Santander bank student account 2012/2013: We want your feedback

penny_pincha wrote: »

Just as well you don't need an overdraft. I accompanied my daughter opening a student Santander account today, she was offer a measly £250 overdraft. So much for their figure of £1500.

This was after going into branch last week after my daughter was assured on the phone she could open an account despite not actually being 18 then (she had her birthday yesterday) then to be told once there, she couldn't.

I wasn't impressed by the fact she had to conduct the meeting in earshot of other customers, so asked for a private room but the bank representative said they were busy. So I asked for one for this week but when we arrived she said again they were busy and the more private, out of the way desks were soon to be occupied. We were there over an hour and no-one came and sat at any of them.

Hi,

Your daughter will gain her full overdraft on depositing at least £500 into the account. This is an automatic process within 10 days/two weeks of the event.

You're very unlikely to get a private room to simply open a student account, the bank has other, more complex customer needs to meet also, i.e. mortgages, investments etc.

Get that £500 in and the overdraft will be on the way!

Thanks

DirtyLeeds wrote: »

Has anyone applied online - and filled in the ridiculously generic questions regarding Monthly Income / Outgoings

Surely most students will not have an income - certainly not first year students like my daughter.

I don't want to fill in the wrong numbers and get rejected

Her income will be Bank of Mum and Dad - plus minimum loan !

Just treat the total of student finance + mum and dad as the income and say expenditure will be the same.

Mine's gone through fine with 700 a month in those ones.

My daughter has also had problems. Santander customer service is pretty awful. Eventually one woman in a branch took pity on her and is trying to sort it. She try putting in the application again, online, then system crashed so all redone on paper! One of things that came out was that she had been sent to appeal by the system because she already had a current account with another bank.

DUH! What century are you in Santander? Has nobody told them that you can't demand to be paid in cash these days so everyone who works must have a bank account. By definition all mature students and anyone who has worked will have a current account, so your system automatically rejects those.

Anyway, my advice to people having problems is make formal complaint - that is say "this is a formal complaint and I want you to record it as such". Once a complaint is on record, with reference and date, they then have 8 weeks to sort before you can go to the FOS. Any complaint that you take to the FOS costs the banks a fee so the threat of this tends to focus their minds on sorting the problem!

And remember that banks have a duty to treat customers fairly

http://www.fca.org.uk/firms/being-regulated/meeting-your-obligations/fair-treatment-of-customers

http://www.fca.org.uk/firms/being-regulated/meeting-your-obligations/fair-treatment-of-customers/who-tcf-applies-to

Seems like I'm not the only one who has had a nightmare of a time trying to open an account with Santander!

I went in over a month ago to open the account. I made an appointment, brought in all the documentation that was required and completed the application. The woman I dealt with said it would be back from the underwriters in 48 hours and she'd call me.

2 days later, she called me and told me that it had come back rejected.. because she'd forgotten to get something official from me with my address on it. So off I went back to Santander with my council tax bill which she duly took and said I'd get a call in 2 days.

Well, a week passed and I heard nothing. No call, no email, no letter. So I went into the branch and found that the original lady I had been dealing with was now on maternity leave. So I talked to a horrible, rude woman who refused to find someone for me to talk to, refused to look up my application and then told me that there was a 'backlog' on student accounts and that I should be patient and they'd call me.

So I went away and waited another week and still nothing happened, so I went back into the branch and talked to a different lady who, upon looking up my account, informed me that my application actually hadn't been sent off at all so I'd need to produce all my documents again so she could send it off properly this time. So I produced all the documents, completed the application again, brought everything you could possibly need and then was told I'd hear from someone in 2 days.

Again, days passed and nothing happened. So I went into the branch and was told by the same rude woman that I needed to be patient and they'd call me. So I went home, waited another week and still nothing happened.

So yesterday I went into the branch to check and make a formal complaint. I got to speak to yet another person about my account, only to find that this time, it had come back rejected because they hadn't put in my address history correctly! At this point, I just wanted to get my account sorted so they updated my address history and hopefully I'll hear from them in 2 days.

I am so annoyed that I went with them in the first place, I wish I'd gone absolutely anywhere else for my student account. They are the most incompetent company I've ever dealt with and If I get a measly £250 overdraft for all my troubles, I'm going to close the account and just go to Natwest.