Santander bank IT not fit for purpose

A question about : Santander bank IT not fit for purpose

Having inherited some tens of thousands of pounds on the death of my parents, I followed the general advice and moved my (and my partner's) banking to Santander to get the 3% interest.

BIG MISTAKE!

At the end of January the DD that pays our rent simply failed (it worked once and that was it) - it had cancelled itself and Santander could offer no explanation as to how this had occurred.

I raised merry hell with their complaints department - I didn't appreciate an unblemished payment history of over 25 years going up in smoke.

Got home yesterday to find a letter of apology from Santander, including the phrase I can confidently confirm this will not be an ongoing issue with your account.

The second letter I opened was from my landlord to say that my rent payment had failed again! So - one successful payment and then it terminates itself.

At this rate I will be lucky to keep a roof over my head, and my reputation with my landlord is in tatters.

As a programmer with over 30 years experience (BSc MSc PhD) I can tell that there is a serious flaw hiding within the code of Santander's system - what happened to me should simply not be possible - hence it is not fit for purpose.

So if you have moved your banking to Santander, keep a *very* close eye on your statements - who knows what other errors might be hidden away.

Best answers:

• That's funny as the 11 DDs I have on my Santander 123s have not failed in years. Nor have the countless SOs and FPs. There has never been a penny's error in the cashback payments on my current accounts or the 123 credit card, and interest payments have always been spot on. The newly introduced retailer offers seems to also work 100% as advertised.
  I know I am not the only one who checks their transactions regularly and who has never found the slightest mistake. Certainly points to a system that has been well designed, tested and implemented.
  If it is always the DD for your Landlord that fails for you, perhaps you should be looking for the root cause with them?
• Just get them to search for the code that looks something like this...
  If (CustName) EQ "DrPaul"
  ....Cancel DD
  EndIf
• Operator error in setting up the DDs??
  I too have never had an error of that type in many years. Issues about other things, yes, but not payment errors
  I do have one DD that the recipient sets up afresh each month. Why I don't know, but he only takes it once.
  I'd be looking at the landlord a bit more closely - maybe he's doing something wrong/doesn't know how to do it with Santander
• A few years back when I changed banks from Halifax to Santander 123, using their transfer system a DD to nPower failed, speaking with nPower they said this did happen on occasion with Santander.
  As I was keeping a close check on all receipts payments, SO DD's etc this did not cause any charges from anyone and I have been extremely happy with Santander since
• Do you mean DD or Standing Order? (Most rent payments would be Standing Order).
  If DD, then it may be your LL's bank has reacted badly to a change in details.
  If SO, then you can check the details online. If they are correct but the SO still failed, then Santander have serious problems.
• The first thing you need to do is mitigate your losses.
  Is there an alternative payment method you can use to pay your rent for the time being?
  Or can you keep a closer eye on the account so that you at least spot the problem before your landlord does?
• It must be a standing order, not a DD.
  Doesn't really mean their whole IT system isn't fit for purpose or everyone would be complaining.
• I am a customer of Santander and I too have had issues with direct debits, which Santander IT department, cannot find a problem with.
  I am a private banking customer of Santander and after 12 months later after reporting the original issue of not being able to set up a DD online with Paypal, EE etc I am still no further on.
  I have found them very incompetent in this regard.My issue was even escalated to a regional Director within the bank and that made no difference.
  I have just learnt to live with it, oh and it's worth noting that I have this problem with two current accounts.
• When you set up a DD, it is done with the payee organisation, not with your bank. In fact, a DD instruction as far as the bank is concerned is just a simple permission for the Payee to withdraw funds from your account.
  I wonder if you, too, mean Standing Order?
  I've not had any problems with DDs and Standing Orders on my Santander accounts, except for the usual thing where you close an account with a Payee, and (if you don't cancel it with the Bank) they still claim the DD which then has to be refunded, but that is common to all banks.
  I do find the online banking slightly inflexible in the way it deals with payment instructions, and ties them irrevocably to one account. I have 9 Santander accounts of various sorts, and I want to see one list of DD instructions, so I can easily spot old ones. And one list of payment destination accounts, so that I can change the Santander account they are associated with without re-keying and risking typo errors.
• It is rare for rents to private landlords to be paid by DD, if only because it is not easy for an individual to setup the infrastructure to do so.
  Assuming the more likely situation that this is s standing order, then one perhaps should look at how the standing order was setup.
  Indeed the system usually asks to choose:
  - one off (i.e. it cancels itself after the first payment),
  - until given date,
  - until further notice.
• I've found Santander's IT to be fine, it's when the humans get involved that the problems start.
• No it's a DD.
  The rent was taken successfully the first time after transfer then the DD self-destructed.
  Santander Complaints confirmed it was not human error or a problem with the transfer from my old bank, and there is no trace whatsoever on their system of any reason for the cancellation - hence they confirmed it was a "system error at Santander". Maybe it was the ghost in the machine :-)
  What is worse, they seem to think that this is preferable to finding out that there was human error at a branch or similar. Err, no, I think it's a massive problem with your IT and that is truly worrying.
  Just when I got their letter saying this couldn't possibly happen again, it did! One successful payment followed by unexplained self-destruct of the DD mandate and failure of the following payment - their system shows it as cancelled, but again there is no trace of how it happened.
  I am waiting for a second report (and grovelling apology) from Santander, but I won't hold my breath given that they assured me it was 100% fixed last time.
  Lots of other DDs transferred fine btw.