Santander Reviews 

I tried to make an International payment to China for goods (polyurethane pads) that I had made many times previously and the bank have held my money for more than a week while they make "regulatory and statutory checks". They have repeatedly lied about what had happened to this transaction until they finally admitted yesterday that this was the case. There is no possible reason for their action and I have answered all their questions but they will neither process the transaction, nor cancel it, as I have requested (in order for me to make the transfer through another bank). Do NOT bank with this organisation.

I made the mistake of using one of their ATMs, and when I declined their outrageous conversion rate, their ATM cancelled my transaction but still took the money out of my account. I reported this to WISE and Santander responded by sending WISE a falsified ATM log that was missing a page. These people are just liars and thieves.

Will be suing you for everything you got then will force you to shut down.

Don't switch accounts for a Santander edge account,when I switched to the edge account you need 2 dds and 1 standing order which I have , however it seems I didn't have this on the day of switch according to Santander. They didn't let me know about this until I rang customer service 3 months later they told me and didn't pay the £200 thanks for the poor service

I've been a customer of Santander Bank for years, as they have taken over most of the banks that I've had to bank with, and in all honesty, they have been pretty good. Granted, most of my banking is accomplished online, but when I have to go into the bank, I'm always greeted well and have had excellent service. I'll come to stay with them until something drastic happens, but hopefully that won't be the case.

Absolutely stinking customer service attitude - just wanted my monies transferred but woman did not want to help at all

Horrible horrible hotline - As soon as they stop earning money with you, you wont get any help or information from them. It is impossible for us to find out if our ablöse was received or not. We called 8 times and spend hours! It is frustrating + they will BOMBARD you with advertisements and sell your data + schufa.

I get these mailers from Santander. I have called them at least 5 times to get them to stop sending me mailers. They sometimes create tickets to do so and then do no work on the ticket. Customer Support level 1, customer support level 2, and managers and complains specialists, no one were able to help me. I told them specifically what needed to be done and which departments to contact. No one seemed to want to do their jobs. One person quick transferred/hung up on me. Several explained that nothing can be done. It's a simple request. A couple people were nice until they realized I wasn't satisfied with being told that I am forced to receive their unwanted mail when other companies will stop sending mail. Others just stone walled me. They told me to go into a branch to solve the issue. No one at a branch is solving an issue that corporate handles. They also recommended I open an account with them to solve the issue. The last thing I would want to do is open an account with this bank with how they handle people. I'll never do business with Santander and will warn people away.

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 .

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