Hi Roy, I'll second that. I've had several accounts with Chelsea BS for a few years now. I've always found their service to be exemplary.

Hi Johnnie63.

That sound terrible. I would be very concerned to be in a situation like that... The more I talk to people in our neck of the woods and read these postings, I feel more strongly each day that the Santander lot ( I do excuse Cahoot) are just not worth bothering with... For the rest of our lives we will never go near these people again with any of our investment requirements..... On the side I would love to here from any good folks out there who have or have had savings with the CHELSEA BS.... We have gone with them and have found them superb to deal with .. We even got a 'bung' of interest after a couple of days as October was reaching it's end... Any experiences out there ?

im ten years ahead with my mortgage from abbey, i pay 3 times my monthly payment too, imagine my dismay getting a letter telling me im £365 behind, because i pay more each month eg £1000 they sent me an arrears letter,
i have £17k spare so paid the lot off, never take out money with santander , abbey or any other of its alternative names,
Cant wait for tesco bank, or virgin or considering bank of china for a new house loan,
all that money wasted on formula 1 racing advertising......F1 now stands for like the PC f1 return ? NOT ON YOUR LIFE, F1 ........ im gone ,,,,,,,,,,,

Hi both,

Thank you both very much for your comments. Yes, Huckster, you'd have thought so, wouldn't you? However, I'm no longer surprised that having lacked both the wit and the will to obtain this information for themselves, their response since I provided it to them on August 30th has been total silence on this particular issue (just the usual stream of "Your complaint is important to us. Give us yet another eight weeks"). Clearly, inconvenient evidence is to be ignored at all cost! Thanks for the tip about the British Bankers Association. I haven't tried them yet - but will do.

And thanks very much, Roy, for Sharon's phone number. I'll give it a try - assuming she hasn't been sacked for being too helpful :-).

Good Afternoon Impecunious

Good Afternoon Huckster.

Many thanks on your postings re the above... First, I am indeed very sorry to hear that Impeunious is being treated badly with these people with the £3500 ISA since APRIL last year... This is indeed not on.... I found the communications with both B & B bs and Abbey completely useless. I even got transferred to Abbey Glasgow from Abbey Bradford for answers. A complete waste of time... I finally made contact with an helpful person at Abbey Complaints Dept at Milton Keynes.. (Sharon on direct line 01908 343444) We got more help from Sharon than all the others put together... It was this person that arranged to pay us a) £80.00 followed by b)£300.00 to compensate for all the inconvenience..... If you've not aleady touched base with her, give her a ring. She is the only member of all the Abbey Branch staff who actually phone us back and appears to care...

Huckster.

The cheque from Abbey, in my hand at the moment, is completely blank on the back. The main Abbey address, ie Prescott St. London E1 8RW is illustrated but the cheque has been clearly endorsed by the local Branch address.... Before they paid me out they had to do an internal money transfer from Head Office (I assume) to my selected Branch.I signed a form to this effect..

Many people on here will no doubt have nothing but good to say about Abbey. I understand and respect this... Obviously they have some very good people employed in the Company.. I see the problem as being down to a recent change over in their IT systems .. ie the move over to Santander and the transfer of interest payments over to Abbey. Maybe the IT people are not up to the job? Still no excuse ,our monthly interest payment should have been made by cheque and post at the end of each month from June to October 09. Also Customer Services should mean Customer Services...

Good luck Impecunious, let us know how you get on with your ISA

Hi

When you were supplied with the cheque from your Building Society, you should have been given the reverse side details of the cheque. When a cheque is cashed the processing details are placed on the back of the cheque.

If you send Abbey (Santander) UK head office details of the cheque (both sides) they should be able to look at the accounts reports for the processing date in question to see what happened to the money.

If their head office won't help, see if the British Bankers Association are willing to intervene on your behalf.

Huckster

Glad to hear you got it sorted at last. I too will never agin deal with Abbey, or any other subsidiary of Banco Santander.

I've been battling to be treated as a human being by this disgraceful excuse for a bank since June 2009, when it came to my attention that they had 'mislaid' a £3,500 ISA I'd been stupid enough to transfer-in in April 2008. To this day (in so far as I can get any response from them at all), they maintain that they never received the transfer – even though the building society which sent it to them has provided me with a copy of their cheque, made out to “Abbey National plc Re: [My Name]”, which was cashed in June 2008.

