Santander berevement torture

[andyinlondon]

Hi all sorry for the long post

This is the story of how Santander treats not only their own customers but also the bereaved relatives of one of their customers.

My mother passed away back in January 2009 and I was named the sole beneficiary in her will and the executor of her estate.

All in all an upsetting time, with lots of paperwork to do, people and organizations to inform, arrangements and claims to make ect, ect.

All the organizations I had to contact were very helpful and sympathetic and tried to make things as easy as possible to resolve, insurance companies the pensions office and the local branch of the Santander where my mother did her banking.

However the nice chap at the local branch of Santander was not able to do anything with regard to my mother?s accounts or even the Santander shares that she held from the Santander take over of the Abbey.

He asked for her documents and copied them all, death cert, marriage cert will and my id,

He photocopied them all and said that he would have to send them to the probate department to be processed.

He said it would take 7 to 10 days but it was a strait forward case and would be quickly dealt with.

It went downhill from there!

I left it for two weeks trusting that what I had been told was correct but having not heard anything I thought I would check on the progress.
I called the local branch and spoke to the account rep who said he had sent the paper work in and was surprised I had not had any reply.
He then spoke to the probate dept who asked him to resubmit the paperwork and that they would then deal with it.

Another week goes by and the same thing happens again ... paperwork resubmitted yet again and calls made to the probate dept by the account rep.

This time the probate dept are getting snotty with the account rep but he resubmits the paperwork as they request.

Another week and still nothing so I chase it up and the account rep tries to call the probate dept who hang up on him, so he calls the manager of the probate dept and complains about what has happened.

The manager promises to look into it and call him back. Of course this does not happen.

So further calls are made and the bank manager gets involved and eventually some of my mother?s accounts are closed. The probate dept then sends out a series of cheques from these accounts most of which were for a few pounds each.

At last I think a light at the end of the tunnel it has taken some 7 weeks but finally a resolution.

But of course it is not at all finished.

Another couple ofweeks go by and nothing further from Santander so I call the account rep again who tries to chase it up but gets nowhere.
At this point he tells me that the shares have to be resolved separately and to contact Santander directly to get the claim form.

So 3 calls to the Santander shareholders helpline over three weeks produces no claim form

So I had to call to Santander complaints line to even get a claim form sent out and I am sure this will be another epic battle. (still not resolved some 3 years later)

Back to the rest of the accounts and another week goes by so I call the complaints dept to complain and I am told they cannot do anything as the branch are dealing with it.

So I call the branch who tell me, no the complaints dept are now dealing withit. So I give it a few days and call complaints again who insist that no the branch is dealing with it and they cannot touch it until the branch writes tome and tells me they have failed to resolve it.

So I call the branch again and they tell me they are sending me this letter. At which point I lose it,

I call the chairman?s office and lodge an official complaint with them, this is supposed to be the top level complaint in the whole organization.

I speak to a polite lady who expresses concern and says that they will take over the complaint at head office and resolve it quickly.

So I leave it another week and hear nothing so I call them again and am told that they have sent out an acknowledgment letter and someone will be assigned to investigate my complaint.

So in other words they have done nothing for yet another week!
I have had to deal with the death of my mother and all the pain and trauma that that has caused but I am not even been allowed to try and begin the healing process because Santander are forcing me to confront her death on a daily basis and rubbing my face in it buy making me fight and chase them every day now.

Santander were unlawfully holding my mother?s money with no excuse, they cannot explain why.They claim there is no problem but refuse to process the paperwork

And to cap it all........ The best bit now!

I got a letter from their debt recovery department demanding that I, as the executor of her estate clear a small overdraft that was left on her current account.

This despite the fact that Santander are holding over ten times that amount still in her other accounts.

And of course the probate department are supposed to clear any debts or overdrafts ECT as part of the process of closing the accounts before they release any funds to the estate.

When I first went into the branch to formally inform them of my mothers death and give them all the paper work they had requested, they had print outs of all my mother's accounts with balances and totals.

I was given this information but alas not the actual documents
so that I could do the required probate steps and make all the arrangements.The final figure paid from Santander was £5000 less than this amount. With no explanation as to why.

And the complaint to the chairman?s office

well after a few weeks of, you guessed it no contact or information I got a garbled phone call saying that they had investigated and yes it had not gone a sit should and lessons had been learned, no disciplinary action at the probate dept, denial of the missing £5000 and an offer of £500 compensation.

My reply to that was unprintable.

At that point I pretty much gave up as I could not take the stress and upset any more

Now jump forward to 2012 and the saga continues.

I am now getting threatening letters from the German government and the solicitors they have hired in London because once again Santander lied to me and have stolen money again from my late mother.

When I reported her death to Santander and went through the whole horrible process I described above, I was told that all of my mother?s accounts were closed and all activity was suspended on them,
not so!

I find out from the German government who have been paying a pension to my late mother and this pension has been happily taken by Santander and kept by them.

No mention to me about it and into a supposedly closed account.

Naturally the German government want this over paid money back and Santander are refusing to return it either to the pension provider or to me so I could return it.

So let this saga be a warning to you all???. If you think you may die one day and if you have relatives who will have to deal with things after you are gone........
Then make sure you do not bank with Santander

Andy

It doesn't seem unreasonable to post in a number of different places. It's useful to read things like this.

Thanks for the support everyone

The OP may have been repeating this post on as many sites as possible and that is probably against MN rules.

But assuming the story is true and given almost everyone you meets experience with banks it probably is, he has every right to be furious.

