Hi, My Premium Account is being scrapped and I rely on the following features of it: 1.) The fee-free overdraft 2.) The mobile phone insurance 3.) The breakdown cover 4.) The travel insurance Now they are closing the account, I will be switched to the every day account which means I'll be charged £1/day for being in my authorised overdraft up to a maximum 20 days in any one month. Due to the way I'm currently running my account, this means I'll end up being charged £20/month for my overdraft, but get none of the "perks" For this reason I'm looking to move my account elsewhere, however due to my credit rating, I'm unable to get the overdraft matched elsewhere. I'm interested to find out if it is possible to ask Santander to freeze the charges on my overdraft while I pay it off? I'll instead have to pay another bank £10/month for similar features, but I begrudge paying Santander £20/month for nothing. I would accept paying up to £10/month until the overdraft is cleared - do you think this is something they would accept?

Hey guys, I took a 1 year loan out with them last year and I also hold a bank account with them. The loan was paid into my Santander bank account and repayments were made via Direct Debit from that account. Some time last month I had a letter off them which showed what amounts of my loan has been paid off. Repayment date was always the 13th and I think I had this letter before the 13th March. I had a quick read through it and it said all had been repaid, no missed payments. I checked on my credit report which updates every 30 days (last update was 9th April) and it shows Santander loan, all payments up to date this year, no missed or late payments. I had enough in my bank to cover March's repayment but due to the letter saying all was clear and paid I took that money out and bought myself some things. On the 13th march it showed in my bank account that they tried to take the direct debit out but due to no funds it was "unpaid". Santander have put a £25 charge on that unpaid direct debit. I checked again on that letter I had off them, checked the months and noticed the last payment was due in March, however this letter was received before the repayment date and it shows that March's payment was paid off. I think this is down to their computer systems. What I think happened was March 13th was indeed the final repayment date. Their systems detected I hadnt missed a payment of my loan and assumed I wouldnt miss March's repayment. They sent the letter before the repayment date which at a glance showed no outstanding payments due and showed the loan as cleared. Then I took the money out and bought things thinking I didnt owe anything but a few days later on March 13th the final repayment did come out and it bounced so theres that "unpaid direct debit" £25 fee (which I was only made aware of today via pre notification of charges that their ebanking system gives) Since the 13th March they have made no attempts to contact me. It seems that due to their system they are probably not even aware that I have 1 outstanding payment or otherwise I guess they would of tried to phone me or sent a letter saying the payment was missed and so theres a charge + extra interest to be added on. At very least it should have shown up on my credit report as a "missed payment" rather than showing as paid and up to date. The worry now is that it's the 13th again today so no doubt their systems will automatically try and take that payment again + interest and their charges (no idea what the amount will even be) and since I don't get anymore money in my bank until the end of the month its obviously going to be another £25 "unpaid direct debit" charge and also they will add another missed payment charge and interest onto the loan amount. A complete shambles because had I not received that letter saying all loan repayment amounts had been paid, I would have left the money in my bank in March and the loan would of been cleared back then.

