Santander: a bunch of stupid bankers, you suck

12.05.2011 – update
After being contacted by BBC Watchdog, Santander telephoned my wife to offer an apology and £100 (cheque) compensation. They accepted that things could have been done better and the complaint handled in a shorter time-frame. Whilst we had pretty much accepted an earlier offer of £20 credited to the account card, the apology and the extra £80 were in line with my request in the a letter of complaint to Santander in January 2011. Santander’s apology has been accepted.

Santander bank has made huge inroads into the UK finance sector. Abbey National, for example, suddenly became Santander…and from what I’ve heard from at least one customer, they’re not doing too good a job of it. Similarly, I’ve read an awful lot about how Santander are at the top of list of banks that consumers complain about. As you might expect, given the title of this blog post, I am about to “add one” to that pile of complaints.

Neither my wife or I have bank accounts with Santander, however my wife does/did have an Evans store card. In their “great buy up”, Santander acquired the Evans store card business along with Asda, BHS, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Wallis and Outfit. It’s likely that they’ve got the store cards for those outlets too. Some evidence of this can be found over at Martin Lewis’ Money Saving Expert forums, here and here. And they’re not getting any better, as this post suggests.

Anyway, on to the problem that Santander created on my wife’s Evans card…and thus a problem that I have to work to solve.

During November 2010 my wife received her Evans card statement. It showed the previous balance and a payment received covering that same balance. It also showed a Late Payment Fee of £12. Naturally my wife was concerned and telephoned Nikita at Santander – Nikita assured my wife that it was their error and the £12 would be refunded. Here’s a copy of the statement:

Indeed, Nikita’s information was confirmed by Santander’s Tim Woods (Head of Santander Contact Centers) when he wrote to my wife on the 23rd of November 2010:

Sounded good. Sounded like Santander might have been proactive and sorted it out themselves. Great. Mr Woods works for Geoban – “Geoban is an internal company to Banco Santander, providing Operational Excellence to the Group Companies”. Operational Excellence, can’t get better than that, we’re in good hands.

At the end of November another Evans card statement arrived. It showed that the £12 late payment fee had been refunded as promised. However, it also showed another late payment fee had been applied. My wife telephoned Santander on the 13th of December and spoke with Shiraz. Shiraz did exactly what Nikita did, assured my wife that it was their error and the £12 would be refunded. Here a copy of that statement:

Further communication from Santander resulted in my wife asking Maddie on the 31st of December 2010 to close the account. Maddie assured my wife that the £12 late payment fee and this new amount of £4 were both Santander errors and that she would sort things out. Santander’s Andrew Hall wrote to my wife. Mr Hall is the Head of Collections Contact Centre at Santander Cards UK, he’s “a highly motivated, results focused Senior Manager with extensive Consumer Finance experience. Proven skill set in people management and process and performance improvement within Collections and Bad Debt functions”. Mr Hall, you might be highly motivated, but my wife is highly demotivated…I think you could do better, don’t you?

In between Christmas and New Year, things took a turn for the worse. Santander had the cheek to send out a Notice of Sums in Arrears letter. Of course, my wife was upset enough at the first two mistakes made by Santander, this pushed her over the edge, there were tears. How can a bank be allowed to do this? And for the measly sum of £4, created by their own error. Here’s that letter:

However, early in the New Year, we received an automated telephone call at 0820 on the 2nd of January 2011 reminding us of the “debt”. I myself spoke to some Santander guy called Kirt, who said “I can’t do nothing because of the Data Protection Act” in what I believe to be a Liverpool accent…double negatives, they suck too. So clearly Maddie hadn’t closed the account as requested a few days earlier. Kirt told me that the “telephone system” can take a few days to update itself and that we weren’t to worry about it. Incredible – the 2nd of January was a Sunday. What sort of company telephones its customers at that sort of time on a Sunday?

It seems that the Late Payment Fee is something that just gets refunded and reapplied. It won’t go away until somebody at Santander pulls their finger(s) out and accepts that there is a problem they need to sort out.

