Santander Reviews 364

Absolutely horrendous, garbage bank! It can't even be called a bank. You can tell it's brazilian, made by their standards! 🤮🤮🤮

Santander is the WORST bank I (and others) have ever dealt with on so many occasions both in UK and Europe.
After speaking to one obtuse, hostile guy from Cust Serv followed by another hostile woman, neither of whom listened to my questions but assumed what I was asking - a modern day conundrum where you don't know the answer to someone's question so you just answer your own questions. I spoke to a third person who answered all of my questions and wasn't hostile at all... he was totally professional. SO he gave me the info I needed then he forwarded my complaint to the Complaints Dept and CAROLINE called me up just now - allegedly to assuage my disappointment and upset - and basically told me I was wrong!

She also had the 'attitude' and was completely unprofessional. My call was on behalf of my dad who no longer has capacity - Caroline compared her own dad, who has Alzheimers, to my dad, despite asking me no questions about my dad's capacity or the disease!

OMG, how unbelievably inappropriate. She tried to tell me the varieties and variations of Alzheimers and how her dad could still make a phone call even though he has Alzheimers and that was the reason it was ok for the hostile CS woman I complained about to tell me I'd have to get 'my' dad to call them himself.

Nobody asked me to choose from a questionnaire to see if my dad can still make calls, which, he thinks he is in a James Bond movie at the moment so, although he could take part in a call (if I dialled the number for him on an old phone and it was still actually 1972) I doubt that conversation would go very well.
Why is a CS Complaints person telling me about Alzheimers?
Why would I be calling if my dad was able to call himself?

Also I specifically called the 'special' number for Santander Alzheimers clients - which claims to be sensitive to customers affected by this disease.
Maybe there were lots of 'sensitive' people off sick in the Alzheimers and only the ordinary, insensitive muggles were in today?

Basis of the story that my dad has tried for three years to access his acc including many calls (before the Alzheimers) and also visited the branch but nobody could help him access his acc or his private pension which remains locked up somewhere in that bank.
My dad has completely lost all capacity recently and I am trying to work out the process for my mum to access this account.
It is very upsetting listening to my dad;s version of his new world which will, no doubt, shortly lead into the next world so I don't need anyone else's dad stories.

Must be only Caroline's 'comparables' stories that are allowed as I was told I shouldn't have alluded to my own story in the call as is it was very confusing for them all!

See how you get on. My story is my experience of Santander which I thought was relevant.

I also had an acc that Santander actually managed to LOSE for 3 years and when I eventually visited the branch, in Edinburgh, I was literally made to leave the bank, the tellers out on the forecourt telling me I was lying - told that I did not have an acc with them that had £5,000 in it!! After months of fighting with them, I eventually gave up.
3 years later I visited another branch and miraculously a woman I spoke to told me there were a selection of acc holders whose accounts had been lost a few years ago and she eventually found my acc with my £5,000 in it.

WHO WOULD EVER BANK WITH A BANK WHO LOSES YOUR ACCOUNT!!

So, I closed that acc and I also (at the time of being thrown into the street) closed another acc with them (fortunately they acknowledged this one) and that had £100,000 in it which I transferred to a real bank.

Awful bank
Rudd frontline Customers, Spoke to a Guy called Y4sin, account is blocked and he simply cuts the chat.
Awful people to deal with

Santander is a bad bank because the management of this bank is not smart and is badly educated!!! They don’t understand the difference between nationality, citizenship and place of birth. They denied me to open the account in Santander bank because I was born in the city of Krasnoyarsk in 1954. Now this city belongs to Russia. At the time of my birth there was no country called Russia! I was born in USSSR! The country that now called Russia was born at the end of 1990 after the collapse of USSR! However, I left the city of my birth at the age of 8 in 1963! After that I lived for 33 years in Belarus before leaving to the USA IN 1996 where I lived for 26 years. I have zero relation to Russia at all! I am a citizen of the USA and I never had a citizenship of Russian Federation that people called just Russia! However, the management of Santander bank didn’t open account for me because they think that I am a Russian and citizen of modern days Russian Federation! They think that if the person was born on the territory that now is Russia - that person is Russian and the citizen of modern Russian Federation! I think the management of the Santander bank is just stupid and badly educated! They don’t understand that place of birth say nothing about the person’s ethnicity nor about person’s citizenship! They don’t understand that person who was born on some territory could be any ethnicity and any citizenship like be Chinese by ethnicity and French by citizenship!!!

I had a vehicle finance through Santander my vehicle was totaled September 16th 25 I have been dealing with them ever since to get my warranty refund check every time I call they lied to me and tell me it's been sent on this date or that date and I just found out today after waiting on this check every day going to the mailbox and no check that the check was just sent out the 28th of November I am livid with this company I have had two vehicles finance through them they are the worst people under God's green earth to work with I will never refinance anything through this company or tell anyone about them other than how bad they are The way the economy is right now people need their money to be able to live they have put me through so much mental anguish and anxiety that might only thoughts are to come up with an attorney and to sue them for everything they have put me through I hate this company and will never recommend it to anyone if you're smart you will never go through Santander I intend to go to the headquarters with my complaint and maybe someone will do something in Texas because no one does anything in New Delhi India they are all incompetent people if you're lucky you can get one that speaks halfway good English I am done with this company and come December 1st they are going to hear from me thank you for listening to my complaint and I surely hope it does not get deleted please everyone heed my warning .