Hello all...This is my first posting on this site so please forgive my shortcomings. Any help, advice or suggestions offered will be hugely appreciated by this old insomniac. I have been reading a bit about MCOBS and how it is unlawful for customers to be treated unfairly or communicated with in an unfair way by Banks. a Firstly, I have a mortgage with Santander (previously Abbey National) and I am presently being threatened with possession proceedings due to mortgage arrears. I was forced to give up work 3 years ago due to serious ill health and since then, my only income has been a DWP benefit called ESA (sickness benefit). The benefit contributes to my mortgage (SMI) at the rate of 3.63% . but Santander charges me the Standard Variable Rate, hence the shortfall. I feel I am being treated unfairly as Santander are offering mortgages at the rate of 2.39% to new customers. I've explained my circumstances to them and asked about a lower rate on numerous occasions, but to no avail. Santander state they cannot reduce my mortgage rate because I'm in arrears. I have been upset, distressed and felt harassed by the content of some of their letters and their numerous phone calls over the last couple of years. Just between January and mid March this year, I have received 15 threatening letters from them. The situation has caused my health to deteriorate hugely and if I do decide to take action against them, I will be able to provide medical evidence of this. Can anyone advise if I should sue them through the County Court for 'unfair treatment' and 'unfair communication' for the above. Also, I would also like advice about another issue with Santander in which they owe me money. In December 2011, whilst wading through mountains of Santander/Abbey National paperwork, I found two hand written receipts, showing different dates a month apart and identical amounts, £469, for Mortgage Arrangement Fees in 2003. I should have only paid them one amount of £469 but my mistake occurred because each receipt had something different written on it. One said "Survey" and the other said "Valuation". I wrote to Santander, to claim back £469 and provided evidence to show I had paid twice and that the same amount had been deducted twice from my bank account. They responded that they were unable to consider my request as they held no paperwork outside 6 years. I pursued a claim through the Financial Ombudsman and they took nearly a year to make a decision. The Ombudsman decided "Under the DISP rules I am not permitted to consider a complaint if it has been referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service more than six years after the event complained of". Can anyone advise if I could claim this money through the County Court and if so, could this include compounded interest etc? The mind boggles, well mine does anyway. Thanks in advance.

Hi Guys, I am having an issue with Santander, I asked for the account to be closed on March 2012, despite being told by the agent that this would be done, it turns out the account was not closed because there was .68p left in the account. I myself have made no transactions since the 24 of March - When I requested the account to be closed. In November there was a year DD requested from the bank account naturally there was no funds in there and resulted in charges etc, yesterday I opened a letter saying I am about £300 worth of charges. Called the bank and spoke to their collections dept, explained to them that I asked for the account to be closed and that I had not used the account since March 2012 - However they didn't want to listen, they insisted that this was not true and that the charges were valid, and I would get a letter saying they charges stand and the complaint closed, if I was not happy to contact the FOS. Is anyone able to offer any advice?

About 6 months ago my business account was transfered to santander from nat west. I september I was unable to earn due to ill health and so that I had control over my account I cancelled my direct debits with the intention of informing the payees that I had done so and that I would pay them via debit card. In october I incured £280 charges for bounced direct debits. I informed the bank that I had cancelled the direct debits but they said that I should have told the companies not to claim them. All my bills got paid by debit card and I thought everything was ok. This month I got £240 bank charges on direct debits that where cancelled 3 months ago. Am I wrong in assuming that once a direct debit is cancelled with the bank then the bank are honoured not to pay it even if the company claim it? If Im right then why the charges? Surley if these companies had tried to claim on the cancelled direct debit the bank should inform them that there is no direct debit in place and not pay it because it is cancelled and not because there are no funds to pay it. Where do I go from here? Any help gratefully received John

