Santander finally gives Citywire reader his money back

I moved to Santander because of non existant service from HSBC. To date Santander have had too little time to create a complete fiasco, however they are showing every sign of doing so including many mistakes and a complete failure to ubderstand basic maths.

My experience has been very similar to Mr Bewey's. I bought a 1 year fixed rate bond and it took almost 9 months, many emails, phone calls and eventually a threat to go to the Ombudsman before I received a certificate. Like Mr Bewey I was concerned that given their total incompetence and lack of response that there was every possibility my money could be "missing".

Santander are just one of the "banks" that behave like spivs in any way they can within the law. Headline interest rates are reduced after the stated "term" and one Abbey ISA I held reduced from 3.25% to 0.5% without my being aware. This kind of deceitful and underhand activity is happening right across the "investment" sector, although the same institutions are charging around 5% lending rates - thus increasing their "spread" (ie profit margin) to hitherto unknown and obscene levels. Perhaps dragging one or two directors from their boardrooms kicking and screaming, and then hanging them by piano wire from the nearest lampost might serve as an indicator of the general publics' loathing for these detestable bonus bagging parasites.

Well done to Liam for getting his money back from them after only 2 months. It took me 4 months, 17 calls and several letters simply to close a savings account and get my own money back from them.

The FSA or Banking Ombudsman are, by the way, absolutely no use in such a scenario.

Santander are quick enough to answer the 'new customer' phone numbers and are efficient enough in creating accounts to take your money - funny that.

Close them down to new business until they can deal even remotely service existing customers.

Thereare always long queues because their processing system is slow and ancient. Few building societies can turn efficiently into a bank even if it was bought by a bank as Santander which is among the biggest in Europe.

OMG! I have my daughters savings in a Bradford and Bingly account.. I had thought of taking it out because the rates wer so appaling but I now wonder whether its still there at all?

Dont worry all! that banks will be making HUGE profits again without lending much, so at least the shareholders and executives will be happy. After all, you cant please all the people all the time.... but it would be nice to please some of the people some of the time I suppose. lol

PS. I am not a shareholder or executive of a bank

I have been banking with Santander for two years and have NO complaints. They have done all they said they would do and more. They have wonderful staff (Cookstown, N. Ireland 'Abbey' Branch) who are always upbeat and deal efficiently with both transactions and queries.

Granted they do have queues, but who would want to deal with a Bank who didn't have a good customer base. My only difficulty was getting money out of a savings account - I had to open a current account as they were reorganising in an effort to shorten the queues of children who wanted to put in or take out very small amounts and as a result were inconveniencing more serious customers.

The Zero card is excellent, especially when used abroad. The security is very strict, which can be a little upsetting at the time, however I consider that it is better to be too safe, than to be sorry.

As for devotion to duty, the Manager of my local branch called me at 6.18pm yesterday regarding an interview I had requested.....I didn't see a light on in any other bank in the high Street. Obviously he intended to ensure that the day's work was completed before he went home.

I`m in the process of transferring my account from the Santander owned Alliance and Leicester to First direct.

The reason: I haven`t had any problems yet - but i know so many people who have been ripped off or otherwise outrageously treated by this group I`m not waiting around until it happens to me!

I currently bank with RBS who have provided an excellent service for my wife and myself for the past 40+ years but it appears that my local branch which used to be Williams and Glynn's is to be taken over by Santander.

After reading all these horror stories abouit Santander I do not wish to bank with them.

Can anything be done to prevent this proposed takeover?

What should I do in this situation?

Help!!!!

We have a joint premier current account with Alliance and Leicester with internet banking access. On migrating (their description) the A/C to Santander

access to the A/C is shown as unavailable. We have made numerous calls and letters including emails to no avail We have had a letter from their Complaint Resolver saying that the A/C is now accessible. You've guessed it the A/C is still unavailable. Cost of calls to their help line 0844 800 1144 is astronomical. What a mess.

