£800 charge for not paying into new Santander account!

[The Debt Star]

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

Like it Ame - no apostrophe in it's by the way (sorry!).

I particularly like the way you're asking them to close, which if they did, would leave no debt as there's no account. Never realised you were sneaky too!

Give her detention!

[Shih Tsu]

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

Excellent, so I'll send my complaint there then. Apologies AND compo sounds amazing?! (although I don't deserve any compo really?!...)

Just got a letter from Santander today & thought I'd better actually open this one! So now I have my account number & sort code

The letter was just a statement saying my account was minus £891, no scary demnads to pay it or anything. So atleast it's not the debt collectors anymore and they've handed it back to Santander which is much less scary!

[Shih Tsu]

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

Sent the email......now we wait.....

[Shih Tsu]

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

Right, I got sent a 'Deafult Notice' from santander (also missed a call from head office on friday,so maybe they were calling to sort it out?or to yell at me?!) The letter says I have to pay the full amount in 14days or action will be taken. But what actin will that be if they passed it onto a debt collection agency who then transfered the debt back to santander?

[Celestine]

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

So they have defaulted you whilst the account is in dispute??

Good grief. This could mean a default being entered on your credit file which would remain for 6 years. Not good.

[Shih Tsu]

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

Yes, I need to get the formal letter sent asap to put the account in dispute!! I will call back the lady who rang from head office tomorrow and see what she has to say. SCARED though as I hate talking on the phone and they will trick me into things!

[Shih Tsu]

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

The plot thickens....
So I called head office back and they can't dismiss any of the charges as they said I agreed to do the switch and did not ask to close the account at any point. They are sending me statements from the accounts inception so I will be able to see where the charges have built up and hopefully get some back based on that-I'll lay it all out for you clever ones who know the loopholes when I get the statement.

Also, they said I have been misinformed by HSBC, which makes sense. When I noticed direct debits were f**king up I went into HSBC to see what was going on. They said all my debits were 'live' from their end and there is no reason they shouldn't be going through. I questioned whether Santander may have something to do with it and HSBC said, in person, that they had been 'requested' by Santander to move my debits over to the new account but that I 'had nothing to worry aboout' as I hadn't formally told HSBC to go ahead and move my debits over. Safe it that knowldege, I thought Santander would go away. Are HSBC liable financially in any way? How can I present to them that the advice given to me in store led to this mess? And am I likely to get compo to help me pay Santanders charges or just a sorry?

I'm getting abit worried as it's looking like I'm going to have to stump up nearly £1000 then try and weadle some money back from Santander on the basis that they are unfairly building charges up on me. I also stupidly told head office at Santander on the phone that I hadn't opened mail from Santander as I assumed they'd be blank statements. Santander are sending their reply to my email in writing with my statements, do I still need to formally put the account in disupte? The previous letter said they would be letting rip on the creditors in 28 days?!

dum dum dum.....

[The Debt Star]

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

So they have defaulted you whilst the account is in dispute??

Good grief. This could mean a default being entered on your credit file which would remain for 6 years. Not good.

totally agree, best avoided if poss.

but, should that happen, it is not the end of matters as I successfully got a default removed last year when HSBC closed a current account and served a DN. the fact that you have the account in dispute already will be very useful when it comes to going to the FOS to get the unfair default removed.

[Shih Tsu]

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

So, I got the list of charges back from Santander. Happily, they haven't charged me for not paying any money into my account but they DID take direct debits that HAD infact been switched over from HSBC for a couple of months; these debits then started to be returned and I got charged between £10 and £35 each time a direct debit was returned, I also got charged monthly interest and unauthorised overdraft fees.

Are these the kind of fees I can get out of?

I emailed HSBC (waiting for "investigation" and response) saying that their staff misinformed me and it is their fault these charges have been racked up. The biggest direct debit was for my HSBC loan for which I was charged £35 a pop when it was returned; I hope to claim these charges atleast back from HSBC because it's ridiculous they can't tell their own loan repayments have been transferred. I also need to look into my loan repayments to HSBC as re-set up direct debit payments from another account to pay the loan and it looks like I've been double charged for a couple of months atleast.

BUT to sweeten the deal (and the campaign against the banks) I should be able to claim back PPI against said HSBC loan. It looks like my only hope now is make HSBC see the error of their ways (I threatened them with press, FOS etc) and to reimburse me for the charges.