Good morning all! I'll give some background information first of all. We have a loan with SCF for our car. When the agreement was first set up SCF messed up the payment dates - taking it earlier than agreed and we cancelled the DD and set up a SO after discussing this with SCF so that we were in control. We had asked for a change in payment date and the person we spoke to at the time, advised that if we set the SO up for say the 26th of each month, even though the agreement stated the 21st of each month that would be fine. That had gone fine with no charges etc and no problems. In June of last year, we went abroad for 6 months with my husband as he had a job secondment. We set up transfers to our 'bills' account to pay for bills such as the car loan but the first transfer was actioned late by us and it did not hit our bills account in time to pay that months car loan and some other bills. In January upon our return, we received the letters from SCF about the missing payment as well as statements listing the charges. We immediately wrote to them explaining what had happened and advising them that we would obviously pay the missing payment but could they explain why there had been charges of £25 levied one month and 2 x £25 another. From our calculation we needed to pay the missing payment + £200 charges, they were asking for missing payment + £300. To date they have not responded to that letter. In the meantime, the January SO did not go as bill payment via debit card had been processed first. We bank with cahoot and they now stop sending email reminders that a DD or SO has not been paid and their letters don't specify the erceiver so we didn't pick up on January's missed payment until Friday when we received a default notice. The default notice was dated 24th February, was sent TNT Post, arrived on 4th March and gives us until £15th March to pay the best part of £1500. Our contractual monthly payment is £330. February's SO went through fine on 26th as per our original agreement but is obviously not included in the DN as they 'crossed' in the post. We immediately wrote to SCF pointing out that we had not received a response to our letter sent in January querying the charges and added that we felt the DN was defective as the method of sending has not allowed us the 14 days to remedy the default, but most importantly it is defective because the amounts are incorrect as it includes incorrect and excessive charges. We headed it up 'customer complaint', sent it RM SD and gave them 7 days from Monday to respond to us. Is there anything else that I can do here guys over and above what I have already done. We can afford to pay the outstanding two payments but I do not want to do that if they continue with the default and most certainly do not want to pay charges that we believe we have been overcharged on. As I believe the DN is including the arrears charges (from the amounts quoted, I cannot believe it can be for anything else) even if we do pay the outstanding two payments, we will still not be complying to the DN. Don't know if it means anything but the wording on the breach stated that we have missed regular contractual payment, it doesn't state anything that the amount includes the charges. Any suggestions? Cheers, Bel

I have been told by Santander, in writing, that "We have a legal requirement to report accurate information with the Credit Reference Agencies" Is this the case or is it possible for the bank to remove a default notice at their discretion. Many thanks

Hello all, Need advice on how to go about getting info re 2nd Account with Santander. I have had big problems with Santander since they took control of Abbey National...but the biggest problem is recently they asked me if I had a 2nd Account with another person ?? They said it was opened in 1998/9 but has never been used and that it was in my name and one others. I have since been trying to ascertain with whom and failed. When getting my cash book updated, the cashier has commented every time "there's alot of activity on this account" even though I only have got a cashpoint card and cash out money once or twice a week, sometimes not that many times. I questioned this with the Manager, and she was offhand and only offered me a complaint leaflet, when she could've helped question the matter....adding to the suspicion, the cashier mentioned above, looked very worried when the Manager brought my book up to date.... Can anyone advise me on what to do? I'm having alot of difficulty in understanding why an account is still open if it has never been used ? How can I get to access this information to check its not fraudulent ? Many thanks

Santander debt/default help remove it??? Hello Were too start, my husband had an old bank account with the Abby national and had a very basic visa electron card this card did no t allow you too even spend a penny if u did not have it in your account. When Santander took over they upgraded the cards too a visa debit card wich was meant too have the same facilities as the electron card. We moved houses changed our address with them and eventually my husband got a letter saying he was over drawn by £127.00 with charges the official amount was for £27.00 My husband was trying too figure out what it was for, we checked his credit report and they have defaulted him, we have no idea why they allowed him too overdrawn in the first place and we are arguing the point with them that we have also never received a default notice from them, my husband has put a notice of correction on his credit file as this is the only thing he has. I have asked for a copy of the default notice they sent but the complaints department don't have a copy of it as it is from soo long ago nearly 2 years in February ? I am arguing with them over this what do you advise as they have been so unhelpfull? I want this removed urgently Any help is much appreciated Thanks Charlie

Hi there, I am new to this site - so apologies if things sounds a bit garbled. I have a debt with Santander for a store card that I ran into problems with. I have been having regular letters from Santander in means of statements then yesterday a letter saying they had passed debt on. Today I had a letter from Scotscall limited saying that their client is disappointed I have failed to pay them. Thefore they have been instructed to visit me at home to collect the full balance. To resolve the need for a home visit I need to call them to pay in full or make arrangement. I am just in a mess as things at the moment are so hard for us. I have been reading other threads. What do I do regarding ScotCall coming to my home, as my boyfriend doesn't even know about this debt! I will be in huge trouble!! Thanks in advance, Eliza