I had saved with Abbey for decades. I had some old fashioned Abbey savings accounts which after discussion with a member of staff were transferred to modern accounts. The next thing I know is that I start getting letters about being overdrawn or owing them money which was ridiculous as I had thousands saved with them. I telephoned only to be told they couldn't discuss it over the phone and I had to come into a branch to discuss it. Then I am being threatened with legal action. I went into one Abbey branch and waited for an hour to talk to someone. By the time they came I just said I want to close all my accounts with you and take my money out, which is what I did. How they could keep sending me threatening letters when they just had to look at my accounts and see that they had thousands of pounds of mine I do not know.

I opened a bond with the Abbey, they messed up the opening of it putting it in the wrong bond. A year later it took me 4 weeks and many visits to the branch to get them to give the money back to me. They also calculated the interest wrongly. I was amazed that a bank could make such a mess of things.

The staff need better training and seem scared to do anything to put things right when they've gone wrong.

I opened a bond with the Abbey, they messed up the opening of it putting it in the wrong bond. A year later it took me 4 weeks and many visits to the branch to get them to give the money back to me. They also calculated the interest wrongly. I was amazed that a bank could make such a mess of things.

The staff need better training and seem scared to do anything to put things right when they've gone wrong.

My wife has PoA over her 89 year old mother's affairs. She took all relevant documents to a local A&L branch and they took copies and all details. She then controlled the accounts online. Then A&L sent a message saying from about 2 weeks ago it would all now be Santander but that we would not notice any difference. But we did notice - firstly because her savings account with £50K suddenly showed zero balance, and secondly because they resurected many old DDs on her current acount that had been defunct for may yeras. In one case a DD for Council Tax for a place that she moved from 25 years ago.

Sending online messages was met with zero response. After 6 or 7 messages were ignored we then had one simply saying call this number ... which needless to say was a number that costs money to call!

We have spent over an hour this morning getting a very nice recored message saying "We are very sorry to keep you waiting but we are experiencing an unexpected demand on this helpline. Unbelievable! When we eventually got through to a real person, and sfter some difficulty in persuading them abou the PoA, he said its just a technical error and would be put right soon - as if it was an every day occurance and not to worry.

Bastards - it makes you want to do something drastic!

We are about to move the accounts elsewhere - but we are dreading the things that will inevitably go wrong because of their incompetance.

Just had the Abbey(Santander) One Year Bond mature on August 1st, and had requested that the funds go to another bank. I jumped through all their proof of ID hoops back in July - faxed them all details asked, kept the fax transmission OK reports, and called them afterwards to make sure they'd received them. All OK and confirmed - or so I thought. Funds hadn't appeared in target bank by today (3rd August), so I phoned them immediately (yes, I managed to get their direct line number) - but they now claim they didn't receive one of my faxes back in July... in spite of proof to contrary. Faxed docs AGAIN today, called to follow up and taped (for training and quality purposes, of course) the conversation wherein they promised the funds would be sent this afternoon. We will see...

The only way to get results from Santander seem to be suing them.

I had deposited 2 cheques at an ATM. After a few days, Santander debited my account with one of the cheques without letting me know by letter. I only knew of it when I checked my online statement. After the usual several calls resulted in misinformation ("your account has been closed" though I had over £10,000 in the account that was very active), delays ("our system is down"), etc, I wrote a complaint letter. After another delay, I received an unsigned letter stating that they are looking into it. And after yet another delay, I received a letter from them lying that there was only one cheque in the envelope. (If this was true, they would have debited my account with the missing cheque the very next day; not several days after as they did. Moreover, they should have notified me of the debit; which they did not.

I was so fed up that I was determined to make Santander pay and I filed a compensation claim for £150 + court fee against Santander. As I did this through the small claims court (moneyclaims online), I knew that irrespective of the outcome of the case, Santander would spend a lot more than £150 in legal and other costs (which they could not recover from me.)

