I know nothing about Santander, but are they not a Spanish bank? If that has happened, Jomaro, a big round of applause for them.

Now if they could just sort out their bad management, rude staff, lack of communication between customers and other branches then I might consider going back there.
I think they bit off more than they can chew when they took over Abbey and they left the front line staff to deal with the fall out and the customers just got more and more frustrated.
I left them last year after a long going saga that resulted in a 5 page letter of complaint.
I did get £50 compensation but it left me too wary to consider carrying on banking with them....but, yes, good call for opening UK call centres.
One of the reasons I opened an account with ING.

I believe they also just qualified as the worst bank in a recent poll done to ascertain who gave best and worst banking services.

I am with Santander and can't move due to circumstances but I hate them. I am pretty sure I would have been one of those slating them in the poll mentioned above as I recall working on a survey on the subject. My mother in law also had a lot of trouble with them after her bank card was stolen after her house was broken into. Three times they sent her a card with the same number as the stolen one in error. It took a lifetime to sort out. Hopefully this is the first step in them sorting themselves out.

I hope so, too. I have a work colleague who banks with them and she had her card cloned and had so much trouble with them mucking her about trying to sort it out.

Sorry here folks, but I can not say anything bad about Santander now. If I ever had a complaint, it was always because of their call centers in India. Now its great, real speaking english people who understand the queens english. No more patronising indians telling me it is the way I speak and they fully understand me. No more of this false crap saying "you have a nice day Mr Davison" after me giving them the verbals. This over politness with indians drives me mad. Why do they think they are so superior to us and talk down to us. At least this is now over and I look forward to speaking my mother tongue the next time I call Santander. And no, I am not racist, I just hate those who treat us like dirt.

Well said George! I don't think it is quite a superior attitude, it is a form of "reverse racism" which I had once explained to me by a coloured gentleman (coloured black!) who said "hey honky, you would be a better person to me if you was only black!" What can I say, it was the seventies, I was at a party, a little the worse for drink, and the guy I was dating at the time was from Kenya!

I work for a major UK Telecom Company and have a Procurement role dealing with IT Resource in India, nd cheaper countries as Indian inflation is noew double figures.They are very professional, and cheap, but the foreign call centres lack decent equipment like headsets.Add bad line, time lapse, poor communication skills, all adds up to a poor customer experience.No, I'm not racist either but want efficient professional customer service which UK call centres used to provide.More will come back.

Interesting, John, how many people feel like this. We have a number of Indian customers, and it is extremely difficult to understand them let alone explain things to them. I am not racist either but fair's fair, you have to be able to speak the same language!