Santander Bank € commssion charge WARNING

[Hughmer]

Last July (2012) I posted that my Santander Debit card, linked to my Zero Account was a good way to withdraw € from Euro banks at mid rate with no commission.I based this on experience of using ATMs in France, Italy, Greece, Austria, Switzerland, Germany and all Benelux countries over 3 years. Needless to say, I'm only talking ATMs fixed to banks - not in convenience locations like shopping malls.

 

This year I've made 3 cash withdrawals in France (2 x Credit Agriclole and one from La Post) all have attracted a 1.5% handling charge.

 

I've queried this with Santander who seem to have moved the goalposts without announcing same. Apparently their nil commission is now only guaranteed at Santander banks abroad. They say other banks may charge.

 

 

[Derek Uzzell]

Santander's current account terms and conditions applicable from 1 July 2013 are shown here

 

http://tinyurl.com/p47ae3h

 

The fees for using a Santander debit-card abroad are listed at the bottom of Page 3, but there's a footnote saying "Note 1: There is no fee for the Zero Current Account.".

 

How have you become aware that a 1.5% handling charge has been applied to your three ATM cash withdrawals in France, please?

 

I have a Santander Zero Account and made three ATM cash withdrawals in France last month using the Zero Acoount's linked debit-card. Two withdrawals were from La Poste ATMs and one was from a Credit Agricole ATM. The most recent withdrawal was on 29 June. There's no indication on my Santander bank statement that any of of these withdrawals attracted charges and the entries on the statement are worded exactly as in earlier years.

 

As one of Santander's important selling-points for their Zero Account was zero fees for using its debit-card for ATM cash withdrawals abroad, removing that condition would be difficult to justify. And removing that condition unannounced to Zero Account holders (which is what you are suggesting has happened) would be VERY difficult to justify (and possibly illegal).

 

Santander's advice that "...other banks may charge" is certainly true, but La Poste does not apply charges to ATM cash withdrawals by 'foreigners' and neither does Credit Agricole. If a 'foreign' ATM is going to charge a cash withdrawal fee, or set its own currency exchange rate, it should be anticipated that the ATM will make this apparent before the cash is dispensed.

 

(I can't find anything in my Santander-related paperwork to confirm that this aspect of the Zero Account has altered. Nor (other than your posting) can I find anything on-line.)

[Hughmer]

Derek Thanks for your contribution.

In response to your comments:

 

I became aware of he handling charges when viewing the Zero account online (we're still in France) And I apologise for subbing Credit Agricole for Cr D'Aquitaine, - a slip of the spell checker, - but I've used Aquitaine previously without charges so something's adrift. Here are the account extracts. You can see the charge for the banque postale.

Only one "charge" for Aquitaine is clearly identified. The other is combined within the Debit total but the difference between £68.72 and £70.61 is the same (£1.99 i.e. min charge)

 

10/07/2013 CASH WITHDRAWAL HANDLING CHARGE (% 1.50: MIN £1.99: MAX £20.00: FIX £0.00) £2.59

10/07/2013 CASH WITHDRAWAL AT ATM LA BANQUE POSTAL,VENDAYS 200.00 EUR, RATE 0.86/GBP - £177.33

22/06/2013 CASH WITHDRAWAL HANDLING CHARGE (% 1.50: MIN £1.99: MAX £20.00: FIX £0.00) £1.99

22/06/2013 CASH ATM CR D'AQUITAINE,SOULAC GAB 2,80.00 EUR, RATE 0.85/GBP £70.61

22/06/2013 CASH AT ATM CR D'AQUITAINE,SOULAC GAB 2,80.00 EUR, RATE 0.85/GBP £68.72

 

Like you I subscribed to Santander's Zero account because of the zero fees for using its debit-card for ATM cash withdrawals abroad,

 

As regards La Poste & whether the ATM should make a charge apparent before the cash is dispensed...., well I entirely agree. During another holiday I managed to avoid being dobbed a charge by taking heed of the warning on screen before cash was dispensed and chose to use another machine. No such warnings preceded our business here.

 

I was much encouraged by your review of Santander's agreement so I shall pursue this with Santander when we get home because their very unforthcoming response by secure message has been "if you don't like my answer take it up with the ombudsman"...

[Derek Uzzell]

My Zero Account statement carries no handling-charge 'warnings' relating to the three cash withdrawals I made in France in June.

 

The 29/6 withdrawal I made (from a Banque Postal ATM) is later in time than your 22/6 Soulac one, so (if Santander has changed the Zero Account rules recently) I'd expect a handling charge to have been applied to my 29/6 withdrawal and be shown on my account statement.

 

The 'no fees charged' for the Zero Account is also clearly stated in the debit-card part of the Santander website's FAQ section:

 

http://tinyurl.com/qhaq7su

 

(It needs adding that, if you are being charged 'non-Zero-Account' fees on your ATM withdrawals, besides the 1.5%/£1.99 fee, one might expect you also to be charged a 2.75% of value non-sterling transaction fee.)

 

 

[Hughmer]

This morning I wrote again to Santander referring to your experience and advice. I'll post their reply if/when it arrives, but the last follow up I sent on the 9th has not yet been answered.

