Is Santander the worst bank ever?

[spinduffy]

I’ve been with Santander for years- personal, joint, mortgage, savings and business account. I transferred money from business account to an investment bank on Wednesday. This was declined and my account blocked. I spoke to someone on Wednesday and was told they would call me back. They didn’t. I called them and have now been on the phone for 1 hour and 43 minutes and am in tears. They are telling me I need to go into Branch. I work as hospital doctor and have no nearby branch. It is pure madness. I will obviously vote with my feet and move banks (apart from mortgage as on a 5 year fixed deal), but U.K. just feeling sorry for myself and feel I’ve been treated pretty badly for a customer of 20 years. I’ve also missed my wedding anniversary meAl which was booked for 7pm and I’m still on the call

YADNBU. They are appalling! We moved to First Direct 15 years ago and they've been great.

Lloyds is the worst but they do sound dreadful.

I've had worse with Barclays. But you've definitely had a shit experience.

YABU, but only because Barclays are the absolute worst of the worst. Nothing compares to them.

Don't know about Santander but First Direct is the best bank ever.

Barclays were pretty crap when my father died. My mum went in with a death certificate to close his account and they sent her to a room on her own and told her to dial the number on the desk and work through the questions. She was 85, and a complete technophobe. She just sat in the room and cried, they followed this up with a letter addressed to Mr Ahwig deceased . When they did finally accept he had passed away, she was asked to take in some share certificates which they then lost and wanted to charge her for duplicates. I was so cross with myself as I’d wanted to go with her but she insisted she’d be ok and she didn’t tell us exactly how badly they treated her until I found the mr ahwig deceased letter.

I have also banked with them for 20 years and the service is nothing short of a disgrace. They caused us no end of problems trying to remortgage due to system errors their end..I am switching to first direct.

Yes they are a total disgrace!

I have to say I have hung up in tears. I spent over 2 hours and was told I had to go into branch. I work everyday (Saturdays included as I have agreed to do waiting list clinics for our trust as the service is so bad) and require 6 weeks notice to take leave. I will be booking a leave day for 6 weeks this Monday and I will be in store to close my account. I am ridiculously emotionally upset by their attitude and the manner in which I was spoken to. I know I’m tired and work is stressful and this is probably the straw that breaks the camels back, but I’m sitting here in floods of tears

They're shockingly bad. Years ago, my pay was a day late going into my account because of the Xmas bank holidays. 6 transactions caused me £150 of bank charges because I didn't have enough in there. One of them was declining my standing order to pay my mortgage, so I also had a fee on that account for the mortgage payment bouncing. Two transactions were under £5, and rather than declining my card, they instead let them go through and charged me £25 each.

I was 8 and a half months pregnant at the time and was off work as I'd been signed off sick, so hadn't seen the correspondence that the pay would be a day late rather than being paid early. Genuine oversight on my part, and the money was all there one day later to cover transactions. Santander had no compassion for the situation whatsoever, and refused to refund any of the charges.

It took a while to get myself back to a position where I was in the positive because of that, but the moment I did I closed my account and left.

Don't move to HSBC.

They're currently making it difficult and at times impossible for me to buy food (I'm disabled, largely housebound, and dependent on online grocery deliveries).

It's not like there's no money in my account; it's that HSBC's newly introduced disability-unfriendly technology is kindly protecting me from actually spending it.

For months, I've had to phone up every fortnight, spend 30 mins explaining HSBC's tech problem from scratch to the latest call centre droid, and beg them to let me put a grocery transaction through: sometimes they say yes, sometimes they say no.

Back in March, this part of my life worked. Now someone's kindly decided to break it.

Today's phone call has been particularly difficult and it's looking like the problem might be permanent.

Hope you manage to get to your anniversary meal, albeit a bit late, spinduffy.

@HubrisPolice thank you and I’m sor sorry about your issues with HSBC.

I've Been so upset by the treatment. I actually am not thinking rationally as I’m now thinking my only option is to phone in sick to work to go into branch and close the account. I don’t even know how you close a business bank account and will they even give me my money? I was made feel like I’ve done something wrong.

Sleep on it (if you can) before plotting your next move?

Sounds absolutely shit – and needlessly so.

I'm so sorry you're being put through this. Power to your elbow for getting it sorted.

I'm also a first direct fan.
They have let me down a few times but nothing major and seem to resolve things well.

You should contact one of the media consumer champions; Katie Morley at the Telegraph, Mark Alwright at the BBC, Jill Insley at The Times, Tony Hazel at the Daily Mail, Consumer Champions at The Guardian. Going to the media often gets better results than trying to deal with these businesses yourself.

Starling is a brilliant bank and so is Monzo. You can pay in at any post office kiosk and most cheques you take a photo of and they go in through the app. No branches and 24 customer service

I agree they're terrible! We moved to Nationwide about 10 years ago. Awful service and terrible at sorting anything.

I have also been with Santander for 20 years and they are great if nothing goes wrong but about 10 years ago I had an issue with my account and they made me go in to a branch too. I was really angry but at least I didn't have the stress of a demanding job like yours.

I feel so sorry for you.

First Direct
First Direct
First Direct
They win all the Customer Service Awards.
Dry your tears OP. Tomorrow is another day and First Direct awaits!

Yes do this. Also Money Box on radio 4.

Doctors should not have to do this.

I am sure one of those will take your case up because of your vital role at the moment.

Really sorry for you. You don’t need the stress. I hope it feels easier to deal with in the morning.

Playing devils advocate here.

Why have they told you to go into the bank in person. They clearly think there is some kind of potential security or fraud issue here. Perhaps they think this is an unusual transaction and want to see you in person. Were you able to remember your security questiona answers when asked?

Santander are helpful to Ukrainian refugees opening accounts. If they missed out Ukrainian in the advert they would be considered more welcoming and diverse.

I used to have a business account with them.
They bragged that they were offering 'free business banking for life'

It would have to be free, as nobody would pay for the kind of service they offered!