All of the telephone calls that my wife made to Santander were to their 0871 number…at a cost of 10p per minute. After a little bit of searching, it turns out that 020 8181 0000 should also work, as will 0113 280 7080. I’ll be looking to recover the cost of calls from Santander -they can’t expect us to cover the cost for their mistakes.

I was planning to switch my current account over to Santander in order to take advantage of the £100 switching fee. This made sense as my current account is with a Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) branch in England. Santander are taking over many of the English branches of RBS – I figured I would switch, collect the £100 and be in the same boat. However, this incident has taught me a lot about Santander, they’re not a bank I want anything to do with. As such, I have instigated an intra-bank switch, from my RBS branch in England, to one north of the border here in Scotland.

What’s next? Well, I hope that this blog post kicks Santander where it hurts – their stupidity and inability to rectify a simple self-made error frankly astounds me. If we make a tiny error, perhaps by going overdrawn by a single penny, the banks are the first to hit us hard. I’ve already had a short e-mail exchange with ‘CustomerServices@santander.co.uk’, who rather amazingly said “we don’t deal with the cards”! So now I’ve included ‘complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk’ in the loop.

Santander has most likely cost Evans my wife’s custom. It might not have been much, however in today’s climate, all custom is good. It seems that if Santander are to improve, it will take the likes of Evans, etc. to tell them. However, the damage has been done…

Moral of this post: avoid Santander bank. If your RBS account is with a branch that is about to be taken over by Santander, start thinking about switching – use uSwitch to help you if necessary.

31 thoughts on “Santander: a bunch of stupid bankers, you suck”

  1. Good post. I’m with Santander at the moment because they have a high interest savings account. Their on-line banking is actually very secure. In fact, it is so secure I can’t access it!

  2. This is digracefull and I really think that Trading Standards, The Office of Fair Traiding and The FSA should stamp on Santander form a great height. Charging people for something that hasn’t occured is FRAUD, plain and simple. The direcotrs of Santander should be put in the dock like the criminals they are.

  3. My wife had a similiar problem with her Evans card on the December statement. Showed up as corrected on the January statement. Hopefully not as bad as you had, but we’re about to close the account, and another business account with Santander because of lousy service and ineptitude.

  4. This has also happened to me today – received my latest statement and it said I have incurred a late payment fee of £12.00. Called Santander and was told that would be refunded to my account, but I had to write to them for them to take off the default record – I am concerned about this being on my record as I do not want to be refused credit in the future because of Santander’s error. I have written to Andrew Hall not that he will read it – too important a person to deal with customers! I asked to speak to him when I called and was told that he did not speak to customers! Perhaps he should, after all don’t we pay his wages?
    Anyway will be interesting to see the outcome of the letter. Thanks for the info and especially the alternative telephone numbers – was hanging on this morning for about 15 minutes!

  5. Almost the same thing happened to me with the Debenhams store card, also run by Santander. Interest and late penalties on bills that were long paid. After asking different customer service agents three times on the phone, they finally told me that I had to inform them in writing to get the account closed. I sent off letters in triplicate to ensure they recieved it. They now assure me by phone that the balance is zero and it is closed, but I’m expecting another demand for interest any day now! Fingers crossed.

  6. Santander is a rubbish bank with the rudest and most arrogant customer service staff I have ever come across. They are apt to block your internet account for spurious “security” reasons and then you have to fight like the devil to get your account back. And all the while they act like THEY’RE doing YOU a favour by letting you bank with them. Avoid.

  7. Complain to the Information Commissioner (helpline: 0303 123 1113).

    Under the Data Protection Act, Santander have a duty to process your data accurately. (Banks love to quote the Data Protection Act when being inflexible with you but seem to conveniently forget about all the duties imposed on them)

    You should also obtain a report from one of the Credit Reference Agencies to confirm that Santander have not reported a missed payment to them (if they have then that is another complaint for the Information Commissioner).

