Santander - £25 charges?

[stevokenevo]

I have been charged £25 several times by santander for unpaid direct debits.

I thought the max was £12?

[leclerc]

Re: Santander - £25 charges?

That's credit card charges

[Turboman]

Re: Santander - £25 charges?

See here for current account charges

Important Changes to Overdrafts: Santander

[stevokenevo]

Re: Santander - £25 charges?

i was with LTSB previously and they only charged a tenner, i thought this was in line with the £12 max, shows what i know

[the_d_man]

Re: Santander - £25 charges?

Hi

I had a similar thing happen to me about a 2 months ago, me and the wife share a santandar account to pay for mortgage water council tax etc... we both put in money each month to pay for these services, one month we were a bit late putting in the money which meant there wasn't enough money to pay the direct debits and therefore we were charge £25 for each transaction.

I was so angry i wrote them message on their online help they have when you view your account, Told them the charges were unfair and were not explained or listed in any documents we signed and the lady who recommended us the account in the branch did not go through these charges.

So we get an letter a next few days saying it is being investigated then followed by a phone call they are going to refund us the £100 out of goodwill!!!! yeah right, they didn't want the trouble of me digging deeper on how they sell their accounts in the branches...

[enaid]

Re: Santander - £25 charges?

I doubt they would do this on a second occasion, usually they do refund if you complain and are not a serial offender.
The T&Cs will be in your paper work or online and all the charges will be included in them.

[the_d_man]

Re: Santander - £25 charges?

probably, I have a real dislike for santander lol, moved alot of my accounts away from them and just the joint account to move now!

[Tools]

Re: Santander - £25 charges?

I have recently had notification of 2x£25 charges one for unpaid DD, one for a card payment that went out way after I used my card to book tickets online, the company took far too much time to claim the payment,plus a £5 Unathorised Overdraft Usage Fee.

Having the car insurance,MOT and road tax ALL due at the beginning of the month, when the charges were due to be taken out, I called Santander, got straight through, and after letting them know my situation they agreed to waive the charges without any hassle at all. I have to say I was treated fairly and courteously, I do not make a habit of racking up charges (unlike a few years ago) and I guess this swayed their decision.

10/10 in my opinion for customer service on this occasion

[Mr $quanda£ot]

Re: Santander - £25 charges?

In the old days of Abbey National - going back to the late '90's - I often exceeded my overdraft limit. I then called in a branch and they would just increase my limit and no charges were taken.

It's a different game now. Branch staff have no authority to make any decisions. They just ask you to contact the call centre who, again, have no will/authority to refund any charges. As Enaid said, if you escalate your complaint, they will probably refund the charges on the first occasion.

I do believe that £25 for an unpaid direct debit or a bounched cheque is excessive. Having said that, Barclays used to charge that back in 1996.

All you can really do is to go elsewhere. In fact, part of the problem is that people don't shop around when it comes to bank accounts.

If you have, say, three charges of £75 and the bank refuses to refund them you could open a new account elsewhere and not pay the £75. If you have an overdraft that's easy to do, just pay everything back apart from £75 and write to the bank that you are no longer going to use the account. They will probably not chase it. I did exactly this with Barclays. I wrote to them that I would not be able to honour their charges without consulting the Ombudsman first. They immediately refunded the charges but closed the account, telling me that I was 'a difficult customer'.

Unfortunately, banks take it one way or another. In some countries you're are actually charged every time you request a mini statement using a cashpoint, not to mention monthly fees etc.