Hi there, I have been clearing off mortgage arrears to Santander and I now have a balance of only £275 to clear off. However my arrears would have been zero if but for Santander adding an additional £40 "Broken arrangement Fees" for either being a few days late in paying my mortgage by card or by a missed direct debit payment. I have always paid my arrears to Santander and at the moment my arrangement is to pay £30 per month on top of my morgage payments. I feel that I am being unfairly treated. Do I have any prospect of claiming back these outrageous charges

My mucker is having some issues with the aformentioned company. He was the victim of fraud around five weeks ago and is having issues getting his money back and has now switched banks as its not the first time they have dragged their feet. His work have inadvertently paid the money to this now closed account and thy are refusing to pass it back to allow him to be paid and keeping a roof over his head. Any advice so we can get this sorted?

Last May I ordered an online Norton Security subscription on an automatic renewal option (£69.99 per year) and paid for it with a VISA debit card. The card itself expired last summer and was then replaced by a new one. Despite this Norton have taken a further payment (as part of the automatic renewal option) from my bank using the old card details It's partly an oversight from me for not updating card details on Norton's website after selecting the automatic renewal option. Also I can still get the original payment back as part of their returns period (as it turns out I don't need another subscription from them now so will cancel it). My only question is should it even be possible that they can still take a payment on an expired card? When I went into my Norton account they acknowledged that the card needed updating yet still managed to take the payment. I had a similar situation with Amazon a while back but they let me know that a card had expired and wouldn't process the order until the card details had been updated. Thanks

A friend of mine was in despair following Santander not only charging him for a failed direct debit,but then continued to add further daily charges. He informed me that he had called them and emailed them,explaining that the charges were punitive since his only income is Jobseekers allowance. The fees stood at £55 and were rising. He asked me if I could help,and duly wrote him a letter. I was finding it hard to understand,how a bank like Santander,were openly flouting their obligations. My friend had pleaded with them and explained his situation. Santander of course could see from the account too-that he was in reciept of benefits since they were paid into this account. No excuses then...lets get to work. Account number xxxxxxxxxxx Sort Code xx xx xx letter before action Dear Sir/Madam, I am very disappointed in your response to my complaints which were made to you today, and that you have chosen to ignore my request for hardship, I therefore have no alternative but to seek recourse through the county court system. I believe that Santander have treated me unfairly under the following BCOB rules of which Santander should be compliant with,since Santander is a firm regulated by the FSA. Rule 5.1.1 R states “A firm must provide a service in relation to a retail banking service which is prompt, efficient and fair to a banking customer and which has regard to any communications or financial promotion made by the firm to the banking customer from time to time.” Rule 5.1.4 G “Principle 6 requires a firm to pay due regard to the interests of its customers and to treat them fairly. In particular, a firm should deal fairly with a banking customer whom it has reason to believe is in financial difficulty.” Santandar have been informed that I am in reciept of state benefits and that I need these to cover essential living costs including food and heat/lighting. Santander have not at any point acknowledged that this is a hardship case despite me notifying you.You have levied charges of £55 in recent days,and have refused to refund these in your return call to me on 6th.June. For these grounds I feel that I have been treated unfairly. In order for this claim to be settled without the need for court action I require that the full amount taken of £55 returned to me by way of a credit to my account. If I have not received a satisfactory response within 14 days then court action will be commenced without further notice and further costs will be incurred. A judgment for a breach of BCOBS is very serious and the FSA would be empowered to act. Yours Faithfully Mr V. Upset Would the recipients of his email to Santander actually know what the letter was about ? You bet they did! He got a reply quite swiftly...in fact in the space of 30 minutes. Message: Good Afternoon Mr V. Upset Thank you for your email. I am happy to reverse the amount of £55, which have been waived due to exceptional circumstances. To ensure no further charges are incurred on your accounts, we would ask you to monitor your accounts throughout the month. This can be completed through Online Banking, Local Branch and Telephone Banking. I hope this information is useful and if you have any other queries, please do not hesitate to contact me via Secure Messaging or my colleagues on 0845 9724724. Kind Regards, The nice man (who knows his BCOBs from his bankcharges) Santander Customer Services So the message to all those who believe they have been treated unfairly,is to give them a taste of their own famous words when they fob you off with sorry we cant refund the charges..... "This may not be the reply you wanted"

