Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

[enquirer]

Re: Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

The best thing about any Santander branch is the door marked "Exit".

[orangecat]

Re: Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

An update:
After 6 days (including daily online reminders), Santander have finally replied - two things:
1. The have credited our account with £5 to comensate for the delay in replying (that's 83p per day) - generosity to the extreme (although it is money for nothing I suppose)
2. The odd bit - in their reply they have stated "...are unable to determine whether we (Santander) honour the payment...".
Unless I am picking them (in this case, a 'Complaints Specialist') up totally wrong, are they actually saying that they (my bank) don't decide if a debit card payment is processed or declined when it takes an account over an agreed overdraft limit? If this is the case, then exactly who would decide?
I have asked the question of them - goodness knows what kind of half-baked response I'll get off them this time. No doubt the debit card payment fairy makes all their decisions for them.

Have tried to communicate with them in Spanish?
orangecat

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

I sent Satan's Den a SAR just over a year ago, including a PO for the £10 maximum fee. They replied promptly, but send just 6 months worth of current account statements! When I asked for the rest they replied it would cost a further £10 to get anything else! After a letter of complaint and an email, I got £50 paid into my account for all my troubles! But it took half a year! I still didn't get anything for the savings/ISA accounts, however, I got what I was after, which was confirmation they've been taking monthly payments for some kind of insurance to cover a flexiloan account attached to the current account, which has been in credit over 90% of the time!

Ole!

[Hewby45]

Re: Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

I would suggest that you write to their Chief Executive Officer (CEO). In the UK the CEO is Ana Patricia Botin and she can be reached by the above address. She is the daughter of Santanders HQ/Global Chairman Emilio Botin, so one would hope she is well placed to get things resolved. This email address seems to get to her - ceo@santander.co.uk

Thats the only way I ever got a satisfactory response from them, good luck

[supermac9]

Re: Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

Is it just me?
About a week ago I had to pay cash into our account, and because I work (like many others no doubt), the only opportunity I had was first thing in the morning - on the two occasions I did this, the shiny new ATM didn't dispense an envelope and I had to use my own (luckily I had a couple of old ones in the car). Out of courtesy, I added this to my message thread I have had with Santander, not expecting them to take any notice.
However, they have obviously had the branch manager test the machine, and the bottom line is that there is nothing wrong with it and it must be me doing something wrong (no-one else has complained about it either) - they have told me that they cannot uphold my complaint. They have suggested that I call into the branch, drag the branch manager outside and test it in her presence (my words, not theirs) - no doubt if I did this it would work perfectly.
Out of morbid curiosity I am going to test the machine tomorrow morning before work - if it does work, all well and good, but if it doesn't I'm going to record the whole transaction on my phone and e-mail it to them.
Has anyone else ever had similar problems, or am I being singled out for special treatment?

Update - tried again this morning (twice), and surprise surprise it didn't spit out an envelope - I'm going to have to get a member of staff to show me what I am doing wrong.

[supermac9]

Re: Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

(Another) Update.
Went to branch on Saturday morning to ask someone to show me how to obtain a deposit envelope from the ATM, only to be told that the machine was faulty - I was given a large supply of deposit envelopes to tide me over.
After being told by Santander that it must be my at fault as no-one else has ever had any problems and that their central ATM team have never had any faults reported to them, I find it satisfying (and frustrating) that Santander are at fault. I'm not sure if I have been lied to previously, or if they simply aren't interested in dealing with complaints fully and just make things up as they go along - either way, I have sent the usual complaint messages with a veiled threat that I will be taking things further (as if that means a great deal).

[supermac9]

Re: Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

Out of desperation I e-mailed the CEO at Santander about this, so her team now have this to deal with - the only problem is that they have given themselves 8 weeks to respond!
Looks like patience is my only option.

[leclerc]

Re: Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

Out of desperation I e-mailed the CEO at Santander about this, so her team now have this to deal with - the only problem is that they have given themselves 8 weeks to respond!
Looks like patience is my only option.

