Santander free forever bank account changes

solidpro

eskbanker said:

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!

I went into a branch of Abbey in 2008 where everything was already being branded Santander. The staff identified as Santander. It was their promise.

noitsnotme 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 🤷‍♂️

The point was if I had proposed to her and said I would love her forever and what I meant by that was until I had better plans, the answer would always be no.

eskbanker

solidpro said:

eskbanker said:

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!

I went into a branch of Abbey in 2008 where everything was already being branded Santander. The staff identified as Santander. It was their promise.

I don't know when the promise was first made, or even if it predated Abbey's acquisition, but am sure that it would have continued under Santander's name too.  Still doesn't alter the point anyway - there's no evidence that I'm aware of that there was any attempt to deceive at the time of sale, whereas it's not difficult to see that the changes in 2015 had at least one eye on future charging....

GeoffTF

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.

So what is your loss? Free banking for many years? The inconvenience of having to transfer your account to a bank that still offers free business accounts? Are you entitled to compensation because the bank has been sneaky and underhand? Perhaps they will argue that this is business account, not a personal account, and that if you are in business, you are expected to read the terms and conditions. Whatever their case, I expect that they have consulted some expensive lawyers.

noitsnotme

solidpro said:

eskbanker said:

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!

I went into a branch of Abbey in 2008 where everything was already being branded Santander. The staff identified as Santander. It was their promise.

noitsnotme 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 🤷‍♂️

The point was if I had proposed to her and said I would love her forever and what I meant by that was until I had better plans, the answer would always be no.

Marriage IS basically saying you’ll love the other person forever… until you don’t!!

solidpro

The point being many people only said yes to this contract because forever meant forever. If a marriage proposal or this contract had been prefaced with 'until I I think of a way to secretly get myself out of it' then nobody would say yes to the contract.

noitsnotme

solidpro said:

The point being many people only said yes to this contract because forever meant forever. If a marriage proposal or this contract had been prefaced with 'until I I think of a way to secretly get myself out of it' then nobody would say yes to the contract.

But a marriage DOES have a legal way out when forever is no longer forever… it’s called divorce!  I think you need a better analogy 😄

GeoffTF

solidpro said:

The point being many people only said yes to this contract because forever meant forever.

Would you really have opened another account if the Santander account had been advertised as free for 10 years? How much money have you lost as result of having the account all this time?

unclevanya

solidpro said:

I close my accounts, but if that happens, maybe they'll get that month or two out of me but they will lose the annual interest they gain on a fair selection of balances in a variety of accounts which they pay me naff all in interest, my childrens accounts and various credit cards, along with another business bank account I have with them which I already pay a monthly fee for.

I already closed one other paid business account as they were upping the monthly.  I will wait it out on my "Free Forever" account and see what happens as I want to support the effort.  If they do not move I know where I am going.  It does seem odd as I have been with them for over 20 years and always had a positive bank balance with very low number of monthly transactions.  I guess they are just not interested in companies with a below £1M tornover?

solidpro

The only reason I heard about it was because so many people were hyping up about the free forever slogan, so if it had been time limited then no, I don't think I would have known about it or signed up.

GeoffTF

solidpro said:

The only reason I heard about it was because so many people were hyping up about the free forever slogan, so if it had been time limited then no, I don't think I would have known about it or signed up.

What did the T&Cs say? I expect that they permitted changes to be made after giving notice. This seems to be an advertising issue more than a decade ago. Advertising issues happen all the time. The Advertising Standards Agency is currently banning adverts that show healthy young women that it thinks look thin. The sanction is to stop the adverts. Santander stopped the "free forever" adverts long ago. Perhaps the FOS should order a refund of the monthly fees that you have been paying.