I've been through the usual channels – the useless “Customer Service” department, the obstructive Complaints department and the Ombudsman. More than four months after bringing the matter to Abbey's attention, I'm no further forward, and still £3,500 down.

Basically, Abbey don't give a stuff. Your money would be safer under the doormat.

Hi Brewerdave,

Yes indeed Cahoot are part of Abbey...Fortunately( so they tell me) they will continue to trade under the Cahoot name and will not be changing their brand name over to Santander in January when the rest of them do....

When I collected my cheque yesterday from an Abbey branch (they could not even return my capital by BACS to my Cahoot current acct) Abbey were showing off, telling me , when the move over entirely to the Santander brand they will gradually change over to a 'global' pc system.... ie if you have a current account here , it will be recognised in every Santander branch in the world.... I think I upset the guy when I commented that I hope they dont put the same IT staff on

to the change who screwed up Abbey/Bradford & Bingley amalgamation in June... Don't think he like that..

However, no member of my family will ever deal with this lot ever again, regardless of their interest rates.......

But isn't Cahoot part of Abbey ?????What a c*****up!!

Today is a great day.... We got back our £57k invested with Bradford and Bingley 22.10.2008 on a monthly interest acct which has given my wife and I HELL since June this year...

I posted the details of the shabby way Abbey had treated us. with the above which resulted in a skirmish with them via Abbey Complaints office in Milton Keynes and a follow up with the Financial Ombudsman Office (as much use as a chocolate teapot?)

Bradford and Bingley moved all their monthly payment admin over to Abbey in June 09.... What they did not tell Cahoot Current acct owners that their IT set up would not let any monthly interest payments be made to a Cahoot acct by BACS from Abbey.... It still does'nt and all interest payents since June have had to be collected from one of their Branches... From where we live a fair journey complete with heavy traffic.... OK they admitted defeat and paid us compensation of £300 . Numerous requests (which I felt were justified) asking them to send us a cheque through the post all fell on deaf ears....

If like us you are in your mid/seventies and welcome interest payments to assist with your pension.. watch for this snake pit... I doubt whether they will tell you their problem if you open a bond with them which pays interest monthly...

As far as Cahoot are concerned we find them superb with their on line current acct . We have been with them many years.It's just a pity that they do not pay monthly interest with their savings account and give a slightly better interest rate with their current account as they used to do......Be warned......

Roy

sorry to read about your situation with abbey roy. i cant add much to the above advice. i can tell you though that abbey are on my blacklist of companies i will never deal with again, along with the halifax. 2 of the most inefficient, careless & clueless groups of cowboys i have ever dealt with in over 45 years - i wouldnt trust either with the contents of a piggy bank !

good luck with your savings and i hope you get a satisfactory end soon and can move on and away from unnecessary worry.

Thanks everyone for your support and interest in our serious problem with Abbey. I will keep up the postings and follow this through until the end... Our Life Savings is in here. How these multi national organisations can behave in this disgusting way leaves me cold....

Phoned the contact I had at the FOS this morning... Spoke to a voice mail and left a message.... so far no call back. Hey Ho.. what a world we live in .

Roy

Hi there... read your comments about Abbey with interest. Yes you have done correct to put the issue into the hands of the Ombudsman, but I worn you that it does take some time with them, but keep at it !!. I had an issue with my bank. who I will name Lloyds ... but it took almost 10 months of twoing and froing to sort things out for me. I feel with the banks now they should not be allowed to get away with the issue you have. Good luck! - but keep at it.

Roy, if you want to go the media route Abbey does have "form" for this. From memory during the transition from Abbey to Santander subsidiary there was a flurry of adverse media coverage along these lines. The one that sticks in my mind was about someone who died and Abbey simply not releasing Estate funds for nearly a year as opposed to "immediately". A bit of "Googling" might help. PROBLEM stated was system glitch SOLUTION you'll just have to wait.

Roy Saunders:

a letter will be sent to Abbey well in time requesting the capital be returned by cheque .

Not all bank can return funds by direct credit believe it or not. Not sure about Abbey. I prefer BACS transfer because it's one less excuse. The only risk factor for the customer is making a mistake with the account details.