Hi all I am new to this and would appreciate any advice. In short i had mortgage problems due to my marriage breaking down in th emiddle of the GFC. I also worked as a recruitment consultant and lost my job. This all started withme falling behind with my mortgage due to losing my job. I secured a new position and informed Hl Interactive. They responded with a court date to start repossesion. I called and they said the only way to prevent this was to pay the arrears over two years. They told me no need to go to court as if i agreed to pay back the arrears 6 months @ £1200 - £7200 over 24 months I would lose my house. I asked about capatilising and to extend over the period of the loan as they would accept no less. In fear I agreed and had to take a job over seas in Australia to meet the costs. Six months after this last June I had a flood at hoome and had to pay £1000 to fix it. I called HL and they said to put a budget sheet in and they would review it. They continued to threaten repossesion and demanded more money. I stopped trips home and have worked 7 days a week for the last year. I have managed to get infront of the possesion order by defaulting on credit cards and loans. Due to the stress and missing christmas with my daughter I put the house up for sale. The property has sold and am awaiting exchange. The problem being that now despite 4 letters from my solicitor they have failed to give a settlement figure. Emailing them was difficult as the info email bounces back. I eventually found the CEO's email and emailed him. My frustration is that due to bad credit I will not be able to get a mortgage. If they had not miss led me in the first place about the repayments I would not have suffered as much as I have this year. I have lost 4 stone in weight through worry and barely enough money to feed myself. If anybody can give some advice it would be most appreciated. Scott

I've had a Santander credit card since November 2010 with a £9,900 credit limit. I've made payments every month, above the minimum payment, and in plenty of time, always paying by standing order. Last June, my wife was diagnosed with cancer. She has had two major operations and a course of chemotherapy, and is now, hopefully, on the mend. However, she has not worked since last June and funds have been tight. This has not affected my payments to Santander, but on two occasions in recent months I have gone over my credit limit. This has not been by more than £100, and has been rectified as soon as I have realised it. Santander have never had to write to advise me, although they have, on each occasion charged a £12 over limit fee. This morning I received a letter from them, saying that , as from June 1st, they would be increasing the interest rate from 16.9% to 23.9% per annum. Is there anything I can do to prevent this situation, whereby, from just managing to keep our heads above water, the extra £50 per month interest will make life very difficult?

I've had a Burtons Store card for some time now. It had been used but was no was not near its 650 limit. This was over a year ago and I haven't used it since, I've just been paying the minimum (yes I know not a great thing to do ) Anyhow I received a letter from these guys a week ago letting me know I had gone over my limit by around 150 which I was surprised at. I checked my statements and it does appear I've gone over due to charges placed on the account. I notice it had been standing at around 550 when suddenly the minimum payments were obviously not stopping the amount from increasing and thus my current situation. Currently on a course I can post up details from the statement later if it helps (i,e dates and charges.. not account details obviously!) Looking at where to go with this as I don't believe I should be getting charged this extra amount as I had been paying them in good faith with no missed payments and was never at the actual credit limit on the card. Cheers in advance for any advice *Apologies, mods if this is better off in the store cards section could you shift it? Spanks

Sorry cant find this address anywhere , can anyone tell me what it is ...many thanks rs

Hi folks I had a loan that I completely forgot about with Santander. I have recieved a pack asking me to complete details for a PPI claim. Has anyone else had this and has anyone been successful. I know it sounds dumb but i forgot I had the loan and paid it off and I know that I didnt have PPI as I never took PPI out. My sister works for BOS and told me never to take PPI. Thoughs are appreciated. Carlybird:-)

Santander blocked all my wife's on line banking and stopped her debit card.When asked why they said a" deceased tag" had been placed on her account. They subsequently returned cheques marked " drawer deceased". My wife is alive and kicking! Can anyone tell me if this action by Santander IS LEGAL without a death certificate?