At first they sent me me a notice of discontinuance form to sign and file in the court. promising to send me a cheque for my claim after I had done this. I refused and told them that I will not do so till I receive a cheque from them and the funds are cleared. Santander then filed a robust defence in court but I refused to budge and was determined to make them spend more money defending the claim in court. Finally they cracked and sent me the full amount of my claim and I informed the court accordingly.

The only reason I have not closed my account with Santander is because I have numerous direct debits (stockbrokers, etc) and direct credits (dividends, etc) set up with them and it would be very time consuming to change all these to another bank. However, I now leave very little money in Santander.

Devils Advocate - I moved my accounts from Abbey and A&L for exactly the same reason as you, I can do without the hassle! They treated by daughter-in-law appallingly and now RBS are to sell 318 branches to them !!

re the Sale of RBS branches to Santander.

Obviously this hasn't been announced yet but when it is I suggest you phone whatever helplines are around. It's not treating customers fairly to not let them bank with RBS if thats what they want to!.

Ifall else fails - just move to the local NatWest - it's the same group - same systems, same processes, same training so should be similar to RBS.

I went to the Santander cash machine in Mallorca and they wanted to charge me 4.5% for the cash withdrawal. Bearing in mind that they would have the cash back within one to five days that works out at between 328% and 1,645% interest!! just how are they getting away with this!!!

You think this is bad, we are still waiting for our refund from easyjet from the day in January that they cancelled our flight!!

urgent close your santander bank accounts NOW THE WARNING SIGNS ARE THERE

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!CLOSE YOUR ACCOUNTS NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have an account at RBS (Williams & Glyn) which has served us very well for 20 odd years. Does anyone know exactly when Santander is assuming control of the RBS branches cause a move elsewhere seems eminent sensible.

It is a shame that they don't offer the same excellent service that they give to their customers in Portugal at Banco Santander Totta. They are still carrying the can for the rubbish that they took over from Abbey, which is further proof (as if any were needed) that successful building societies do not turn into efficient banks.

Acting on behalf of my mother we had exactly the same experience as the many complainants who have responded to this article. Santander make errors, lose documents then block the account and treat you like a wrongdoer when you complain. Opening an account for my 89 year old mother was easy - "Would you like your son to deal with this for you" was the only question they asked my mother who had not, then, even confirmed her name or personal details to the salesperson. Then, when they have lost the documents referred to above, they refuse to talk to the son in question because they have lost the letter of authority his mother gave them requesting that they did so. Closing the account involved all the same difficulties encountered by Alan Cork, Mohan and others. One is forced to record all calls so that referral to the FOS is effectual. There is no other option because Santander Customer Relations think that days of one's time is worth a few pounds in compensation or nothing at all! Mohan has exactly the right attitude.

On reading the last post before mine, from KSS I feel I should point out that all our problems were in the transition from Abbey to Santander and my complaint is, in essence, a complaint against Abbey.

I took out a 2 year, fixed rate bond with Alliance and Leicester. One year into the contract, A & L was taken over by Sandtander. The intereste paid on my bond dropped immediately by £30.00 per month. Then, almost the next day if you please, Santander sent me a communication trying to persuade me to transfer my current account to them!

A big thank you to Victoria at Citywire for interceding on Liam's behalf. Without her the situation would have not to be progressed through legal channels. Santander need to set up a UK Customer Service freephone with a mandate to progress a complaint to conclusion and not stone wall the customer.

Thanks again Citywire

I remember Abbey National when it was a very efficient and well run building society . Then they decided they wanted to be a bank . Also an estate agent . Also expand overseas , and at roughly the same time they decided to get rid of a whole swathe of experienced personnel who were in their late 40's to early 50's .

Small wonder that they fell on their face . The estate agency business lost them a fortune , as did the overseas operation . Also they floundered around trying to be a bank when they weren't .

Seems things are no better under Santander !

Where on earth do you start with Santander. I'd been quite content as an Abbey customer - savings, current account and getting my holiday currency from them etc. Then Santander took over.