  8. Interesting….I switched to Santander last October purely for the £100 switching fee, which you are supposed to get within 3 months of opening the account, provided I adhere to the terms and conditions. I called a couple of weeks ago to ask why I was STILL awaiting said amount, and got a letter last week saying the reason I had not received the £100 was because I had not met all of the conditions. I was most confused as I was SURE I had. So a phone call later, I was told that it was because a direct debit had not been set up and an amount taken out with 11 weeks. Two problems with this;
    1) On the Santander website, it states ‘you will only be entitled to the £100 switching fee if you have at least one direct debit OR standing order set up on the account. (I actually have 1 direct debit and 3 standing orders).
    2) another stipulation of the high interest and switching fee requires me to use their ‘account transfer service’. Which is what they use to transfer all direct debits and standing orders. So if in fact the direct debit was not set up on the account within 11 weeks, it seems to me that is their fault, not mine.
    What a coincidence – I have to have a direct debit set up withing a set amount of time, and it was their responsibility to do so within the time limit. Uncanny, isnt it?

  9. I have recently closed my account with Santander, after numerous problems, particularly with the switch from Alliance and Leicester. Interestingly I joined A+L because of the switching fee and persuaded my daughter to do the same; interestingly neither of us “met all the terms and conditions” so received £00-00. Absolutely RUBBISH bank!!

  10. Yep, similar experience, a never ending circle now between Santander & Debenhams ( Chartis insurance) I think I might write to Mr A. Hall as he seems to like writing to me ?

  11. I was an Abbey customer before Santander took over. I moved to my new home in 2007 and updated my address with them. My statements came through correctly and everything seemed fine, or so I thought…

    When my card expired I waited for a new one in the post. I rang them when it didn’t arrive to ask where it is. They said they’d accidentally sent it to my old address. I was told I’d get a new one in 5 days. Not a big deal I guessed. 5 days came and passed with no sign of the card. I rang up to be an apologetic support staff who explained they had two systems since the merger and they hadn’t updated the records properly.

    Imagine my suprise when after 25 days without a debit card I was told that this 3rd card had also been sent to the wrong address. After 35 days I finally received my new card and an apology. I wrote in to the Guardians financial watchdog and Santander sent a second apology with £100.

    Given my experience I’m not surprised that they missed up fees on the Evans card!

  12. Having a similarly infuriating time with Santander Cards at the moment regarding my other half’s Debenhams Mastercard. She emailed SC to close the account and instead of emailing back to say “Yup, that’s done”, they said “We’ve replied to your message – log in to your online account to view it”. The online account was closed as soon as they closed the credit card account, so, um… how are we supposed to read that message?

    We phoned SC, stupidly forgetting to look up a geographic phone number on saynoto0870.com first, and of course got through to some Indian call centre. All we wanted was for them to acknowledge that their process was broken (i.e. the unobtainable messages) and to send written confirmation that the account was closed.

    “We can’t send that in writing. If you wanted it in writing, you should have specified that when you emailed to close the account”.

    Half an hour and three separate calls later, and they’d all but refused to let me speak to a manager (apparently nobody was available to take the call, which I’ll accept considering I work in a contact centre myself and I know how these things work; what I won’t accept is that they couldn’t arrange for a manager to call me on a Saturday despite the fact that their office is clearly open on Saturdays so there must be management support available).

    Was so frustrating in the end that I essentially told them where to stick it, and have written a letter instead. Thanks for that name, Tim Woods, by the way – always good to be able to complain directly to someone further up the chain!

    I’d banked with Abbey since I was about 7 years old (now 26); after Santand€r took over, I heard so many horror stories and complaints that I switched to another bank last year (admittedly I’d not had any problems personally at that time). If I hadn’t jumped ship then, I certainly would have done now! Astounding that they’re allowed to treat people like this; then again, does perhaps explain why the FSA, another toothless watchdog, is being dismantled next year. Here’s hoping its successor sets Santander squarely in its sights…

  13. ‘Business Bank of the Year 2011’ is Santander, who voted for this……FIFA, you couldn’t make this up.

  14. I recently took out a santander debenhams card when i purchased a new suit but only to get a bit of discount. When the statement arrived I called 4 times ti make a payment and each time the operator told me that the departs I needed to speak to was cloased. I then had a phone call telling me I hadnt made a payment, so i went into my local santander but you cant do that. so i drove 50 miles and made a payment at my local debenhams store. this didnt appear on my statement? eventually I had to return to the store and be cause I had no reciept I had to pay again.

