| 5 star: | (1) | |
| 4 star: | (0) | |
| 3 star: | (0) | |
| 2 star: | (0) | |
| 1 star: | (8) |
Bait and Switch - Their online bank - OpenBank - offered a high rate to start, and then after a month dropped the rate significantly to lower than the rate of all my other savings accounts.
It was very hard to confirm on my phone every time I wanted login on my PC. It wasn't just a regular click on confirm, or fill out a 6 digit code - they did a weird way where you have to actually login to your account on the phone app and then approve.
This bank does not offer online cd's. From their website "Certificates of Deposit and Individual Retirement Accounts can only be opened in branch. "
I was assured, in person, that an overdraft transaction would be covered without any difficulty and, 3 days later, much to my surprise, the transaction was rejected. Same transactions had been approved and covered via overdraft at least 4 times in the past and, in spite of the bank manager telling me no problem this time also, the transaction was denied. I was lied to and can not trust this bank any more. Very disappointed.
Many of the customer service representatives who answer 1-877-768-2265 will outright lie to you to get you off the phone or put you on hold and then hang up. I have one simple transaction pending that is taking weeks due to their exceptionally poor communication skills and customer service. I made at least ten phone calls to inquire about the transaction’s status. The last five or six phone calls, including two today, started with “please do not hang up on me.” Despite my pleadings, the representatives hung up on me immediately. Unfortunately, it is impossible to get past them to speak with a supervisor who can help with your problem. The only reason I scored Santander a 1 was because 0 was not an option. I am looking forward to never doing business with Santander again.
My wife opened an account that promised a bonus if you entered the code. We visited a branch to make sure that all was in order and were told that it was, because telephone reps merely take your info and send it to someplace in the nether regions of the bank. After being told that all was in order, we received a call after 9/30/21 when the promotion had already ended and were told that the code, etc., was not valid. A similar promotion started 10/1/21. My wife can't participate because she had the recent ineligible account.. Bottom line -- no effort to solve the problem or provide customer satisfaction -- simple solution -- JUST SAY NO TO SANTANDER.
Second Update:
Turns out when they convinced me to reopen my account, they added a $10/month account fee (for what??? it's basic checking) where I had never paid a fee in over 5 years. I will never do business with them again and when I see their advertisements in sports I will growl at the TV.
Update:
After I called to close my account, I got one of those "please review your call experience" emails and since I had not gotten a chance to whine to anyone yet, I recounted my frustrations with the overdraft into their survey. I have never received any kind of feedback from these surveys from any company so I was quite surprised to receive a call and email from Santander (on the weekend even!) asking to talk to me to address my concerns. I called them back on Monday and they said the overdraft charges should not have happened and refunded them, so we reopened the account as well as sending me a new debit card overnight since the old one had already been closed out at that point. I was very pleasantly surprised by them reaching out to me and will now attempt to use the account more frequently to thank them for their good customer service.
Previous Review:
I opened an account with Santander because they had a convenient location on my way home from work. Sadly, that location closed/moved shortly afterward. I soon got an account with SoFi but kept the Santander account open just to have a place to deposit cash, etc.
When I bought my house I had the monthly HOA fee direct debited from my Santander account and I have left it that way for several years just so Santander wouldn't close my account from disuse. So every month I had to remember to transfer $200 from my main bank to my Santander account. This worked fine until this past month when the combination of my HOA quietly moving up the debit date and Santander "conveniently" taking several extra days to receive the transfer caused my account to overdraft. I would have chalked this up as my mistake and started transferring earlier in the month....except Santander COMPLETELY neglected to notify me about the overdraft for almost two weeks. This enabled them to charge me extra fees for "sustained" overdraft. An overdraft I knew nothing about. Because they didn't tell me! If I had known I would have paid the original overdraft charge instantly!
So I wasted my money filling the overdrafted account back up to 0 and then closed the account, at which point they did not even bother to ask why I was leaving, they were basically like "K bye". Congratulations Santander, they got their profit from having me as a customer, which clearly matters more than customer experience. They win.
Santander bank promises to protect their customers and our money. Two weeks ago while making legitimate purchases in my city of Brooklyn NYC, Santander bank shut off my debit card THREE times in 2 days and I had to verify my purchases. How embarrassing. However, a week later, somebody "skimmed my card and made over $500 of unauthorized purchases 800 miles away in Philadelphia PA. Not only did Santander bank not notify me, shut off my card, but allowed these purchases and told me to file a claim with them. After filing the claim, Santander Bank decided to only give me $25.00 back from the fraudulent purchases. This is an insult to me and every customer who decided or will decide to use this bank. DO NOT USE SANTANDER BANK! SANTANDER BANK WILL NOT PROTECT YOUR MONEY. I asked to speak to a manager and my request was denied. I have now spent over an hour and a half on hold trying to speak to a manager.No one will help me. DO NOT BANK AT SANTANDER. THIS BANK IS THE WORST!!!