1. The failed to supply me a replacement debit card when the old one expired. It took them two months after the expiry date and of course no one takes cheques anymore. I ended up buying everthing including groceries on credit card and had to go into the branch and after a whole shedload of hassle take out money over the counter. I got the complete run around when I phoned every couple of days about the situation and guess what? Got a different excuse everytime. System compatability problems; card issuing company flooded; lost in the post etc etc.

2. They don't do forex e.g Euros. This from a Spanish company!

3. What sort of bank doesn't carry enough cash to give a customer £1000 out of an account unless given 48 hours notice even when they've got bundles of proof of identity?

4. Stopping a substantial payment to a removals company I employed even tho' it was the second installment, and NOT TELLING ME THEY DID IT.

5. Insisting I went into a branch to get a tax certificate for a savings account shut part way through a fiscal year. Helpful when you're abroad for months at a time and it was an online account which they refused to let me view as it was "closed" so I could add the bloody interest up myself and impute the tax.

6. Stopping without any notice my being able to order a postal statement at an Abbey ATM even tho' it still comes up as an option on the ATM screen because the klutzes can't programme the system to remove it.

And these are just the immediate examples which spring to mind. The amount of time and money spent trying to get through to them is shocking, and spending hours and hours and hours phoning and only getting to speak to foreign Call centres where they simply don't have a clue and don't have the power to do anything anyway is deeply frustrating.

If it wasn't for the fact that moving Direct Debits is a hassle I would have dumped them. As it is I keep the minimum amount with them as anything else invites their utter incompetence to be encountered.

As above - where do you start with them

1. cheques and payments lost and noone prepared to take responsibility

2. an Abbey Zero card that doesn't allow you to make payments to it online with IT systems that continually give problems

2. security numbers for the account which don't work - then you are blocked out and have to wait 2 weeks for issuing another one

3. advising me over the phone that I had failed security for access to my current account because my dob was incorrect and that I needed to go to a branch to sort it out - I did and was advised that they were having problems with merging Abbey and Santander systems and had reset all my personal ID details without of course telling me

4. fraud blocking my debit card leaving me in the middle of Dorset with no access to a cash machine for petrol and food

I could go on - this is a bank of stunning incompetence

complaints take months - I currently have two with the FOS - but you have to stick it out and keep track of the correspondence. They don't know what day of the week it is and with patience eventually you will win

I am trying to exit every product I have with this lot and would advise anyone to do the same - if you want stress and poor service then it's the bank of first choice

Organisations are required to have processes in place that guard against accidental loss or destruction of your data.

If Santander have lost your documents then they can be reported to the Information Commissioner (helpline: 0303 123 1113). If there are enough complaints then maybe some action will be taken.

We had several one year bonds with Santander, taken out because of their excellent rates at the time.

When we were reminded that the bonds would be maturing we queued for an hour for customer service and advised them that we would be withdrawing the balances by cheque on the maturity date. We were told that we could collect them from the cashiers on the maturity date.

On the day there was an hour long queue for the cashiers whom we we then found could not issue the cheques. Another hour waiting for customer service (everyone else in the branch seemed to be there for the same purpose) and it took 20 minutes (for each of us) with their representative to get the cheques. They had to leave the desk and go behind the counter three times to process the transaction.

Their staff were utterly charming and seemed competent - however their systems were unwieldy and were apparently incapable of preparing for transactions in advance - hence the queue on the day.

Needless to say I would never hold either a current or a savings account with Santander again.

Last week I phoned Santander about a Fixed Rate Bond I had opened with Abbey last year. My enquiry was very simple but I was shocked by the rudeness I received from the man I spoke to. I only hope I have no problems when this matures next year. Later that day I spoke on the phone to a man at Birmingham Midshires - what a difference. He dealt with my enquiry in an efficient and friendly manner and we even had a short chat about the weather!