  15. I have a Santander House of Fraser card – well for the next couple of days at least anyway as I will be cancelling it due to an inept customer service team and a catalogue of errors. Honestly, the worst credit card I have ever had by a country mile…and I have had a few!

  16. hi as anyone got a tele pone number of mr tim woods head of santasnder contact centers there keep ptting methrough the blood indian call centers can not hear them thats a ploy to get money on pone calls you can contact me on arthur.sayers1@btinternet.com long story short my 9 months interes free creidit expires on the 13 11 2011 i owe £659.97 i paid off all except the 97p as its states in my terms and conditions only if i pay in full before the date will i be charged £25 early repayment fee but the fucking indian idiot said to me i now owe £25 97p i said dont talk bullshit how can i and then he said i would be charged interest on my £659 which i payed off so on the 14 11 2011 i will pone up and pay any interest on the 97p so there can stuff themselves you can not get to speak to anyone in authority.

    regards arthur sayers

  17. Santander dont give a stuff about customers and think that because they are prestigious in Spain the same applies here.

    They don’t care about FSA rule and have all their system changes perofrmed onshore by Indian staff who do not have a clue and they discrinminate against UK based staff while getting Visas for their Indian staff.

    They dont have a clue on how to close or manage accounts so everyone keep an eye on you credit records. You will find they cannot close accounts fully.

    Also when testing changes they use actual live data including PIN codes which is surely again DPA

  18. 18.42 minutes to Santander Card Centre and still the phone has not been answered. I have moved house and 4 times asked Santander to correct my address for my Harvey Nichols card; yet Santander still have not done it despite a letter (wrongly addressed) telling me they have. Luckily I have a sympathetic postman who knows where I live.
    Does anyone have a direct mail address (not a PO BOX) to Tim Woods, Head of Santander Customer Services?

  19. Pathetic systems and support channels mean this employee of 2 years is job hunting!!! Common sense is not readily available in this company and it reflects in its bad publicity. A “this is the way it’s always been done” attitude gets you nowhere. What an uninspiring place to have to work:o(

  20. Had same problems as others with Santander Cards regarding my Debenhams store card. Stating I owed them money when it fact I had paid early. Despite sending them twice a copy of the cheque and the date when it cleared which was well before the deadline date. They are continuing the continual harrassment of letters upon letters. There paper bill must be huge. Hate them. Call centre useless.

  21. My wife and I had a similar problem with our Dorothy Perkins card.
    In September 2011 I received a let from Santander (Dorothy Perkins) informing us that as a valued customer they were going to be raising our limit from £250 up to £300 and that this would take effect as of the 1st of October 2011 and that we DO NOT have to contact them unless we would like to refuse the limit sound great but its not.Now on the 4th November my wife purchased a new coat and jumper on line using the card (balance on card before purchase £201,balance after purchase 320)which was below the £350 limit.
    On the 13th November our statement arrived in the post and to our horror it stated that we were over the limit of £250 When i spoke to them on the phone asking why my limit has not taken effect they informed me that my limit had been declined yet I had not received any letter informing me of this refusal.
    The following day 14th November Bet you can guess what arrived in the post a letter dated the 9th November which is still 6 days after we made the purchase on line for the coat and top informing me that unfortunatly they would not be raising the limit.Well I was rather angry by now it is now 17th January 2012 and every time I phone they are none responsive and dam right rude by all accounts it is my fault they say I should have phoned them to check that my limit had gone up yet thet stated in their first letter that I DO NOT NEED TO CONTACT THEM and that the limit will automatically go up.What I find funny is that they have left it over a month to tell me they had refused me and 6 day after my purchase now I believe that they waited for me to make a purchase that took me over the old limit to refuse me I have everything that they have sent me in black and white i have contacted them 15 time and get no where with them I am stating to think that maybe they are right and It is my fault When ever you phone they pass you from one person to another and and are not helpful at all,all call are at least 25 minutes each time I have now decided to go to the citizens advise to see if they can assist.Once its sorted and paid off the card will be destroyed and Dorothy Perkins has lost us as customers for life.
    I will post a comment when I now more
    Regards
    Jay

