of 20+ years ago.

if that letter had said to the effect that they can no longer afford to offer "free" accounts and that they will be closing my account in 3 months, I could have accepted that, thanked them for the last 20+ years and moved on.. but this idea that a) they want to migrate me automatically, b) they want to charge a monthly fee and now c) they think we somehow accepted the principle of standard day to day fees in 2015 is taking the proverbial.

You also have to wonder when Santander's spokesperson wrote/said "The business banking landscape has changed significantly over the last decade. As such, we are simplifying our business banking offering as the first step to ensure that we can sustainably and efficiently evolve to better meet the needs of our business customers in the future.” they were aware HSBC were introducing free banking for small businesses, reduced from the previous £8/mnth.

If HSBC can do it for all small business customers, then what are Santander doing so wrong that they are no longer able to do free banking for the likely small number who were made this promise?

Arguments about costs of maintaining an old/outdated account type for a small number of customers wouldn't prevent Santander switching those customers to the current version of the (paid for) business account and just promising to refund the fee each month (forever).

Smurrfmo

DullGreyGuy said:

Smurrfmo said:

clairec666 said:

 Everyone's speculating on whether Santander should be able to do this, and while we all agree that it's all morally wrong, we need someone with specific legal expertise to confirm that it's legally wrong. 

Well as well as being an affected customer I am a lawyer and I can't see how it is legally right.  The legal reasoning and provision used appears to have more holes than a colander when set against the explicit promise made and the very restricted circumstances in which that promise could ever be broken (none of which apply).  But only an Ombudsman can definitively rule on this issue or indeed the courts.  If I was the lawyer who signed this off at Santander I would be a bit worried as the backlash will only grow, as it did last time they tried this.    

So you have a copy of the terms then? Can you not post them? Or are you relying on your memory?

Ultimately the full terms are needed to see what provisions there were for them to vary the terms, if nothing else. There were eligibility criteria in the adverts for the accounts that have been posted so far and even if they couldn't get rid of the account in total they could potentially change the criteria to make it such that almost (or absolutely) meets the criteria for it therefore its a migration for not meeting revised terms. 

Surprised they used "forever", most would go with the more ambiguous "lifetime" with the terms hopefully defining it to be the lifetime of the product rather than customer or bank.

The conditions that were set for the free forever promise not to apply are set out in the attachments earlier in this thread.  They are those that I have already mentioned, keeping within transaction limits and changes to law, regulation and tax.

amyfairweather

Lightning360 said:

So these confirm it is the account that is free, not a lifetime deal with Santander forever. I think Santander is perfectly correct to close the current account and transfer you to a paying account

What part of "free business banking forever" do you not understand?

amyfairweather

clairec666 said:

I've been following this thread with interest even though it doesn't personally affect me. Everyone's speculating on whether Santander should be able to do this, and while we all agree that it's all morally wrong, we need someone with specific legal expertise to confirm that it's legally wrong. Clearly Santander have tried to do this before and were thwarted, so must have looked into what options were available to them before trying this new approach. They will be wanting these new charges to come in seamlessly with minimal fuss and no damage to their reputation - they won't care about a proportion of their business customers jumping ship and moving to another provider that will offer them free banking, and they will expect a fair number to begrudgingly accept the new charges because it's less hassle than transferring to a new provider. As I recall someone saying earlier on this thread, it's a massive headache informing all your clients of your new account details AND making sure they've actually taken notice.

What I would suggest is:

• Get some legal expertise, instead of endless speculation
• Make a massive fuss, alert as many people as possible, and get the media involved
• Help each other to find alternative free banking accounts, even though they are unlikely to have a "free forever" promise

If Santander do push this through, I will be challenging that decision in the small claims court.

I don't think any judge could possibly rule against the evidence available that Santander offered free business banking forever and has reneged.

It would be worth a court fee of a few hundred pounds just to see what the outcome would be.

On that basis, say someone is aged 50, then they would be claiming for 16 years up to state pension age of £9.99 per month (£1918.08) plus a bit more to account for transaction charges, inflation, etc.

Now, as an example, said person could work until age 75 or possibly retire at 60, but that should cover most eventualities.

Carpetbeetle999

If anyone is interested here's some original correspondence regarding this matter. Feel free to use as you wish. 

Carpetbeetle999

Carpetbeetle999 said:

If anyone is interested here's some original correspondence regarding this matter. Feel free to use as you wish. 

There are no time limits! 

Carpetbeetle999

Carpetbeetle999 said:

Carpetbeetle999 said:

If anyone is interested here's some original correspondence regarding this matter. Feel free to use as you wish. 

There are no time limits! 

Second paragraph. 

clairec666

Has anyone found any T&Cs from the changes in 2015?

This was from the Guardian article: "Santander told the Guardian that accounts that predated the 2008 merger of Abbey and Alliance & Leicester were migrated into its Business Every Day account in 2015 and that the terms and conditions of that contract did not include the free for ever promise."

Presumably some new documentation was sent out. It's possible there was some small print in there which goes back on the "free forever" promise.