When I started work 50 years ago I opened a savings account with the Alliance as it then was, which had started as a local Brighton Building Society. After I married we had all our mortgage accounts with them wherever we were living. Now that it has grown so big we don't do business with them.

40 years ago I opened a Current Account with RBS (then Williams and Glynn) . RBS have always dealt with any query, whether in the Branch or over the telephone, in a very pleasant manner. I just hope it is too big a branch to be taken over by Santander.

Having read so many negative comments, I am now starting to get really worried! Could someone please advise me on the following. If my original contract was with Alliance & Leicester, then isn't a "breach of contract" of a sort, that Alliance & Leicester has moved my account to Santander without consulting me first or at least giving me the option of taking the money out of the bond ahead of time?

I've just received a triumphalist message saying that my A & L account has been successfully moved to Santander. A couple of my standing orders now appear as being made to "External payment" which isn't very helpful. If you haven't been done yet it's worth making a note of whom you are paying and how much and at what frequency.

My wife abandoned Abbey/Santander 2 years ago after a significant chunk of her cash was siphoned off to a Nigerian account. It eventually came back but the WARNING SIGNS of lax security were there.

Not long after I was involved in helping another family member claw back £650 of nearly £900 stolen out of her account by them because they wouldn't giver her even a 1penny overdraft facility - this a low income family gradually being sucked into a mire of debt by constant £25 unauthorised overdraft fees for typically being overdrawn by less than £1.

But then few of our high street banks act reasonably these days. Who can you trust? I would agree about Coop, also possibly LloydsTSB, but 'thirty thousand for the rest'? No thanks Andrew Marvell.

There is something rotten in the state of 'Denmark' - corporate greed & dishonesty has been rife at all levels for some 2 decades now. And 'crime' rates are said to be down.

Santander is quite simply the worst bank I have ever dealt with in over 40 years.

Just carrying out the simple task of transferring money from a postal account to another bank required:

1. A visit to an Abbey National Branch to ask how they would prefer me to do that. I got the "Computer Says No" treatment from a counter clerk. She told me to write to the bank.

2. I wrote to the bank. The bank replied to say that it wouldn't transfer funds to another bank. It asked for identification.

3. I called the bank and asked if I could take my passport and other identification to my local Alliance & Leicester Branch. "Yes" they said.

4. I went in there and the counter clerk asked for my Pass Book. I explained that I didn't want to draw any money, I just wanted her to certify copies of my Passport and a couple of utility bills. This miserable individual gave me the "Computer Says No" treatment again while she did as I asked.

5. I took my certified identification documents with copies of my Santander statements for my two savings accounts to the Barnet branch. A very helpful person tried to help me, but couldn't do anything. She discovered that my Postal Account had been frozen because I hadn't used it in a long time. "Of course I haven't used it", I explained, "its a savings account". She and a colleague tried to unblock it and failed. I left the branch one and a half hours later no further than when I started.

6. I decided to write to seven of the umpteen directors of the bank with copies of where I'd got to and a complaint of how useless the bank was. Of course, the managing director, passed my letter to their Complaints Department which would bog me down in a further administrative quagmire.

7. The Complaints Department wrote to me. I called the FSA and the Financial Ombudsman. Where did it get me? Nowhere. And Santander know that.

8. I wrote to the Complaints Department and copied the managing director, the FSA and the Financial Ombudsman.

9. The bank also told me that it would send me new pass codes for my other account, an on-line account, as I couldn't use it.

10. They did that eventually and when I tried to use it, it didn't work.

Someone called me to ask if I had any problems with the bank and whether they could help me. I explained that the pass codes they sent me didn't work. When he looked up my account, he told me that they had given me the old pass codes and had not migrated me on to their new system. He told me that he would send me new pass codes. All this happened in the same month.

11. Out of the blue, I received a letter with a cheque closing my postal account last month. I felt like I had achieved the impossible.

12. I have also just received my new pass codes for my on-line account. I have loaded them up and can now at least access my account. I haven't tried to transfer any money out of it yet. I shudder to think what will happen when I try.

