To expect to have heard from the bank by now?

[Flossyfloof]

I opened a Santander investment account a few years ago. It was quite complicated and there is a bit if a hoo ha about it now and people are being asked if they want yo reconsider their investment. I contacted them over a week ago with a complaint to do with thus investment and they sent an acknowledgement email straight away saying my complaint would be sent to the relevant department. I haven't heard since. AIBU? I would have thought I would have heard from them by now.

An acknowledgment within 7 days and a full response within 4 weeks is standard.

However, if they are receiving lots of complaints about this product, the full response may take up to 8 weeks.

If you're complaint is about poor performance or mis-selling, there could be lots of fact- finding going on.

Similarly, they may be trying to co-ordinate their responses.

Don't panic yet.

Ok thanks for that. The acknowledgement was very swift but they do say that they will endeavour to keep me informed which they haven't done!

I bought an Isa with them over ten years ago, never received a thing about it and due to one thing and another forgot about it until a statement came early last year I contacted them and they promptly locked the account till I could go in with some ID. The person tried to get me to open a current account with it, totally inappropriate.
Due to other dealings with this group I would have nothing to do with them.

I tried to get some info from them about this investment, about which there is currently a hoo-haa, a couple of years ago. They couldn't help in branch and arranged for someone else to phone me. They told me to find the original literature and read it!

It sounds like Santander has identified a problem with the way the product was marketed and/or sold.

You should have a holding response after 4 weeks, and a full response within 8 weeks. After 8 weeks (or earlier, if you've had their Final Response) you can refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service - if you do, do not use a Claims Management Company. Check the FOS website, it's full of useful info.

If Santander is reviewing every sale of the product, that'll be quite an undertaking, but they should still meet the timescales set down by the regulator.

do not use a Claims Management Company

100% do not use a claims company.

I work in a complaints department...all complaints get worked in order of receipt.

Complaints on your behalf from a CMC go to the back of the queue with everyone else's...they don't get worked quicker and they're handled in the exact same way as if you'd written the letter yourself...the CMC just take a huge cut of any redress your're awarded for doing bugger all.

the CMC just take a huge cut of any redress your're awarded for doing bugger all.

Yes. I worked at FOS, and most CMC's have standard templates for complaints, raising generic points that might not even apply to the background transaction or consumer's circumstances. Most CMC's are utter shit, but must be raking it in.

Goring bit, I agree. We're getting a lot of complaints at the moment avout packaged bank accounts and misselling.

We get CMC letters about a 'packaged' (charged for) account that has never actually had any fees.

We've also had a few misselling CMC complaints, where they complain that the customer was missold an account because they were told they had to take a current account in order to get an overdraft...well, yeah, duh...seeing as an overdraft can't exist without a current account

Utter shite

Trouble is, I think they have to have my decision by 7 March. Within the timescale suggested by the above posters who clearly know, that doesn't give me time to complain, get their response and then decide what to do. I am sure they can send me the compo retrospectively. I wouldn't use a company I can write a brilliant stroppy letter myself! Thanks for the advice.

I don't think I've grasped the whole story here... did Santander write to you, giving you the option to leave the investment? I'm guessing that this is the case, and also where the 7/3 deadline comes from. If it is, Santander should have explained exactly what your options are; and if you choose to undo the transaction, Santander should refund your initial investment, and pay simple interest from the time the investment was made until the date of your refund payment. It's likely that any corrective action will have been suggested or approved by the regulator.

Not sure if this is any use, but happy to help more if I can.

Thanks very much. I started to type a reply and was boring the arse of myself, frankly.
My complaint has to do with how I was dealt with when I tried to query the investment in question, long before the concerns were raised. I got nowhere and really should have taken it further at the time.
I suppose I will have to give it another few days and then make my decision. If I want to withdraw I need to put the letter in sooner rather than later. It seems to me that they are trying to lay the whole thing down in the media. I may be wrong, though.

I suspect that the bank's compliance team have picked up on something, leading to the review of all sales, and subsequent offer to rewind. It might be as innocent as an oversight in the product brochure, but it could also have been rampant mis-selling.

It might be that you'll be better off for the matter having not been dealt with earlier - any interest you receive should be more than you'd have got elsewhere. However, if you feel that you missed out on a better opportunity investment, because you were still tied to the Santander investment, you might have grounds for additional compensation.

Chessie - I've recently put in a complaint about my packaged bank account. I already had a basic account with my bank and wanted an overdraft. I was never told that I could have an arranged overdraft applied to my existing basic account, which would only incur a small fee if and when I used the overdraft. Instead I was told that the only way I could get an overdraft was via a packaged account. Which they then raised the price of by 2quid a month, without telling me.

Yes, some people do take the piss but most don't. There wouldn't be an uproar about mis-selling products if it never happened.

Happy, I read Chessie's post as criticising CMCs for complaining about packaged account charges on accounts that didn't have any such charges.

From my experience, that's pretty normal for CMCs - like with PPI, they throw everything at every complaint, rather than looking at their clients' circumstances, and the sale, and tailoring their approach to that person.

People are usually far better off making their own complaints, because they are providing their own details and recollections, which is far more helpful to the complaint handler than 30 genetic points raised by a third party which churns out hundreds of complaints a week.

They are rubbish Long Story