  22. Hi I also have just received my debenhams statement stating due to late payment they were charging me £12 late payment charge. My account was paid on time – i verified this with my bank who state the money was in santander account on due date. I have just telephone Santander, was told to wait while they checked my account- asked me what they wanted me to do about it !! I said i wanted the £12 credited back to my account, they stated they will do this and it will show up on my next statement. As easy as this ???…….I am not holding mt breath and await my next statement 🙂

  23. ive just had mistake after mistake with santander. the worst one was when they re-activated my old direct debits without my permission andthen put £225 in charges on my account because i missed the payments. they must be aware of all these mistakes.

  24. I have tried to access the money from an old ABBEY TESSA account from 1999, I have received a letter advising me that despite the fact I still have this old bank book it doesn’t actually mean I still have the account as they could have closed it without the book – this is after two months of investigation. I spoke to a fantastic gentleman today in Santander Sheffield who advised me that you actually HAD to have the bank book with you to carry out any transactions on a TESSA account!! This is not the first time I have been called a ‘liar’ by Santander in fact it will be my second visit to the banking ombudsman regarding them – it is the only way to success with Santander, as soon as the BO boys are onto it they find a solution quick smart. Never in my life have I seen such horrific customer service (except for a gentleman in their Sheffield office) So far I have closed three Santander accounts and a Santander credit card this will be my final goodbye to what can only be described as a bunch of bandits…..

  25. I am in an increasingly infuriating loop with Santander regarding my Harvey Nichols Mastercard. I set up a direct debit to take my payment probably 5 months ago – it hasn’t taken yet. Each month they tell me that it will claim next month, but then on the due date it doesn’t claim so I call them, make a manual payment which they then charge me a late payment for as by the time it clears it’s after the due date! They keep refunding the payment but it’s driving me insane. Each time I call it’s a 20 minutes plus conversation with their offshore call centre and each time they have initially tried to tell me that it’s my fault for paying late/paying additional payments/altering my payments. I will be closing the account as soon as I possibly can. I think Harvey Nichols ought to be disgusted with how Santander are representing them.

  26. My online saving account is locked because I sent my father £800.

    I phoned their Customer Service who asked me security questions that I passed, they stating account will be open next day, it wasnt. Rang again they said it was locked and I have to show ID in a branch.

    In the branch they said it was not locked. Phoned customer service who stated go into branch.

    The fuckers have £80k of my money “locked”, the fucking twats. My cash is going elsewhere as soon as they “unlock” the account. They are a bunch of stupid wankers. Useless fucks that don’t know shit.

  27. Found this page while searching for notice of default sums from Santander for closed accounts.

    I purchased a fridge from Comet on a buy now pay later zero percent offer which turned out to be financed through Santander. I had phoned Santander and asked for the balance so I could pay in full and close my account, I was given the balance and paid over the phone with a debit card and thought no more of it. Then a couple of months later I received a letter with an overdue amount of £4.43 in interest and a late payment fee of £12. I spent ages on the phone and was told my balance was zero and I owed nothing, they even wrote to me to confirm this. Then another 6 weeks later a default of sums notice for £12 arrived in the post. Once again i phoned Santander (always seems to take about 15 minutes to actually get to speak to somebody and you have to go through security questions with several different people) and once again I’m told I owe nothing. Just waiting to see what happens next.

  28. I have an ongoing battle with Santander re a House of Fraser Recognition card. I am supposed to receive billing after 14th of each month but have not received statements for 14 May, 14 June or 14 July. i telephoned Santander on 29th May and confirmed my outstanding balance as I wished to clear my account prior to going on holiday. Yesterday my attempt to by a new item was rejected ‘Card declined’ Over the phone i was told that I am in arrears. I believe that I did make a purchase between 29th May and 14 June. I haven’t technically paid for this but it seems to me that Santander should have billed me in mid-June for the shortfall. Searching today online i’m unable to find terms and conditions applying to these cards as regards billing and making payments. I’ve insisted that Santander phone me to resolve and now intending to cancel this card as it seems clear that Santander are unwilling to honour their side of the agreement.

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