Santander free forever bank account changes

GingerTim

frittendenme said:

Hoenir said:

frittendenme said:

✅ 4. Escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS)

• If Santander doesn't resolve it in 8 weeks — or refuses outright — take your complaint to the FOS: www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk

• It’s free, and they often rule in favour of consumers.

Worth pointing put that this is a business account. Does not fall under consumer regulation.  Always worth properly reading what gets cut and pasted on social media before spreading misinformation

I didn’t cut and paste anything — I’ve taken the time to check the facts and do my best to help others. Yes, it’s a business account, but that doesn’t make it right to change terms people relied on when signing up.

If you’ve got something helpful to add, great — but there’s really no need to be dismissive. We’re all just trying to make sense of it and push back where it’s justified.

✅ When a Business Can Use the FOS

The Financial Ombudsman can handle complaints from “micro-enterprises” and small businesses, which includes:

• Fewer than 50 employees
• Annual turnover of less than £6.5 million
• Balance sheet total of less than £5 million

📌 If your business meets those criteria, you can complain to the FOS about your Santander business account — including unfair fees or changes to agreed terms like “Free for Life.”

📝 Examples of Business Complaints FOS Can Investigate:

• Misrepresentation or misleading account terms (e.g. “Free Forever” being reversed)
• Unfair or unauthorised charges
• Poor complaint handling or customer service

To be fair to Hoenir, this and previous list read pretty clearly like they are the product of ChatGPT, em dashes and all (not helped by the naff and overly dramatic error-strewn AI-generated image which is hard to take seriously).

subjecttocontract

Could they use the recent changes to taxation (NI contributions) as a reason ? I believe employers are paying out more now aren't they ?

prowla

subjecttocontract said:

Could they use the recent changes to taxation (NI contributions) as a reason ? I believe employers are paying out more now aren't they ?

That's not a change to banking taxation.

Section62

subjecttocontract said:

Could they use the recent changes to taxation (NI contributions) as a reason ? I believe employers are paying out more now aren't they ?

If they did, it would be straw clutching on a monumental scale.

I doubt an ombudsman or court would allow for any interpretation of the law/regulation/tax exception clause as anything other than a directly linked change - for example that regulations required the charging of a levy or tax on a per-account basis.  (cf. minimum unit pricing on alcohol in Scotland and Wales)

subjecttocontract

The situation reminds me of the class action that we took against West Brom B/Soc a few years back regarding BTL mortgage interest increases. We couldn't believe they made the decision that they had. They said they had taken legal advice and were assured they were right......and you'd expect a large organisation to get reliable advice. But they lost in the courts and it cost them £millions in payouts. Their reputation seems unaffected, so perhaps Santander are not overly concerned.

Section62

subjecttocontract said:

The situation reminds me of the class action that we took against West Brom B/Soc a few years back regarding BTL mortgage interest increases. We couldn't believe they made the decision that they had. They said they had taken legal advice and were assured they were right......and you'd expect a large organisation to get reliable advice. But they lost in the courts and it cost them £millions in payouts. Their reputation seems unaffected, so perhaps Santander are not overly concerned.

I make the point fairly regularly on the Home/DIY boards that litigation is unpredictable.  You can have a barrister give you a 99.9% chance of winning, then on the day have a judge who agrees with a point you didn't think of (or know about), or decide your 'winning' arguments aren't that persuasive.

Decisions to litigate (or not) are often as much about reputation and consequences, rather than the facts of the case. Losing can be expensive financially, but being seen to lose can have far-reaching consequences.

I suspect a small building society is likely to get a more sympathetic response in the court of public opinion than a PLC bank, especially one which has recently been linked to complaints about banking regulation in the UK.  But nobody knows for sure yet how this might play out.

frittendenme

GingerTim said:

frittendenme said:

Hoenir said:

frittendenme said:

To be fair to Hoenir, this and previous list read pretty clearly like they are the product of ChatGPT, em dashes and all (not helped by the naff and overly dramatic error-strewn AI-generated image which is hard to take seriously).