As stated above, Santander is the worst bank I have ever dealt with in over 40 years and I work in the financial industry. I would like to close all of my accounts with them and never deal with them again.

They claim to care about giving good customer service, but that is only words. The service I received was a million miles from reasonable service, let alone good service.

The standard of service at Santander is dire and gets worse. We have decided to close our accounts and have reported this bungling bank to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

In my industry such incompetence will result in the operating licence being removed. I see no difference in banking and question why Santander are still regarded by the authorities as fit to remain in the business of looking after money owned by the public.

So now we have to worry about Egg as well !!

http://www.citywire.co.uk/money/wednesday-papers-citi-to-put-online-bank-egg-up-for-sale-bid-news-and-gossip/a419643/full?ref=citywire-money-latest-news-list

I have had endless problems with Santander's failure to properly deliver any of the excellent sounding products & services they offer. Since it was taken over by Santander the vast majority of my regular trips to my branch involved insanely long queues, witnessing other customers being driven to rage and desperation in their efforts to make simple transactions, and far worse than that was the system by which if you wanted to speak to someone about a new product or make a foreign transfer you couldn't do it on the day and couldn't make an appointment to do so either. When I closed my account it emerged a few months later that the account had never been closed, and it took another three long and painful trips to the branch to finally close the account. On one of these trips a member of staff asked me for a 10p coin so he could reactivate the account and then informed me that he could not close the account as it had 10p in it. At this point his computer started showing error messages in Spanish, so he decided to ask me to write my name and address on a blank piece of paper and leave my debit card and cheque book with him. He said he would contact me when the account was closed.... three weeks later I had had no phonecall and the account was still active with 10p in it... the story goes ON and ON with the most unbelievable levels of incompetence, but the punchline is this: when the account was finally closed I wrote a 3 page letter of complaint. I never complain but I felt strongly that someone in the company might want to know why I and 4 other members of my family who had all had similar experiences had all closed our accounts. Santander's response was to tell me they had paid £40 into my account (the one that they had closed). I never saw the £40.

I wish I had time to give details of all the other stories I have heard about Santander from people to whom I have told this story but I'll limit myself to one more: my grandmother was not sent a replacement debit card or cheque book for over 6 months after her previous card expired and her cheques ran out. She and my parents made daily phonecalls to the bank and by the time the new card and cheque book eventually arrived she owed my parents thousands of pounds that they had lent her for shopping and household expenses. I dread to think what she would have done if she had not had family nearby to buy her food in the meantime.

We took out alliance & Leicester accounts a couple of years ago because we could draw money at our local PO, since closed. They were also paying the best rates.

I realised yesterday that the beneficial rate had ceased in July so we looked around for the best rates having unfortunately missed the opportunity to put the money into NS & I's RPI linked certificates.

Sainsbury's & Tesco came up with the best instant access rates so we're switching to them.

After my wife suffered a senior moment over her password we spent an hour this morning trying to get password unlocked. Because I was sitting beside her helping her through all the hoops we were told that my intervention had 'compromised' her call so we had to start all over again. i left her to sort it out by herself and I'm relieved to see that the transfer to the new account has gone through okay.

My attempt to switch my Cash ISA from A & L to a share ISA in time to take up National Grid rights was subject to such delay that I had to get the cash from elsewhere. After I complained to them the money was eventually transferred.

As far as service is concerned my daughter loves First Direct and I like Intelligent Finance but neither is paying good rates currently.

Having read all of the above comments I now realize that "no man or woman is an island". "MOHAN'S" action through the small claims court seems to be

the way forward. I intend to sever all A/c,s with Santander and A & L and open an A/C with The Co Op who I understand has a good record service to their customers. Like many others this is going to be a complicated process given the amount of DD,s and SO,S we have

A&L on line accounts changed over on Sunday 25/7/2010.

1. They managed to lose *all* my pending payments, which I use to move money fom a savings account to current account the day before DD are due.