Does this sound plausible to anyone or am I going to have to suck it up, pay and learn my lesson?

[Amethyst]

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

When you signed up for the account at Santander did you realise you had signed up for the switching service, or what the switching service entailed ?

Did HSBC at any time check with you that you had agreed to a switching service ?

How long between signing up for the account with Santander and receiving letters from creditors that the DD's had been returned ? And how long between then and contacting HSBC ?

Did HSBC fail to mention anything about the DD's having been cancelled due to the switching service ?

Did Santander inform you of the bounced DD's at the time they occured ?

[Shih Tsu]

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

I did realise Santander did a switching service but after applying for the account and changing my mind, I heard nothing from HSBC who I assumed would check with me before allowing DD switches.

HSBC specifically said no switching would take place when I asked them. I had to suggest it to the advisor in the bank as he could see no reason why my DDs would not go through.He said I had "nothing to worry about"

I opened the account in September and noticed DDs being returned about a month later and went in to HSBC to see what was up after another few weeks when new DD request forms I filled in with my gym hadn't worked either.

I got letters from debt collectors about 3 months ago. I hadn't opened any post from Santander, which was probably statements which would have shown returned DDs as I assumed they would be blank statements saying nothing was going on in my account as I wasn't using it.

MY HSBC loan is my biggest DD and accrued the most interest with Santander; HSBC still couldn't see that their own DD had been switched and didn't contact me even after I set up a new DD out of another account to pay my HSBC loan.

I did point blank as HSBC if DD problems could be due to my switch to Santander and they said Santander had "presented" or made a "request" to switch my DDs but that HSBC wouldn't ever agree to it without my say so first so I had nothing to worry about. Had I not brought up Santander at all, HSBC wouldn't have said anything, as they couldn't figure out what was going wrong with my DDs.

I'm still awaiting reply from HSBC after my lengthy complaint. I've also been advised to pay off Santander ASAP (which I can do next pay check) and then just concentrate on getting some fees back. Will paying them off now weaken my hardship case later on or is it a good idea to get them off my back?

THANK YOU ALL xx

[Amethyst]

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

I'll check the guidelines for switching services - once I get the FSA website to work. It does make sense that your bank should check with you about the switching, although it depends what forms of authority you gave to Santander to act on your behalf.

£800 is a heck of a lot of money if you are in hardship honey. Don't let it affect priority debts/utilities etc you are paying. The account IS currently in dispute and the DCA is off your back for the moment. Santander also hold responsibility for this as your income wasn't transferred over - and Santander should have made contact querying this as it would be extremely obvious things weren't quite working.

[WendyB]

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

I signed up for a Santander account ( in fact I've done it twice). Both times online. I did it because they were offering £100 cash back. I have to say, it does quite clearly ask when you complete online, whether you wish to use the switching service or not. So I suppose, that by agreeing to switch, signing online and agreeing to the account terms and conditions, I would be giving my authorisation for them to take over and switch my DDs. The first time, I said yes, then a couple of weeks later I got a letter saying they couldn't switch because the account I had mentioned was a joint account, whereas the Santander account I had opened was a single account. It said if they didn't hear from me, the account would be closed. After the required amount of time, 11 weeks I think it was, they duly closed the account as I had paid nothing in and not used it at all.
The second time, I did exactly the same, applied online, but said NO to the question of whether I wanted to switch. They opened the account, sent me the debit card etc, then told me I couldn't have the £100 as I wasn't switching. You have to switch the whole lot using their switching service, you can't just pick and choose and switch a couple of DDs manually ( I tried this the first time, in the vain hope of getting the £100 lol). It was made clear in the blurb online that if I didn't pay in xxx per month I would be charged (£2 per month, or day, or something like that) I can't remember the exact charges amounts but I do remember it was made clear, it wasn't hidden. They also made clear how long I had to start using the account before the charges would start applying.
So I had to trek into the nearest Santander and close the account before they started charging me.

[Shih Tsu]

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

[QUOTE=WendyB;221466]

UH OH!!!!!

[Shih Tsu]

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

So, after my long complaint email to HSBC about being misinformed in store which led to me racking up Santander charges, they phoned to make an appointment for me to come in and see them at my home branch. The manager left a message saying they want to see me ASAP and they're very flexible on timings. Is this a good sign? I'm scared.