Hey guys, Got a loan with them, £1100 + £100 interest for the year. Before the loan I had an authorised overdraft and had planned to use all the cash to buy some good things and a holiday. Which have all been paid for with my loan money and March's wages. When applying I had an authorised overdraft and knew that I could fall back on it. The letter confirmed the direct debit had been set up and they will take the 1st repayment on the 13th April. There is enough to pay it, something like £180 left of my overdraft. The 13th April has been and gone and nothing was taken from my bank. Was planning to phone them today as im off work, but phoned them and their loan department is closed...typical. My bank account is with them too... Will they ammend this? I just dont want negative "missed payment" scores on my credit report as well as a missed payment charge.

I thought i had closed my account only to find out that years later it was still active and building up charges. The address was changed on the account just before i closed, i rarely used it and had been in 2 or 3 times to try and close it previously only to find that i needed one more thing to close the account and they were not being very helpful at all. I finally thought i had all the required paperwork to close it and handed it over and a cheque to take it to £0. I never heard from them again thinking that this was finally it. Now i have recently been chased by Wescot on behalf of Satander for immediate payment. I spoke to them saying i had not received any notification that this account was live, no matter building up charges amounting to £396.45. I explained the situation and they seemed relatively sympathetic. I then asked them to check where the correspondence had been going to was an incorrect address! Wescot said they would speak to Santander and get back to me. I have now received a letter from Wescot saying the amount is 'correct' asking again for immediate payment. Can they just keep adding on charges irregardless? It would surely be two clerical errors or a knock on affect of not having the correct address that they would not have closed the account with the incorrect address? What can i do with an account with that amount of charges when i have had no notifications?

I received a letter from Santander a month ago saying that I need to contact them urgently as i had an unarranged overdraft on my account of £110. I hadn't used this account for some time and had received nothing prior to this letter. I wrote to them asking why I was overdrawn and explained that I hadn't used the account. I get another letter a week later saying that the overdrawn balance was now £200 odd. I haven't used the account so don't know why it's overdrawn. I write to them again saying that I want statements of the account to show the transactions and confirmed again that I have not made any transactions. Next thing is on sat I get a letter saying that my account is now £300 odd overdrawn and they are sending an agent to my house on Friday 13th April. What do I do? I have no idea why I'm overdrawn as haven't used the account and despite asking for details, Santander haven't told me. I'm so scared

I was just wondering is anyone else has experienced their 'Once only' goodwill gesture. Recently I had FIVE DD's bounce giving me charges of £125. I phoned them and they reluctantly agreed and stated it was a 'Once only goodwill gesture' NEVER to be repeated EVER again. Can they do this, actually state that they will NEVER refund any charges levied on my account? Some were only just over their £10 limit where if its under £10 they will refund the charges. It's rather stupid to charge £25 for such a small amount of £10. I wonder if the person I spoke to is referring to this as well? I have just had another DD bounce on me for £15 and they are going to charge me £25 for it, later this month, 25 Jan. What I find annoying is I had money go into my account the DAY after, which would have covered the DD. I am wondering if there is anyone I could write to to get them to stop placing these charges on me as it is our benefit going into the account as it's needed for us to live on and not lead an extravagant lifestyle, cant we plead something on the lines of hardship? (not exactly sure of the term)

Sirs,I own a property in the UK and a property in Spain. Both are mortgaged. My UK property is mortgaged through Santander and my Spanish property with UCI (a subsidiary of Santander)Unfortunately I have defaulted on my Spanish mortgage and UCI have instructed me to sell it in order to repay the loan. They are also in the process of putting a charge on my UK property, which I presume is to cover them in the event that a sale of the Spanish property doesn't fully cover the debt on it.My question is this. If the sale of the Spanish property doesn't cover the full debt can UCI force the sale of my UK property to reclaim the balance owing? My UK property has a second charge registered to it with Nat West incurred by my son who is joint owner of the UK property. Thank you,Cheyenne