FOS and Santander taking the pee

[phoenix11]

Last year - months ago - I put in a complaint to the FOS because Santander totally ignored all correspondence regarding my son's situation of hardship & his payment offer and then defaulted him on the whole debt.

 

I sent all clear evidence of this to the FOS - who eventually wrote back two months later to say that Santander had done everything they could reasonably do as a bank to help my son including accepting his offer of £1 per month!!!!

 

I immediately asked for it to be escalated as Santander had blatantly lied in so many ways and the FOS had clear proof of this.

 

The adjudicator responded to say he'd ask Santander to comment.

 

2 months later I wrote again to say that it had been going on for too long and I wanted it escalated and felt that given all the distress and hassle, Santander should do the decent thing and write the debt off (it's not that big in the great scheme of things but a huge chunk of it was charges - remember the £40 for going overdrawn by 5p?)

 

Adjudicator responds to say he's in regular contact with Santander and will get back as soon as he's heard.

 

Nearly another two months now and I'm really fed up with this.

 

I'd really like to name and shame this 'person' but I won't.

 

The guy who helped sort out my complaint with Barclays worked very well and fairly with me taking on board everything that came to light as a result of my complaint and acted really quiet promptly.

 

This 'person' is just messing with our lives - he didn't even bother to check that Santander had lied - didn't even bother to read what I had written and all the evidence submitted!!

 

So - can I complain about him at all?

 

[MARTIN3030]

Can you give any specifics as to what they have ignored ?

[phoenix11]

When it was Abbey, to help my son (learning difficulties) I took up the complaint and we jumped through the hoops to get them to accept his letter of authorisation for me to deal with his case. This was sent to 3 different departments in Abbey.

 

After months of writing to them and them saying they didn't have the LOA (which they did because I had proof of delivery) one dept wrote to my son with the usual 'tough nuggets' letter - the only letter I finally got was the 'we won' letter after the Supreme Court ruling - all ignoring his hardship claims.

 

Then it went to Santander who 'lost' correspondence and it went back again to 'we don't have your LOA'.

 

They ignored offers of payment, refused to accept his claim for harship (he was homeless for quite some time on and off as well as being on JSA or living rough trying to find work).

 

Despite my repeatedly writing and sending them proof of the LOA, they just went ahead and defaulted his account.

 

After the FOS contacted Santander, they claimed they had accepted his payment offer and the FOS said that the bank had done everything they could do - which is utter tosh because Santander had not accepted any payment offer apart from back in 2009 when they bullied my son into paying £25 per month when he was homeless/ dossing and trying to find work at the Ed Fringe!!

 

There were also other points I raised as demonstrating how they'd mishandled his account, kept the charges hidden (although they displayed other totally irrelevant charges on his bank statements) and even when he had put his account on hold and stopped using it, they sent him another debit card which he would have been allowed to use, despite his being (for him) hugely overdrawn with no overdraft facilities.

 

They had the opportunity to put a stop on his using his card, but they had not done so as it was netting them a huge amount in charges.

[MARTIN3030]

Thanks-yes understood now.

So much of these things would have been covered under their responsibilities to comply with the Lending Code of practice.

Did you set out your case to include any of this stuff ?

[phoenix11]

Thanks-yes understood now.

So much of these things would have been covered under their responsibilities to comply with the Lending Code of practice.

Did you set out your case to include any of this stuff ?

 

Hi Martin

 

I did lay out every argument (after reading all the info on what might consitute a claim after the Supreme Court ruling on this forum), backed up with photocopies of all the evidence to the FOS, which is why I was so peed off when the eejit decided to first roll over and fail to check the facts given by Santander, then to go back to Santander in October and then again to say he was still in regular contact at the beginning of Decemember.

 

It's just so blatant - Santander have no proof that they either treated him as a hardship case or accepted his offer to pay the amount he could. They only accepted it AFTER we had raised the complaint with the FOS so our case would be turned down and they could get away with malpractice.

 

On the other hand, I have sent the FOS the clear proof that they defaulted him despite our best efforts to sort things out - ie they ignored the correspondence and just went ahead with the default - even though he had kept up his regular payments of the amount he had offered, to show good faith - and continues to do so because otherwise he would panic and then get very aggitated.

 

What I did not have was the the magic phrase "Lending Code of Practice" so I'll think of what I want to write again and this time tell the eejit he has run out of time and out of luck.

 

I really wish it was possible to have the adjudicators hauled before an investigation too!!

[MARTIN3030]

I really wish it was possible to have the adjudicators hauled before an investigation too!!

 

[phoenix11]

Well, surprise surprise, we have a letter from the FOS essentially saying we can go coco!!!

 

Now, I have to write back, going over every single point again because I cannot believe the amount of factually verifiable mistakes that have been claimed by the FOS.

 

eg - a refund of £25 was given after the Supreme Court hearing - it was not! In fact the letter from Santander clearly states they are not giving a refund.

 

He also says that Santander were under no obligation to accept the offer of payment from my son as a hardship case. He's gone all through the rights of the bank and effectively stating that my son had no rights.

 

He himself last year had said the bank had accepted the offer of £1 - now he says they didn't and didn't have to.

 

As Abbey, they wrote to say the Collections and Recovery team would contact to arrange repayments - back in Jan 09. They did not. Next we heard was over a year later hassling him for the full payment after I wrote to them in November 09, despite my son paying his £1 per month.

 

He says that the bank have responded to correspondence - when there is clear evidence that we were trying to sort out his repayments and they were simply ignoring the correspondence.

 

It goes from bad to worse - as Abbey had already passed the account to their collections department and it's just gone from mess to mess.

 

So - I've got to respond and point out all the errors and the fact that he has based his 'adjudication' on his inabilty to read the facts, check the facts, apply the banking code etc etc etc etc.

 

If it was my account I'd seriously consider letting this one go to court and fight it out there because it is full of so many lies and mis-handling by the bank it is truly appalling.

 

Is there any other info that I may need to read up on before I get my teeth into this.

 

Enough to say, I'm fit to wringing their scraggy necks for their deceipt, their arrogance and their twisting of the facts - and them ****ing on our lives.

 

I hope their bonuses choke them!

 

[phoenix11]

Presumably it was the Banking Code that applied when all of this was taking place - so I don't know if or how the Lending Code would be applied

 

 

Could anyone supply a brief outline of whichever Code applies to hardship cases as my pc won't open the webpages or the pdfs so I can't read the relevant info and need it quite urgently.