the level of incompetence is astounding…….

I’ve been with the A&L for the past 8 years an no problems to speak off, they looked after their customers. Now in steps Santander and these guys seriously suck, they don’t give a monkeys about you. Anybody else noticed this?

I’ve just given up with them and moving elsewhere, their loss as I had plenty savings with them.

hsbc are quite good.

They’ve twice phoned me and said ‘We’ve spotted a fraudulent transaction on your account!’

Me ‘Great, so you’ve stopped it?’

Them ‘Oh, no, we can’t do that – we have to debit your account and then when you phone us to complain we try and claim the money back’

Me: ‘So why did you phone?’

Them: ‘errrm.”

They’ve just lost me as well, had a problem with them recently and could not get anybody to help.

think yourself lucky that you weren’t with Abbey National before the takeover..

Santander is a drastic improvement..

First Direct is your best bet by far if you want good customer service..

Santander blocked my account last week for suspicious activity.

I received automated phone calls for 2 days asking to confirm security details which I wasn’t prepared to give.

Called their 0845 number eventually, costing way more than the 28p Paypal transaction they blocked.

Ah well, at least they’re keeping an eye on things.

Yes, their security questions are not really thought out. Such as “what is the number of your card, the expiry date, and now the CSV number” When they got to the CSV number I asked to speak to a manager because at this point the call centre employee has enough details to use your card….. The manager wasn’t interested and said it had been vetted by Ofcom.

Was very happy with the Abbey but Santander SUCK.
Will be moving to a competitor in the New Year.

Dismal Customer Service and horrific telephone costs every time I need to ring them.

Banks .. it’s a lottery these days, accept that and save loads of stress. As a counterpoint, I phoned up Abbey National last night about something stupid they’d done on my account (first time ever on an account I’ve had years) and the nice chap on the phone immediately credited my account with a fiver for my trouble. 🙂

Same as the op I had a current account with A&L, always was trouble free. In steps Santander in September and immediately charges me £5 because I had not put £500 in the account in the previous month, I ring them up and tell them 1) I had lodged over £900 the previous month 2)First I heard of a minimum amount required. Call centre bod apologises blamed it on an IT problem and assured me it would not happen again.
Quelle Surprise the buggers have charged me twice since then.
Thankfully I have a Smile account as well where I have always had no trouble and dealt with friendly bods.

I agree, they are incompetent. Have managed to mess up my name change even though I sent them the paperwork twice and even then my salutation was incorrect.

I sent them online messages and they kept telling me to go to a branch to sort out, the branch said no we can’t do that. Eventually messaged them and told them their ‘service’ was unacceptable and I would be taking my business elsewhere.

Yesterday, I received a cheque in the post for £40 by way of an apology. 😯

+1 for First Direct. I am one of their original customers (joined when they opened in 1990) and have had one slight hiccup in that time. For which they apologised profusely and immediately put right. Would recommend them to anyone, and no, I don’t work for the HSBC group. Used to work for Santander mind…..

Yesterday, I received a cheque in the post for £40 by way of an apology.

Can they not do bank transfers, being, y’know, a bank?

Just to echo what others have said; I had a little-used Abbey account, no problems at all until they got taken over by Santander, who appear to be a cunch of bunts.

*shudders*

I used to work for Abbey Business Banking customer service, and didn’t get past my probationary period for the simple reason that I wasn’t meeting targets.
Targets?
Yes, so many calls per day.
The object of the calls was to deal with the customers’ issues so they could get them sorted out.
(this was around the time of the Santander takeover, btw)
Turns out I was spending too much time with the customer trying to get their issue resolved, so they could hang up happier than when they rang.
My management team were happier seeing a ‘calls taken per shift’ tally being met, regardless of whether the customer was left satisfied or not.
Hated that setup with a passion, and subsequently halted all dealings with the idiots.
I’d even sell my shares in them if I could find the certificate they are written on!

*shudders once again*

For a good bank, in my opinion, I’d suggest the Co-Operative. In the fifteen or so years I’v been there, I’ve never had a problem and the telephone banking is such a pleasure.
Even more branches now that they’ve merged with Brittania.

Last year I lost my Santander debit card. So they correctly cancelled the card and my on-line banking.
18 months and 5 promises by staff at a call centre that It will be reinstated and the paperwork sent out have come to nothing, zero.

The word pormise doesn’t seem to mean anything these days.

I am really, really fed up with them now.

For a good bank, in my opinion, I’d suggest the Co-Operative.

+ 1

Has pormise ever meant anything? (sorry it was too easy)

I’m with HSBC at the moment and was seriously considering changing to Santander. Not got round to it and think its probably better not to.

Years ago we had accounts (bank/mortgage) with the National and Provincial building society , they were fantastic a really personal service you felt like a valued customer.

Then they were taken over by Abbey National and customer service seemed to go straight out of the window. Occasionally money would disappear from my bank account , not massive amounts the odd £40-£50 it would reappear a few days later internal investigations found nothing. Getting service at an Abbey counter was near on impossible , I used to take plenty of reading material.

Since Santander took over the disappearing money has stopped but the counter staff don’t seem to have got any better. We don’t have a mortgage any more so can’t comment on their handling of that type of business.

think yourself lucky that you weren’t with Abbey National before the takeover..

Santander is a drastic improvement..

you think so? You’ve not been into the Shipley branch then.

2 cashier points in the narrowest part of the “shop”, one of them permanently staffed by a young trainee who clearly hasn’t actually had any training, and the other one so busy trying to help him that she doesn’t get anything done herself. And if you should be lucky enough to get to the front of the queue, just wait for the computer system to crash…

Luckily we only have a deposit account with them, oh and my ISA that’s got a whopping £12 in it. One day, when I can be bothered, I shall move the deposit account to, say Skipton BS

As far as I can tell from dealing with them, they have about enough skill, knowledge and resources to effectively run a bank about half as big as they are.

First Direct is your best bet by far if you want good customer service..

+1, been with them since about 1995, extremely helpful staff, wifey also banks with them.

I’d recommend First Direct.

Friendly, competent staff and excellent fraud prevention. I’ve been with them for nearly 20 years.

A few year’s ago my wife and I both had our cards cloned. She’s with Natwest.

First Direct spotted the first suspicious withdrawal (because it was at an unusual time and place), cancelled the card and issued a new one before I’d even noticed.

Natwest let the thief take all the funds up to the overdraft limit. Then increased the limit and let them take some more. But they refused to tell us where the funds had gone. In total they paid out over £2,000 before they admitted there was a problem (Someone withdrawing funds in the middle of the night at the other end of the country was not unusual. They suggested I’d driven the 500 mile round trip to take the money out!).

I’m with Cahoot part of Santander, apart from them not having fast track clearing they have been good at spotting fraud on my account and credit card, and seem willing to help when an issue arises.