£800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

[Shih Tsu]

I was going to open an account with Santander and signed everything and got my card in the post etc but never actually started to use the account or have my wages paid in.

It's the account that gives you £100 a month if you pay in atleast £1000 a month. Santander have been charging me this £100 every month for some reason as I've not been paying my £1000 in.

It's now up to £800 and they passed me onto a collection agency who have now passed me back to Santander who are going to contact my creditors andput a black mark against me.

How can they charge me like this when I've never ever used there service (the account) and didn't take anything from them. What exactly are they charging me for?

[Kafka]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

What does is say in the agreement that you signed?

[Caspar]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

Which account is it? I've just looked at all their current accounts, but I can't see one that offers £100 if you pay in £1000 per month. Plenty offer £100 for switching. Are you sure you've not taken one of these and then been penalised for not paying in an agreed amount.

[Deller]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

At a guess I would say the bank were never going to pay you £100 per month, no matter what the conditions.

Santander do offer a £100 for switching accounts so long as you match the requirements of crediting a min of £1000 per month, as you've not done this you won't have received the welcome bonus.

I'm with Casper on this one and would suggest you've been penalized for not meeting the requirements. Do your statements show what the charges are for.

[calamity jane]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

It appears that you opened either a Reward Account or a Preferred Current Account.

Both of these Accounts require fees to be paid monthly £10 for the Reward Account and £20 for the Preferred Current Acount.

Presumably as you did not deposit the required £1000 a month, any overdraft applicable to the account would have been withdrawn. The fees would then have been classed as an unauthorised overdraft. The charges for this is £5 a day for a maximum of 20 days.There is also a £2 charge If you fail to pay the minimum monthly payment into your account making a total of £112.00 a month for the Reward Account and £122.00 for the preferred Current Account.


CJ

[Shih Tsu]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

Thanks guys

Now any idea how and if I can get out of these charges? I fully understand being charged for using an account but I didn't even go so far as to use the card or pay any money in ever, so is there not a loophole that the account is dead and therefore null and void?

Also, can I use the defence that these charges are not in line with the actual admin costs? The debt collection agency said they're now passing my debt back to Santander will inform my creditors-what does this mean?

Thanks again so much guys, it's a weight off my shoulders just having a few people know what I'm up against

[The Debt Star]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

What a shocking and utter swindle.

Satander really are a evil bank. Unrelated I know, but my car loan is with them and they add overlimit charges on late payment charges. Bloddy disgrace.

If everyone stopped using them they would soon pish off back to Espana where they belong.

[leclerc]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

I need to look at the terms and conditions cos I can't see anything within that account that charges £100.00 if you don't pay money into it.....still looking though

[leclerc]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

ok. just as I was going to be a prat and email Santander media relations person I found this:
Best Bank Accounts: Free £100 & 0% overdraft OR 2% cashback ...

They're charging you because it's charges for not paying in £100 plus overdraft fees and NOT as it sounded in post 1.

[Shih Tsu]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

Ahh ok, so I'm being charged £2 (is that per day?) for not paying money in and then getting charged for the unauthorised overdraft.
Can I then claim back the overdraft charges as they aren't allowed to pile charges up for days and weeks and months?
Also do I have a leg to stand on with regards to me never using the account, never transferring my direct debits over (I started the process but never finalised) and this being effectively a dormant account?
Does it really cost them that much to give me an unauthorised overdraft to recoup THEIR own charges?!

Also I agree, we need to make more noise about Santander as I've only heard bad things about them.

[Caspar]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

I read about the other accounts and assumed it must be one of them, but checked with the OP to ensure they didn't have an account in the past with those conditions.

As regards getting them back, one would hope as you have never used the account you should stand a good chance of having the charges reversed. However, from their point of view they are quite entitled to ask why you signed up for an account with a minimum deposit of £1000 per month when you had no intention of using it? I would suggest you have an answer ready for that question.

[The Debt Star]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

I gather that the idea was to have the salary paid into it each month, hence the £1000 not being a problem. Presumably though the account has to have a cleared £1000 in de minimis? Otherwise the bank won't pay out interest like that.

Might this have been mis-sold or the customer deceived in some way?

[Amethyst]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

That's what I was thinking DS. From conversation with the 'defendant' elsewhere, the account was applied for online then never touched.

They have already got the DCA to pass the account back to Santander so that's a good step.

I think we need to ask Santander for a list of transactions on the account since inception - which hopefully they should provide as part of the complaints process rather than having to fanny about with the DPA.

Now, the account T&C's are http://www.santander.co.uk/csgs/Sate...mentoGSPreview - I can't get the darn document to open so if it is just me and someone else can, fancy downloading it to pdf and attaching it to a post here ?

If that link doesn't work the T&C bittys are Current Accounts - Legal Details: Santander

Am wondering if there is anything about a time limit for commencing use of the account / ie it may take a month or two to sort out salary being redirected and so on/so forth. Nothing was done with the account since it was applied for online.


Once we have the transaction list it will be much easier to see the charges upon charges which is, I'm sure, now against the Lending Code ?

I think a formal complaint to Santander to get the 8 weeks running and all the info required and then a FOS complaint if nothing doing. But hopefully in the meantime someone at Santander will see sense. (pfftttt).

[Deller]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

Current Accounts Specific Conditions

[Amethyst]

Re: £800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

You are a babe Deller, and good to see you about the place btw xx