Fortunately I've only had a very minor run in with Lloyds, but they were utterly useless. A simple sorry would have sufficed, a £20 donation to the WI who's account they'd messed up would have been even better. (Had it been a personal account I would have closed it. I certainly won't ever use them).

Banks just feel they can be unbelievable rude, even when it's them who's fucked up and that stinks.

I banked with them when they were Abbey. They were dreadful, just dreadful. Would rather burn my money than give them a penny of my hard earned cash

Sorry what you have been through, Andy.

TBH when my BIL died, and my Dad died, we found most banks etc utterly shite. Of course none kept hold of his money in the end so it was not as bad as you have experienced.

But it was close . . . I did one of those things where you can search for dormant accounts and/or pensions on behalf of my late Dad. This was because he always ranted about being conned out of a pension many years before. I did not expect anything to come up but I thought I owed it to my Dad to at least fill out an online form to look for his lost pension. After some weeks I was advised that "something might have been found" and could my Dad sign a form? I replied that er no actually he is dead which is why I am enquiring, which seemed to come as a surprise to them.

One day I found that £3000 had been credited to the executor's account. I asked the bank to tell me where it had come from. They said they couldn't. Couldn't be arsed more like. I was worried as I thought it was a mistake and I would not be able to settle the estate if there was some unaccounted-for money in the account. They could not have been less "bovvered." Eventually I rang the Dormant-accounts people and asked them if it was anything to do with them. Oh yeah, it was the thing they had found. They hadn't bothered to write to me or send any paperwork or anything.

After some investigation I found out what had happened. My Dad had about £25,000 with the Woolwich building society, which he used as his bank. The money was spread over five or six accounts, all with different amounts in them. He would get a monthly statement with all his accounts summarised on it. One day the Woolwich had written to him and said that as a certain account had not been used (had money added or withdrawn) for a certain amount of time it was being declared "dormant." Dad was not good with paperwork and had done nothing about this. That account then dropped off his statement. He had five other accounts that he was using, sometimes daily, but they hid that one from his view! If I had not done the internet search because of the pension we would never have known anything about it and that money would have been lost forever. FUCKING CHEEK!!

I would have complained but by this time Woolwich had been taken over by Barclays and I knew the response would just be "Oh yeah Woolwich, they were shit weren't they?"

I know exactly how you feel BalloonSlayer

If a company did this to me, I would be shouting it from the rooftops, angry and wanting everyone to know.

I would probably plaster it all over the internet too, in my anger.

Santander are fucking appalling, I've had no end of trouble with them, including sending personal details to a totally random address. I hope you get it sorted.

ExP works in financial services and whenever they get a case in involving Santander everyone tries to avoid it because they're bastards to deal with, even at a professional level. They deserve all the bad press they get.

He should post it all over the web. That's what the web is for. And it's about time big business realized it.

It used to be 'anger one customer, they'll tell 20.' Now it's 'anger one customer, they'll tell the world'.

Keep screaming out loud, Andy.

Tweet it too Andy if you have twitter. Good luck.

spell BEREAVEMENT properly though.

....and that's not me being shitty - just think that bad spelling/typos can weaken a complaint.

Of all the banks we dealt with in registering my mother's power of attorney, Santander were easily the worst. Endless delays. So when it finally came through, we used the PoA to move her money to a more efficient bank.

I feel for you, OP.

Good for you for spreading this and I'm sorry for what they've put you through. I don't care how many sites this is on, Santander are absolutely shite and people need to know about it.

Have you tried tweeting this too ? Because if what you have posted is true (and i have no reason to doubt you) then you should !

Hi Andy - I went through a similar thing with Halifax when my Father died in 2001. I am very, very angry and sorry to hear this extremely distressing behaviour is still happening.

id go with the papers on this one - as someone suggested email the telegraph.

i can understand why you are putting this on so many public forums - i would too. Yes tes to tweeting it.

huge faceless organisations can and do make ordinary peoples lives a misery sometimes, the more people you tell, the better imo!

sorry to hear that Maxmillie, yes it is still happening, getting worse if anything.

i did think about tweeting but not really sure how it works
i thought it is a bit long for tweets ?

You can tweet a link to a longer post

you mean tweet a link to a forum post or a blog or something different?

thanks for the reply

Contact the Financial Ombudsman they are separate from banks.

OP I felt stressed just reading your post and it brought back a horrible and extremely stressful situation that my mother went through with them.

She had several accounts with them and was concerned about their safety so decided to withdraw her funds. They wouldn't let her. Even although she had passbooks she was asked to take her passport in. She did this however the passport had expired so they refused to give her her money.

WTF does it matter if a passport expires??

I went in with my mother and "the manager" told me that an expired passport might mean my mother was no longer a UK resident. (Does that mean she can't get her money)

Anyhow to cut a long story short, after getting my mother's solicitor involved we withdrew all her cash.

It was a long and totally unnecessarily stressful situation and neither of us will ever go inside one of their buildings again.

Personally I think Santander must be in deep financial shit cos they seem to employ school leavers with no training and give them a "manager" badge.

I hate Santander.

My uncle died recently, DH is executor and Santander were a nightmare to deal with.Rude and unhelpful people, phoning my bereaved aunt night and day who had just lost her husband of 50 years.

Awful bank and awful people. I feel your pain Andy, hope you get it sorted. I would complain to the financial ombudsman or British Bankers Association.

I must add that our solicitor told us that it was well known in his industry that Santander were a nightmare to deal with.

When my late mil died, Santander quite seriously were trying to insist that we couldn't close her accounts, the deceased had to go into a branch in person.