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Santander business banking- what a joke!

After being with Santander for years I am now in the process of moving my business bank account away from them. Ironically I have never even opened an account with Santander but at one point I had three accounts with them because they took over banks where I had accounts.
My business bank account used to be with Abbey National, then unfortunately became Santander.

A few weeks ago I purchased a few items over the internet ( no more than I would do normally ), the house phone rang and it was an automated message from Santander saying my account was suspended due to suspect activity! At this point I was quite literally f*cking fuming (how the f*ck are you supposed to run a business when these jokers keep suspending your card) Then shortly after my mobile rang with another automated message from their fraud team. The computerised message then reads out amounts from the last few days (how the f*ck are you supposed to remember exactly how much you spent in transactions? )

The automated message goes on-
£23.96 on the 1st January
£235.11 on the 12th January
£112.23 on the 13th January
£432.56 on the 19th January

Oh, yes all those figures mean a great deal to me

So you now get an option to press a key to listen to them again, this time it tells you where the money was spent- pure f*cking genius! If it had said where the money was spent in the first place I would have remembered the transactions immediately!

Today was the straw that broke the Camel’s back.

I ordered something from a company that I don’t regularly deal with and to be fair it was for something about £5k, so I sent the money electronically like I always do. This means I have to log in to my Santander account- so I need to know the Business log on ID, then I need to know the passcode and registration number (so the account is pretty secure). Then when you send money electronically they send you a text message passcode to your mobile phone, which you have to input into the computer for the transaction to work. I typed in the passcode and hit return. The money did not go immediately which I thought was strange

A few hours later I logged back on and the money still had not been sent, so I searched around the website and gave them a call.

It turns out that this transaction had been stopped by the fraud team, who didn’t even ring my mobile to ask any questions about the transactions

Then the guy at Santander could not get the money moved, he could only email the fraud department and ask them to move it

A few hours later the same guy phones me back and says that the transaction will not go through because they do not allow electronic payments to this other firms bank account

He suggested I pay via debit card- which uses the same money from the same f*cking bank account

I can’t believe that a bank can choose who you can and can’t pay money to- it’s none of their f*cking business who I send money to and what is even more annoying is that I could complete the transaction using their debit card!
Needless to say I am now in the process of moving to another Bank. It looks like it will be the Cooperative bank.

These banks are really taking the p!ss out of people, many of them pay 0.28% interest up to £250,000 but charge 28% if you want to borrow money from them

Chez - I know I'm considered to be the harbinger of doom and a right moaner but take it from me. This is the start of the slide. When banks start restricting peoples access to money this can only mean they don't have the resources to back it up. We read of people being asked what they want their own money for before the banks will allow them to withdraw it too

Santander (Spanish I believe) have enough trouble in Spain (as if we didn't already know) so perhaps they're in need of a bailout????

I'd be pretty damned worried about the actions you've described - not pissed. Time to shift your assets (if they let you!) though when one bank starts to get a cold the others tend to catch it too.....

I sold some share last monday took 8 day for the money to reach my account.

Spent 10K wednesday in Worthing no probs with a debit card transaction. Halifax by the way.

Was looking at Britannia or Co-op, Co-op looks the better of the two.

Britannia are owned by Co-op.

That is true Pete but they don't have the same products, especially in the savings and shares dept.

Co-op bank are far from being out of the financial woods after the holes in their balance sheet revealed by their failed takeover of 600 Lloyds branches.

Don't forget that money in a business account does not have the same protection from the FSCS as an individual's savings account if the bank were to go bust.

Inky Pete wrote:Co-op bank are far from being out of the financial woods after the holes in their balance sheet revealed by their failed takeover of 600 Lloyds branches.

Don't forget that money in a business account does not have the same protection from the FSCS as an individual's savings account if the bank were to go bust.

Blimey I did not know that

Yet another reason not to have any funds in a business account!

The only problem is that if you draw too much you get taxed on it

I don't know if first direct do business accounts, but they are top drawer when it comes to service, I have been with Barclays, natwest and smile - FD are miles better than any of them.

I know I can call anytime and get through to someone who can help, and they are always efficient.

Whatever you do, don't use Barclays they are a shower of brown.

I was doing everything through a business account with Clydesdale years ago and paying through the neck to have it. I changed to the nationwide on a basic current account,put all my cheques through this and don't get charged a bean to do so. The staff keep pushing me to take a business account which I refuse to do as it means paying to put in MY money.

Luckily I'm a sole trader so don't have to have a business account, I did up to a couple of years ago when I got screwed around by Royal Bank of Scotland. Got a letter saying that they were withdrawing my overdraft facility imediately and to clear the overdraft within 5 days, I had dipped into the overdraft for a couple of weeks getting a big job finished off. Got it cleared in time, and then thought "why do I have a business account?", I'm paying to deposit money, I'm paying just to have the account and I have no overdraft facility. Shut the account down and they couldn't have cared less. Went to Halifax Bank of Scotland and opened a current account - free banking and a £500 overdraft facility.

Basically what I did 54 aardvark.

I have looked at several different business bank accounts now and there is not a massive choice and many of them charge for doing the most basic of things.

Yesterday I spent 50 minutes on the phone to the CO-OP Bank, only to be told that my application was rejected.

The guy on the phone was not privy to the information as to why I was rejected so I have to wait to receive the official letter from them next week. I have to say that I have never been refused any applications on financial products before, nor has my company

If you are self employed nowadays it's a mare trying to get any sort of credit.

I left Santander about 6 months ago and joined Nationwide. Like you I was with A&L until they became part of Santander.

Last year I thought it odd I was overdrawn and checked my transactions. It turned out Crawley Council in Surrey had taken out approx £600 in council tax payments. I live in Scotland!

After investigation it appeared Crawley Council had entered someone's council tax number in to the bank account account number section which coincidentally was the same as mine and coincidentally again we shared the same sort code. What annoyed me was the fact the other person was a woman and I don't live any where near Crawley. You'd have thought Santander would have picked up on the fact it was a different name and she was female!

I left shortly afterwards as I thought the way they handled it was shocking.

They never picked up on the fact £600 was taken from my account but suspend your account for 20 odd quid!!!