Santander free forever bank account changes

solidpro

But in my complaint I state that Santander says the reason they feel they can impose fees is because the banking landscape has changed. I would argue the landscape has not changed in relation to this product because of the fact free business banking is still readily available, they /would/ care about what other banks offer or not ?

Point taken about treating customer's unfairly.

solidpro

My revised FOS points:

1) I, the consumer and them, Santander had a contract which had the leadline "free business banking forever - not 6 months, not 2 years, but forever". They stated forever meant for the rest of time unless huge shifts in banking laws or they stop providing business bank accounts. It's totally unfair to unilaterally change the key term of the contract now or in the past.

2) I agreed the contract with Santander for business banking due to this specific pledge of Free Forever business banking. If they are now reneging on this headline of the contract, they put themselves at an unfair advantage over other banks I was looking to use instead.

3) In response to my complaint, they say that the landscape of business banking has changed when it has not. Other major UK banks such as HSBC and the Coop currently offer similar, free business banking.

4) In response to my complaint, they say that their unilateral changes of the terms of our contract back in 2015 removes the free forever pledge. This high level part of the contract cannot be changed unulaterally and all correspondence with them at the time about not agreeing to this change was ignored.

5) It's unfair to expect me to suddenly accept all the downsides of this contract (no interest, no use of cashiers, limits on transactions) without the single upside of 'free forever'.

eskbanker

solidpro said:

1) I, the consumer and them, Santander had a contract which had the leadline "free business banking forever - not 6 months, not 2 years, but forever". They also strongly told me forever was forever unless huge shifts in banking laws or they stop providing business bank accounts. It's totally unfair to unilaterally change the key term of the contract now or in the past.

Perhaps worth clarifying what was stated in writing, and can therefore be readily evidenced, versus recollections of verbal assurances given?

solidpro said:

3) In response to my complaint, they say that the landscape of business banking has changed when it has not. There are at least 5 major UK banks offering similar, free business banking right now.

Although it might not be beneficial to specify examples and thereby open the door to detailed scrutiny, you might wish to consider naming one or two that are obvious high street peers to Santander, i.e. not fintech challengers, who arguably have changed the landscape over that time, at least in market terms if not regulatory ones?

solidpro said:

2) I agreed the contract with Santander for business banking due to this specific pledge of Free Forever business banking. If they are now reneging on this headline of the contract, they put themselves at an unfair advantage over other banks I was looking to use instead.

[...]

4) In response to my complaint, they say that their unilateral changes of the terms of our contract back in 2015 removes the free forever pledge. This high level part of the contract cannot be changed unulaterally and all correspondence with them at the time about not agreeing to this change was ignored.

I haven't gone back through the thread but recall some dialogue about the distinction between one ongoing contract that's been changed versus new contracts (for different products), so it may be worth cross-checking exactly how Santander refer to this, and if/how that should be challenged?


Of course, as above, the arguments need to be aligned with your original complaint (or the Santander response) when first escalating, although you may get the chance to refine or augment them later.

solidpro

I've amended my last list as per your suggestions. In my final response they state "These changes are implimented under Section E of our General Terms and Conditions, which allow us to convert your existing account to another product in our range. We're no longer offering your account type...." It doesn't say when these changes occured.

 As far as I know these changes refer to the introduction of a monthly fee and their implementation was in 2015 which was when it was changed unilaterally. I guess their argument is that they're not charging for this account which remains free forever', but they're forcibly changing me to a new one which has a monthly charge, because the changes to the terms in 2015 allows them to and they 'no longer this account type'.

By type, I can only assume they mean an account which is 'free forever', not business banking current account.

Unfair means agreeing a contract for a free service with a customer, putting yourself at an unfair advantage, secretly changing the terms unilaterally and then forcing the customer to end the contract because they no longer offer the 'free' aspect of this account. It really stinks.

solidpro

Having lost lots of appeals in the past due to technicalities. It's crucial we all understand what FOS is there to uphold.

In this case perhaps the focus should be on being mis-sold and tricked into new terms in 2015.

In all their responses they're saying they no longer provide this 'type' of account. Well, they do provide business banking current accounts so what do they mean? Maybe they mean FREE business banking current accounts.

However, the whole forever sales pitch would have fallen flat if they had made it clear at the time forever just means until they decide to stop doing free business banking. Then forever means absolutely nothing. Nobody would have picked Santander on this pitch alone because forever means until we decide to stop.

So mis sold the product that they feel they can stop providing whenever they feel like it and unfairly treated by them secretly changing the terms in 2015 allowing them to end the contract whenever they feel like it.

eskbanker

solidpro said:

In my final response they state "These changes are implimented under Section E of our General Terms and Conditions, which allow us to convert your existing account to another product in our range. We're no longer offering your account type...."

I'd interpret 'account type' to mean 'product' in the context of the previous sentence, i.e. we're discontinuing Business Current Account A and converting yours to a Business Current Account Classic [with different terms], but would agree that it's unhelpfully imprecise.

eskbanker

solidpro said:

Having lost lots of appeals in the past due to technicalities. It's crucial we all understand what FOS is there to uphold.

In this case perhaps the focus should be on being mis-sold and tricked into new terms in 2015.

In all their responses they're saying they no longer provide this 'type' of account. Well, they do provide business banking current accounts so what do they mean? Maybe they mean FREE business banking current accounts.

However, the whole forever sales pitch would have fallen flat if they had made it clear at the time forever just means until they decide to stop doing free business banking. Then forever means absolutely nothing. Nobody would have picked Santander on this pitch alone because forever means until we decide to stop.

So mis sold the product that they feel they can stop providing whenever they feel like it and unfairly treated by them secretly changing the terms in 2015 allowing them to end the contract whenever they feel like it.

Personally I don't think it's anything to do with 'mis-selling' - the selling was originally done in good faith and was presumably based on accurate information at the time, so no intention to deceive, etc.

To me the argument is that it was unfair (and maybe even unlawful) of them to change their minds much later on, whether that was at the point of migrating between accounts or introducing the charges.

solidpro

It's clear they should have never used the headline selling point of a product as being 'forever' as a key term of the contract when the clearly felt the need to slide in some secret term changes a decade later so they can stop offering the service forever because they don't offer these services forever anymore.

It's like me telling my wife that I'll love her forever or until I stop loving her and something better comes along. If Santander had been truthful and told us that forever means until they wriggle out of it, none of us would have signed up.

eskbanker

solidpro said:

It's clear they should have never used the headline selling point of a product as being 'forever' as a key term of the contract when the clearly felt the need to slide in some secret term changes a decade later so they can stop offering the service forever because they don't offer these services forever anymore.

It's like me telling my wife that I'll love her forever or until I stop loving her and something better comes along. If Santander had been truthful and told us that forever means until they wriggle out of it, none of us would have signed up.

Not clear to me at all - to make any claim of mis-selling stick, you'd need to prove that there was always the intention to wriggle out at the time of sale, rather than it being a genuine offer in good faith?

Edit: and don't forget that it wasn't necessarily Santander that made the promise in the first place, so that would make it even less likely to sustain a claim that Abbey management knew what would happen many years later after the company had been sold!

noitsnotme

solidpro said:

It's like me telling my wife that I'll love her forever or until I stop loving her and something better comes along.

Millions of people do exactly that.  It’s called marriage followed by divorce 🤷‍♂️