2. The DD are still there but the last date and amount paid are all blank.

3. They seem unable to close saving accounts on the day requested (A&L used to do this instantly whilst I was on the phone to them).

4. Opened a new e-savings account online. Now I have to have two cash cards for a joint account, which I will only use on line. No chance of refusing the cash cards. A&L online saver accounts were just that, online - no damn useless cash cards.

A&L online banking was very good, it looks like Santander have screwed it up. Time to look elsewhere.

In my case ,after nearly 2 months they closed my account and then sent out my £44000 ISA a week later. They sent it to the receiving Bank by Cheque in the second class post. After endless phone calls and threatsand a further 2 weeks the cheque was declared Lost in the Post. By this time my money had been missing for a month with no access to funds. I complained to the Ombudsman and the receiving Bank ,who failed to get anywhere with Santander. I then spent a day on the phone to Santander and through sheer persistence got their so called transfer department to stop the missing cheque, and issue another immediately otherwise I was issuing a writ in the High Court for punitive damages. The appalling service and poorly trained staff who are unaware of their duties is a monumental Banking Scandal. I finally received a £100 in compensation.

im a pensioner and opened an isa with aliance and leister 9 years ago when i retired 2 years ago i went to my branch to try and get my money but was told it was not there i had 2 isas one taken out in 2001 and one taken out in 2003 but

alliance and liester insist there was only one yet i have both cards and both original letters telling me i had opened both of them. That was 2 years ago and they STILL wont give me my money back. What can i do? this is owned by santander now

It`s tough that Santander should be vilified so soon for Abbey`s appalling past performance. They`ve presumably got to work already cleaning up this Augean stable, but it won`t be achieved overnight.

My conclusion is that branch staff have too little training, particularly in everchanging "products" and too little time to carry out transactions correctly and completely. All my problems with them have involved dual transactions, eg set up Monthly Saver a/c & set up standing order to transfer monthly sum from current a/c to the Mthly Svr a/c service. One gets done; the other does not.

There is little point in seeking a remedy from the branch; more effective to enlist the Complaints Unit, where, after some pressure, someone will take enough time to understand the issue.

David Walters says 'it's tough that Santander should be vilified so soon for Abbey`s appalling past performance'.

Abbey was taken over by Santander in late 2004. Most of Abbey's systems were converted to the Spanish Partenon system in 2007.

Most of the complaints here and elsewhere seem to relate to events after the takeover so it seems entirely fair that Santander should carry the can.

Dave

they are rubbish

bad service is central to their offer and they do not care

It will catch up with them in the end

My son tried to transfer an ISA from Santander to Nationwide as Nationwide were offering a much higher rate. It took 3 months in spite of chasing and all that was offered in compensation was £10 for the time he spent chasing, when he had lost over £100 in the difference in the interest rate. We are still fighting for reimbursement of the interest. Watch this space!

Santander have to be the most disgusting inhumane bank i have ever dealt with,i was with A &L for 17years no problems however we sold a property and transferred a large sum of money into this current account big mistake!!!!!!!!after blocking my debit card 15 times in 2 weeks they have now locked my current account for outgoing transactions funny though they are taking in payments!!!I have spent 3hours on the phone and 5 hours in branch to be told they cannot disclose to me the problem and will notify me when this changes until then I cant have any of my money!!! they took my child benefit and wont let me draw it out i had no nappies or food last week so had to go around asking people for help all this when we have £1000's in that account how degrading!still today im waiting nothing no letter no phone call from them since day one,its my account surely i have the right to know whats going on its caused us unbelievable stress and upset and trust as soon as i can get it sorted i dont know how though i will be off!!!

How sad to hear that Santandar causes such grief. My advice .... send all complaints to Ms. Botin as she is a very Senior Executive at Santandar Head Office.

She is the daughter of the Chairman of Santandar and sister in law of the late and hughly admired Seve Ballisteros.

She looks a very reasonasble person to me Good luck.