Santander free forever bank account changes

drphila

amyfairweather said:

Until additional context can be provided, I'm taking that with a pinch of salt.

I agree. It depends on the grounds of the complaint. If it was simply something like" Santander aren't allowed to change the T&Cs"  without any additional context, it's unlikely to have succeeded

Am1471

Well I've created a new Monzo business account, moved all but a nominal amount from the Santander into the Monzo account and am still awaiting an update from the FOS, however I do notice as of today, I have still not been charged the £10 monthly fee by Santander, which I thought were due to kick in from the beginning of this month?  

eskbanker

Am1471 said:

I do notice as of today, I have still not been charged the £10 monthly fee by Santander, which I thought were due to kick in from the beginning of this month?  

Fees applying from 1 October doesn't imply that they'll actually be charged on that date, so presumably they'll be applied at the next monthly statement date, which in turn begs the question of whether anyone on here has gone through their normal statement/billing cycle yet this month?

amyfairweather

There was a report that Santander had told someone it wouldn’t now start charging until Nov 1st.

Just thinking aloud, I think they’ve been taken aback somewhat by the level of complaints and amount of account closures.

It’s why they’ve done everything possible to procrastinate and push back/slow down the whole process.  Everything, that is, bar keeping their original promise of free forever.

Perhaps they’re waiting for some idea of the FOS inclination one way or the other before proceeding?  As it stands, they can still row back fairly easily, but once they start charging that presumably sets in motion a different series of events?

They would also, no doubt, have to deal with multiple “unauthorised payment” complaints every month at that point until the FOS decide which way to go.  Would those be able to generate additional complaint(s) with FOS?

For me, the FOS is only the beginning of this process, not the end.  There is still the small claims court and Advertising Standards Authority yet to come.

eskbanker

amyfairweather said:

Just thinking aloud, I think they’ve been taken aback somewhat by the level of complaints and amount of account closures.

What supports that conclusion?  They'd obviously have expected resistance to a change they'd know to be unpopular (to say the least), but am unclear whether the reaction has been better or worse than anticipated.

amyfairweather said:

They would also, no doubt, have to deal with multiple “unauthorised payment” complaints every month at that point until the FOS decide which way to go.  Would those be able to generate additional complaint(s) with FOS?

It seems to me that there's plenty of room for doubt about that!  Claiming that a payment is unauthorised is essentially a routine admin process (intended for use when cards are used fraudulently, etc) rather than a complaint as such, and they'll clearly be able to justify that they're complying with the revised Ts & Cs and that therefore the charges aren't unauthorised, in the context of that process, thereby invalidating any complaint.  Obviously there's the wider dispute about the (il)legitimacy of changing those terms, but when complaints have already been raised about that, logging a complaint every time a charge is actually applied is unlikely to be tenable or productive.

amyfairweather said:

For me, the FOS is only the beginning of this process, not the end.  There is still the small claims court and Advertising Standards Authority yet to come.

I agree that there are steps beyond FOS but would still have thought that there'd be an attempt to get the FCA involved, but don't know if this has happened yet.  Beyond that then yes, court would be the obvious direction, but remain unconvinced that the ASA has any relevance, given the many years elapsing between 'free forever' adverts and a subsequent management decision to renege on the promises, and even if the ASA was to rule that adverts breached its code, it has no powers to direct Santander to reverse its decision, unlike FOS (individually), FCA (collectively) and courts.

And, for the avoidance of doubt, none of the above is intended to support or defend Santander, just commenting on tactics, etc!

Futuristic

amyfairweather said:

There was a report that Santander had told someone it wouldn’t now start charging until Nov 1st.

Just thinking aloud, I think they’ve been taken aback somewhat by the level of complaints and amount of account closures.

It’s why they’ve done everything possible to procrastinate and push back/slow down the whole process.  Everything, that is, bar keeping their original promise of free forever.

Perhaps they’re waiting for some idea of the FOS inclination one way or the other before proceeding?  As it stands, they can still row back fairly easily, but once they start charging that presumably sets in motion a different series of events?

They would also, no doubt, have to deal with multiple “unauthorised payment” complaints every month at that point until the FOS decide which way to go.  Would those be able to generate additional complaint(s) with FOS?

For me, the FOS is only the beginning of this process, not the end.  There is still the small claims court and Advertising Standards Authority yet to come.

As per comment on FB, they had more account closure requests than expected and someone said they'll start charging from 1st Nov instead. Not really a bad thing, except for the poor souls in the back office. Its probably what they wanted to clear the pile of inactive/low balance accounts.

Also that late complaints to FOS have been told they won't get to their case for at least 2 months. 

Santander charge the following month for activity in prev. month so even if they have began you might not know until next month. You'll get pre-notification of charges letter. 

For what its worth our own 123 account hasn't been converted to Classic yet, they are prob overloaded but thats because they did everything at once (converting all business account types to classic)

Not sure what you expect ASA to do if they even bother to look at something from 15 years ago, any fine will be irrelevant to Santander. 

---

The guy who posted yesterday also posted update on fb saying it was change in terms from 2012, like I had predicted earlier it will be the change of account back from before 2012 or 2015 or whatever that will allow them to do this  

GeoffTF

Futuristic said:

Not sure what you expect ASA to do if they even bother to look at something from 15 years ago, any fine will be irrelevant to Santander. 

The ASA does not have the power to impose fines. It can order advertisers to correct their advertising. Other organisations can impose sanctions if the advertiser fails to do so. Santander is no longer advertising these accounts as "free forever", so there is nothing that the ASA can do.

https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/sanctions.html

gt94sss2

GeoffTF said:

Futuristic said:

Not sure what you expect ASA to do if they even bother to look at something from 15 years ago, any fine will be irrelevant to Santander. 

The ASA does not have the power to impose fines. It can order advertisers to correct their advertising. Other organisations can impose sanctions if the advertiser fails to do so. Santander is no longer advertising these accounts as "free forever", so there is nothing that the ASA can do.

In addition, I believe the ASA only regulates financial adverts that are not the responsibility of the FCA.

https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/14.html

Smurrfmo

As soon as they start charging I'm starting litigating.  I never believed the FOS would resolve this satisfactorily.  Santander haven't actually breached our contract yet, just threatened to do so but the minute they charge for our free forever account this will change.  Court will be a very different challenge for Santander as they will have a core entrenched term to overcome.

Section62

Smurrfmo said:

As soon as they start charging I'm starting litigating.  I never believed the FOS would resolve this satisfactorily.  Santander haven't actually breached our contract yet, just threatened to do so but the minute they charge for our free forever account this will change.  Court will be a very different challenge for Santander as they will have a core entrenched term to overcome.

It is a bit early to conclude that.  FOS have to look at each case on its own merits, a 'win' for Santander in one case doesn't mean all cases will come to the same conclusion.  Without knowing the details of the complaint where a finding has apparently already been made it isn't possible to draw much of a conclusion - it has been known (on this forum) that early cases decided in favour of the bank on a specific issue has become cases decided in favour of the customer when more information was presented to FOS and/or a different investigator/adjudicator/ombudsman has looked at the case.

For a start, does anyone know if the decision big_ste apparently has is an ombudsman one, or is it an investigator/adjudicator?

This doesn't mean FOS won't find in favour of Santander in some/all cases. As I've mentioned before, FOS aren't as good as they could be, and make mistakes themselves.  But a single response from FOS shouldn't be viewed as the end of the story.