They are treating it as a complaint so that is why they are saying 8 weeks. You need to make them aware that you have been trying to pay in and you have been told that it is your fault by their own customer services team(telephone banking i would assume) yet the branch have stated there is a fault and have made their customer service team out to be a bunch of fools. If the situation has been an ongoing issue then clearly someone should have done more to resolve the situation rather than sit on their own hands doing nothing. Clearly they should be able to see a log of calls you may have made about this issue and so it has been an ongoing saga.

Can I ask whether you gave them a chronology of events or a timeline of your attempts to use the paying in facility plus there should be a note of the conversation in December 2012 on your account?(I assume they gave you a reference number for that complaint)

That would back up the fact that you have had problems since December until you were inconvenienced by having to go into the branch and asking them, which is when they said that the ATM was "faulty".

[supermac9]

Re: Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

I've actually received a written reply from someone called Nathan Talmedge, Complaints Resolution Manager, who deals with CEO complaints.
He is obviously being fed complete rubbish by the ATM Maintenance Team (who obviously don't know or do a great deal) and branch staff, as he has told me that the ATM in question has worked perfectly since it was installed in November 2012, apart from a couple of occasions in January where customers (there you go, our fault again!) have jammed the machine while depositing envelopes incorrectly - both were sorted within a few hours (!). I have a chronological list of problems going back to November, being a combination of the ATM being out of order or just not dispensing envelopes. I have e-mailed him this list and asked for comments. I have also told him about one of the counter staff telling me (on 09.02.13) the ATM had developed a fault but that they didn't know when it was going to be fixed.

I've reached the end of the road with this one - Nathan is saying that the failure of an ATM to dispense an envelope is not a fault (it may not be, it just might be empty), and that they have no record of there being anything wrong with the machine on 09.02.13. Very simply, they are a bunch of liars - I cannot think of another way to describe them.
He has pointed me in the direction of the FOS, so for what it's worth (probably not a lot), I'll wing something off to them.

[leclerc]

Re: Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

I've actually received a written reply from someone called Nathan Talmedge, Complaints Resolution Manager, who deals with CEO complaints.
He is obviously being fed complete rubbish by the ATM Maintenance Team (who obviously don't know or do a great deal) and branch staff, as he has told me that the ATM in question has worked perfectly since it was installed in November 2012, apart from a couple of occasions in January where customers (there you go, our fault again!) have jammed the machine while depositing envelopes incorrectly - both were sorted within a few hours (!). I have a chronological list of problems going back to November, being a combination of the ATM being out of order or just not dispensing envelopes. I have e-mailed him this list and asked for comments. I have also told him about one of the counter staff telling me (on 09.02.13) the ATM had developed a fault but that they didn't know when it was going to be fixed.

I've reached the end of the road with this one - Nathan is saying that the failure of an ATM to dispense an envelope is not a fault (it may not be, it just might be empty), and that they have no record of there being anything wrong with the machine on 09.02.13. Very simply, they are a bunch of liars - I cannot think of another way to describe them.
He has pointed me in the direction of the FOS, so for what it's worth (probably not a lot), I'll wing something off to them.

Ask him then, when the ATM runs out of envelopes, whether that is classed as an ATM fault or not? What would be recorded as a fault on the ATM roll in question or via the electronic dispenser? Do you know the name of the person who told you that the ATM was faulty because ultimately, branch staff have used the word "fault" and not used the word working perfectly.

[supermac9]

Re: Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

Leclerc, I don't have the name but I expect I will recognise her again as it's a small branch and there are usually two counter staff at the most.
I've had another e-mail from my friend Nathan, who has simply said they are right, I'm wrong and I can go to the FOS if I want (knowing he can spin a web of lies with them and there is nothing anyone can do to prove otherwise). i did reply telling him to get his facts right, but he hasn't come back to me!

[leclerc]

Re: Santander Customer (Dis-)Service

Does the ATM have CCTV footage?
I would ask Nathan btw, the questions I have asked which you can say you have been advised to ask prior to taking the case to the Financial Ombudsman service. Furthermore, go into the branch and actually get the name of the person you spoke to and make sure you use their name because clearly they will contradict what has been said by customer relations. When you spoke to the branch person about the issue of the ATM machine, did they have your account details up? Did they treat that as a complaint?