 

As a matter of interest, - did your transactions occur at mid rate (about 85/86p per €) OR did you get something like 87/88p? I ask because you'll notice one of my Soulac Txs is at mid rate but has a separate charge but the other just shows a higher £ cost for the same number of €

[goldi]

Afternoon folks,

 

If you look at the moneysaving expert website you are warned about this along with some other banks for debitcard use abroad. This time I,m going to use amixture of cash and Halifax clarity credit card..

 

 

 

 

norm

[Derek Uzzell]

Hughmer - 2013-07-18 3:06 PM

 

This morning I wrote again to Santander referring to your experience and advice. I'll post their reply if/when it arrives, but the last follow up I sent on the 9th has not yet been answered.

 

As a matter of interest, - did your transactions occur at mid rate (about 85/86p per €) OR did you get something like 87/88p? I ask because you'll notice one of my Soulac Txs is at mid rate but has a separate charge but the other just shows a higher £ cost for the same number of €

 

As you are no doubt aware, currency exchange rates are in constant movement.

 

On their bank statements Santander quotes the Euro to GDP exchange-rate in round pence and rounded down (eg. 0.85). However, the exchange rate is not a neat 2-figure whole number and, as I type this, 1.00 EUR = 0.862708 GBP (and will now be something different).

 

http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=1&From=EUR&To=GBP

 

Because of the simplistic way Santander shows the exchange rate on bank statements, identifying the actual rate that's been applied to a transaction requires an arithmetic calculation. The three French ATM transactions (for €300 each) I made in France in June are all shown on my Santander statement as involving a Euro rate of "0.85/GDP". In fact the exchange rates used were (near as dammit) 14 June 0.8523, 20 June 0.8583 and 29 June 0.8545. (You'll note from this that Santander does not 'round up' the exchange rate being applied. Although 0.8583 is closer to 0.86/GDP than 0.85/GDP, it was still shown as 0.85/GDP on my statement).

 

As I said earlier, the June French ATM transaction entries shown on my Santander bank statement carry no handling-charge warnings of the type shown on your statement. Deciding retrospectively whether or not Santander applied a 'hidden' non-sterling currency-conversion transaction fee (eg. 2.75% of value) to my French ATM transactions is a mite trickier, but - having compared my Santander account data with exchange-rate data relating to my Nationwide credit card across the same period (and referring to other on-line resources) I'm confident that no currency-conversion fees were imposed. I've concluded that the three ATM withdrawals I made in France in June attracted NO fees, which is exactly what I would have anticipated as a Zero Account holder and exactly the same as what happened in previous years when I used my Zero debit-card for cash withdrawals abroad.

 

Yesterday I contacted Santander about my using a Zero Account debit-card to obtain cash abroad from ATMs. The answer I obtained was

 

"I can confirm you will not be charged for using a cash machine abroad, but the cash machine operator may make a charge."

 

I can't satisfactorily explain why you were charged fees on your recent French ATM transactions as all the evidence is that fee-chargiing should not apply to such transactions for Santander Zero Account holders.

 

I offer the following possibilities...

 

1. That Santander's computer system has begun to process your Zero Account transactions incorrectly.

 

2. That Santander's system 'thinks' your account is not a Zero Account.

 

3. That you have a Zero Account, but (for some reason or other) the account has lost its eligibility for fee-free foreign ATM cash withdrawals.

 

4. That your Santander account is no longer a Zero Account.

 

(You should be able to test the "2"and "4" suggestions by checking how your account is described on-line. When I use Santander's on-line banking system, my account is clearly described as "ZERO CURRENT ACCOUNT".)

 

I don't know what you've said to Santander so far, but, as there seems to be no doubt that Zero Account holders should NOT normally have a handling-charge applied to their 'foreign' ATM transactions, I suggest you simply ask "I have a Zero Account - why were handling-charges applied to the cash withdrawals I made in France in June and July, conflicting with the Zero Account's terms and conditions?"

[Hughmer]

Matter resolved satisfactorily. Apparently during an update within the last 2 weeks or so some zero accounts were not ... er... updated correctly. Other's (including Presumably Derek's) were but mine wasn't.

 

After several emails including a link to this thread, Santander have traced the problem and reimbursed the charges and phone call costs - and made a very decent ex gratia payment by way of apology.to boot.

 

SO if you have a Zero account and make ATM withdrawals abroad, do check you haven't been incorrectly charged and if you have , - make sure you get your money back.

 

[Brians dad]

I had a zero account last year when I went to Norway and Sweeden. When I got back and looked at my bank statements there were some very strange conversions. I was only expecting about 8.6 Norwegian kroners to the pound, but they converted it at 10 kroner to the pound. I only really noticed this when a 1200 kroner cash machine withdrawal came up as £126. I did try phoning and writing to Santander, but came across a whole wall of waiting for call centres to answer and ignorant people on the other end, or bland replies to my letters, so I gave up in the end. I also made one cash withdrawal in Sweden (official exchange rate at the time 10 kr to the £) where Santander only gave me 9 kr/£, less this mysterious commission which they are not supposed to charge. As I had come out of the trip in net profit, having done most of my transactions in Norway, I did not pursue this further, but it is clear that Santander are still hopeless at customer service and explaining how they charge. I have now given up my zero account, and will try to work on minimum cash together with a Halifax Clarity credit card.