Santander Strikes Again!

Beware the Symbol of Incompetence

A word to the wise: if you're moving to Madrid, find a bank. There's very little you can do without an ID card, a phone, housing, and a bank account. However, when looking for banks, STAY AWAY FROM SANTANDER.

Now, UK readers may recognise the above symbol as the "new" Abbey (National) logo. In fact, it was always the logo of Santander, who took over the former British building society. I don't have an Abbey account, I'm with the self-styled "world's local bank" HSBC, who don't have any branches in Spain. So I had to go bank-hunting. Easy enough, I thought to myself: it's merely a matter of which is most popular and has the most satisfied customers...

Well, ING Direct was closed to me. Their only bank account in Spain is the Cuenta Nómina, for which you can only get access to if you have been nominated - literally - by an existing account-holder. Fine, I thought; I shall take my custom elsewhere. The second-best spot was a tie between bitter rivals Banco Santander and Caja Madrid. I figured, since I'd be travelling around the country as much as possible, and Caja was based mainly in the capital, with one - maybe two - branches in other cities, I'd have better and easier access to my money if I went with the former. Added to that, Santander is the highest-grossing bank in the country, and has a branch on my University campus. I'm clearly easily swayed. I opened my account with Santander in my second week of living in Spain.

At the end of my fourth week in Spain, I had yet to recieve a debit card, and my account had not been "activated". By my sixth week, I had done this, but not yet recieved my card. So, I went to my local branch (one block up from my house; there's also another two blocks up the my own street) to rectify this. Unfortunately for me, this was a matter between myself and the branch at which I opened my account (University campus - keep up). Did I mention banks close at 2pm? Not for lunch or siesta: they CLOSE. I had to wait until another day to deal with the situation. Come Week Seven, and I speak to the lady at the special desk at the campus branch. She tells me they had inexplicably ignored the request for a card, and she would order me one right away. How long would it take, I asked: a week and a half...

Come Week Nine. Despite my account having been activated, I've been unable to make any transfers from my UK account, because Santander would not give me the bank's international details until the card was sent to me. I recive it on the Wednesday, and am told by the letter that I cannot start using it until I call the 24-hour superline (premium rate, of course) to activate it. Desperate to pay rent and buy food without being charged commission by HSBC, I call it, and am told to prove myself with the details I gave on opening the account. I do, and am told the card is activated, and that I have to wait for the arrival of my PIN (which, when it comes a day later, cannot be changed unless I call the line and TELL THEM OVER THE PHONE: so safe, right).

Eventually, at the beginning of Week Ten, everything is settled: account is activated, card is active, money has been transferred (all 100€ or so of it; luckily for me I live off my earnings as a sought-after English teacher).

Fast-forward to last week. I am using my card, as normal, when I notice a fundamental error: They have gotten my name wrong. I have already mentioned the difference between my common-usage name, and that on my passport: the passport version is simply longer. However, Santander seem to have changed one letter and added a new one, giving me a different-sounding name, altogether! I know I have an odd name - I've lived twenty-odd years with bean, milk and sauce related jokes and puns; I even embrace them - but how an O becomes an AU is beyond me. Do people not spell strange words and names to each other? I always do. Anyway, my name is on a computer database, so surely someone checked it against that? Except, when I look at the few documents sent to me, I see that the mistake was made on the very first day, when I opened my account.

I'm a busy person, so I didn't get the chance to address this until last Wednesday morning. This time round, everything was as smooth as chocolate mousse should be. The lady behind the special desk took one look at my passport and duly amended the details on the computer database. This morning, two days after this, I receive my new card, addressed to my full name spelt correctly. Hope is an evil thing. I checked the card, and lo and behold, the SAME mistake is on the new card. I'm not even going to bother activating it. Fortunately, banks are open on Saturday mornings, too, here.

After the eventual success of my ID card, I'm shot down by this travesty. I'm going to go tomorrow and tell them if they don't fix this simplest of mistakes, sack the entire national staff and leave the running of the outfit to the lady behind the special desk at the campus branch, I'm moving to Caja Madrid...

This slogan means "we want to be your bank": what they really mean is "we want to make it as difficult as possible for you to settle in with us, then take your money and never give it back"