Soporte horrible si llego a ver estas reseñas antes no me meto.

They blocked my mum's account..which is fine! To check her Id etc, totally understandable. Called in,passed all checks then they wanted her to go to a branch with her passport; she's disabled,91, doesn't drive and is in constant pain. Nearest branch is 10 miles away. Life savings in the account and has been an account holder for 29 years plus
I asked if there was some other way and customer service said he was ending the call!
Disgusting.

Had a great experience with Santander — enjoyed the selection of banking products and services and how kind and helpful the customer support team was.

Here's the chain of events:
1) I transferred $3K from my bank account to a newly formed account for my business
2) The transaction still said "In review" the next day, so I called customer support. I spent 45 minutes on hold with three different departments and was told that everything was fine and the amount would be transferred the next day. I'm upset it's taking so long, but I suck it up and go to bed.
3) The next day I wake up and I AM LOCKED OUT OF MY BANK ACCOUNT. I can't access it through the online portal. It's also PAYDAY, so I cannot access my funds on the one day I got paid this month. It says I'm locked out because of "too many failed password attempts."
4) I call the phone number it tells me to call, and the person I speak with says I was at the wrong department (because it said to dial "4" when I reached the menu). I'm looking at the !@#!ing screenshot of the message I got from the portal and it tells me to dial "4" at the menu. So either this guy is lying to me, or the website is.
5) I get transferred to another department, and after 45 minutes she tells me I have to unfreeze my credit reports for her to verify my identity... which makes ME suspicious, so I tell her no way in hell, they're my bank and they have my money and I should have access to it. So she says I have to go into a bank branch and show my ID.

For those watching at home, at this point I have wasted 3 hours of my life on the phone and online trying to just get access to my money.

6) I take time off work to go to the branch, where after an hour on hold the branch manager finally gets my account unblocked. However.... the transfer (the one I've been waiting on for THREE DAYS NOW!) is CANCELED, and I have to initiate a brand new one, starting all over again.

The branch employees have been wonderful during this experience, but the online and corporate bureaucracy part of this company has FAILED to deliver even the most basic modicum of clear communication or customer service.

This has now wasted FOUR HOURS of my life this week, and the funds are STILL not in the account that they need to be.

Because of the aforementioned four hours of wasted time, I do not have the bandwidth right now to change banks — but at some point in the next three weeks I am going to close my accounts and find a different bank.

This has been, frankly, a load of steaming bullcrap.

EDIT TO ADD: In the end, after I sent the transfer a second time... it again got flagged for fraud.

I am DONE with this bank. I will open a new account with literally any other bank in the world as soon as the weekend's over.

Positve:
+ Instant transfer for high amounts (>50k€) work clean and instantly
+ Very fast support
+ good offers for new customers

Negative
- Almost no information available in the online Banking, you need to ask the support for everything
- Not really attractive conditions for existing customers

I've been trying to make a complaint for a month. I'm unable to make calls and I'm on their "tell me once" accessibility register. Nobody has responded on the online chat in all this time, despite repeatedly requesting an agent. I finally spoke to someone over a week ago through another call, and asked to make a complaint. I was told it would be 3-5 working days to investigate and I would get an email response. That has passed and I haven't. I still cannot communicate with anyone. This is not the first time I've had issues with them being ableist, and received a formal apology and compensation last time, and was promised I would be better taken care of from then on. Yet here we are, this is even worse. I have banked with Santander for decades. They have become an absolute disgrace.

Update 7 Apr 25. I received a snotty letter from them claiming they have investigated and there is no mistake from their end, and I just need to wait for an agent to respond. What, for weeks? Even though it is my only means of contacting them with time sensitive financial issues? The investigator clearly did not read back through the lengthy thread of weeks of me asking to speak to a human agent and getting no response at all. So now apparently I have to write to the financial ombudsman.

Meanwhile I still have no means of communication with my bank.

I was a co-owner of accounts with my daughter and mom. My daughter had difficulty and they never reached out to me for a solution. It was not until I had a different bank tell me that Santander put a flag on me so I could do no business with any other bank. When I went to close my primary account- they never bothered to ask why I was closing with them. They have 0 customer service skills.

