That’s an expensive cock-up
Santander is set to pay out £1.4million to 20,000 customers after failing to inform them that they were issuing overdraft fees.
Banks are obliged to warn customers of these fees when they’re about to enter their overdraft, but Santander failed to enrol customers who opened accounts between 1st February 2018 and 20th February 2019 onto the alerts system.
Customers who dipped into the red were not notified of the charges they would suffer for going into their overdraft and 20,000 of them will be refunded by the bank, with each customer receiving an average of £70.
A Santander spokesperson said: “We are sorry that some customers did not receive unarranged overdraft alerts and we are in the process of refunding customers who incurred unarranged overdraft charges as a result.
“We notified the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) when we became aware of the issue and continue to keep the CMA updated on progress.”
Eligible customers needn’t do anything in order to claim their refund, with the bank identifying the accounts in question and sending the money owed straight back. Most cases have been resolved with the remaining refunds to be sent “as a priority” over the coming weeks.