Totally fair – the style’s not for everyone, and the images might scream “AI-generated drama,” but let’s be honest… if it was just a block of plain text, it would’ve been ignored faster than a cookie policy.  And the facts remain, it all helps spread the word. Serious or not.

Lightning360

frittendenme said:

Hoenir said:

frittendenme said:

✅ 4. Escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS)

• If Santander doesn't resolve it in 8 weeks — or refuses outright — take your complaint to the FOS: www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk

• It’s free, and they often rule in favour of consumers.

Worth pointing put that this is a business account. Does not fall under consumer regulation.  Always worth properly reading what gets cut and pasted on social media before spreading misinformation

I didn’t cut and paste anything — I’ve taken the time to check the facts and do my best to help others. Yes, it’s a business account, but that doesn’t make it right to change terms people relied on when signing up.

If you’ve got something helpful to add, great — but there’s really no need to be dismissive. We’re all just trying to make sense of it and push back where it’s justified.

✅ When a Business Can Use the FOS

The Financial Ombudsman can handle complaints from “micro-enterprises” and small businesses, which includes:

• Fewer than 50 employees
• Annual turnover of less than £6.5 million
• Balance sheet total of less than £5 million

📌 If your business meets those criteria, you can complain to the FOS about your Santander business account — including unfair fees or changes to agreed terms like “Free for Life.”

📝 Examples of Business Complaints FOS Can Investigate:

• Misrepresentation or misleading account terms (e.g. “Free Forever” being reversed)
• Unfair or unauthorised charges
• Poor complaint handling or customer service

These pictures are really not helping you. They just look too silly 

amyfairweather

Section62 said:

subjecttocontract said:

The situation reminds me of the class action that we took against West Brom B/Soc a few years back regarding BTL mortgage interest increases. We couldn't believe they made the decision that they had. They said they had taken legal advice and were assured they were right......and you'd expect a large organisation to get reliable advice. But they lost in the courts and it cost them £millions in payouts. Their reputation seems unaffected, so perhaps Santander are not overly concerned.

I make the point fairly regularly on the Home/DIY boards that litigation is unpredictable.  You can have a barrister give you a 99.9% chance of winning, then on the day have a judge who agrees with a point you didn't think of (or know about), or decide your 'winning' arguments aren't that persuasive.

Decisions to litigate (or not) are often as much about reputation and consequences, rather than the facts of the case. Losing can be expensive financially, but being seen to lose can have far-reaching consequences.

I suspect a small building society is likely to get a more sympathetic response in the court of public opinion than a PLC bank, especially one which has recently been linked to complaints about banking regulation in the UK.  But nobody knows for sure yet how this might play out.

I suspect most businesses affected by this are small one man band / family enterprises.

Therefore, any court action would be through the small claims court and not financially ruinous should the decision go Santander's way.

I gave the example the other day of someone aged 50 who would be claiming for 16 years of future £9.99's per month in advance towards their retirement age.

If Santander lost the case, but did not back down on the £9.99 payments, I don't think it would be unreasonable to claim £2000 (plus a bit more for cheque/cash bankings) to cover those future payments for 16 years up to their state pension age.  They had, after all, been promised free banking forever and that could reasonably be argued until their retirement age.

What would be unreasonable would be to claim for future £9.99's until they were, say, 100-110 years old (i.e. "forever").

Lightning360 said:

These pictures are really not helping you. They just look too silly 

They appear to be more for instant effect, i.e. on social media, therefore designed to look silly in order to get attention.

GingerTim

amyfairweather said:

Lightning360 said:

These pictures are really not helping you. They just look too silly 

They appear to be more for instant effect, i.e. on social media, therefore designed to look silly in order to get attention.

I take the point. But the trouble is, the AI slop got my attention and my instant response is 'this is not a person/cause to be taken seriously'. I dont think I would be alone in that.

(That's my reaction to AI slop generally, I should add).