Was a great bank, but customer care has gone right down hill and interest rates are lowest

This bank gets 0 starts..Their hi yield svg's acct I opened on 12/10/24 via Santander Openbank on their website is ATROCIOUS. They got $64K & didn't even provide the acct # to me via email. Their website wouldn't let me monitor the balance until I opened their "mobile app" but their app stinks & is not user friendly--have a Samsung Galaxy S21 FE; on Dec 18,they lowered the interest on this acct from 5% to 4.75% & until I was tortured by their awful app, the bank WOULD NOT let me login to monitor my balance via their website! Twice I complained about their mobile app! UNACCEPTABLY BAD CUST SVC AND HORRIBLE WEBSITE & MOBILE BANKING APP. I did NOT want to use the app, I wanted to use my laptop & login via the website & wasn't able to do so!

shockingly consistently bad customer service, for proof, try contacting their customer service

Applied for an account with them, they rejected. Dodged a bullet there and remained with Monzo.

Two weeks later they wrote to me threatening to put a CIFAS fraud marker on my credit file if I did not immediately go into branch with my ID and proof of address to prove it was me who made the rejected application two weeks prior, which I had to do on foot, in the rain, wasting my ink and paper for an account they already told me they refused to open, when I should be at home working.

I used to work for Abby back in the day at HO in Bournemouth. My goodness, it really has gone down hill hasn't it?

Time wasting excuse for a bank, behave like Gestapo demanding papers or they will engage in wilful damage of the financial affairs of random members of the public, an appalling abuse of CIFAS, and devoid of any kind of welcoming or friendly disposition. "Sorry about that" as I left the branch with numerous printed and copied documents they demanded, now soaked in the rain walking home.

What an utter shower of a company. Judging by the comments of others on here it's about time they bucked their ideas up and prep themselves for some very invasive regulator investigations. I would imagine it won't be long before someone in branch gets a knuckle sandwich for their lunch, not that I would condone such an obvious consequence of treating members of the public like dirt. How dare they? Who do they think they are? The woman in branch was as cold as a rock too.

I have launched an Ombudsman complaint against them to waste their time and money, and look forward to being compensated for my time and money they have wasted.

I'm going to waste as much of their time as possible, and cost them not insignificant sums. Suggest others do the same. It costs them hundreds of quid each time someone opens an ombudsman complaint against them. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

I'm going to suggest they rebrand their logo to a Swastika, and feature their next TV campaign with those two clowns on a U-Boat. It would better suit the character and disposition of their staff and public image.

Santander are a bank of opposites
Santander are a bank of opposites. Some staff you meet are great and they deserve to be praised, but their efforts are completely destroyed by the unhelpful , dysfunctional incompetence of other depts. Primarily the customer contact team. If youre not familiar with them they're the ones who send out the anonymous (don't tell you who they are other than santander) mildly threatening letters and emails telling you they need to speak with you or they'll close your account.
Well despite complying with everything they wanted they've decided to close our current account and have closed it without telling us. I could fill a whole volume with the now 3 month story of their inneficiency, lies and lack of communication but I won't bore you.
Examples of their stupidity? Apparently to help them close it they need us to go into a branch and provide details of our addr. That'll be the same details we provided in June to them , as they're aware approx 4000km away from the nearest branch.If I had a mind to visit I couldn't because I can't spend my money.
Speaking of addresses. They told me an electricity bill was acceptable as proof. No problem off it goes only to be rejected as the address didn't match their records. Errrr no thats my addr to the left, the one you're quoting is the leccy board main office for our district, I haven't moved there.
This idiocy would be amusing if it wasn't for very serious fact that as they seem to hold the power of life and death on your finances they kill you off. They are a law unto themselves and Ombudsman intervention comes after resolution so you are in their hands. This has caused us tremendous stress and inconvenience.
My advice to anyone reading would be at least don't out all your eggs in one basket in case you fall victim and have other accounts, better still leave or don't open an account with them
If an advisor decides to respond with the usual "we're sorry", don't bother. I will simply post my list of complaint reference numbers, several to date have been found against you and resulted in compensation being paid to us.
FOS beckons.
Please trust pilot set up the system so we can award zero or negative stars 👍 santander don't even deserve zero

Very helpful staff
I had been trying to change my current account to a Santander edge current account online but the technology defeated me. I made an appointment in the Didsbury branch and saw Aisling Ennis, who explained all the available accounts so I could choose what suited me, then set it all up with just a few questions, she took all the hassle out of it and also helped me with a savings account I wanted. Lovely lady and very efficient. Top marks from me.

Santander blocked a transfer (the second one not the first, which was for a higher amount) to my wife's account and disabled my online banking in an apparently entirely arbitrary manner. I wouldn't care but I've sent much higher amounts in far more risky-looking transactions several times before, but no - sending a hundred quid to a family member is a crime, followed by an insulting lecture over the phone about security and fraud before the transaction would be processed and I was permitted to have 'control' of my own money again - despite me having done NOTHING wrong. If you're unconcerned about the implications of a cashless society, then this Kafkaesque mini-nightmare is why you should be - you'd be safer keeping your money under your mattress than trusting it to Santander...

Nice high saving percentage, but impossible to open an joint savings account with my partner if you have a original account on two names. They keep telling me they need two transactions to verify our identities from individual accounts. When I tell them we have only one joint account I get no responses. In the meantime 45 days have passed and they cancelled my application.

Worst bank experience ever. Would not trust them with 10 euro.