Santander España Reviews 

We are UK Residents but have a holiday home in Mallorca and recently received a letter from Santander saying that there is a debt/outstanding amount of EUR 400 and unless it was paid within 10 days then they threatened to take enforcement action.

When I tried to pay the money via Transferwise (as I have done for over 10 years) to clear this amount, it said "Payment has been blocked & returned possibly due to your Spanish bank account being blocked".

When I did some research it seems that, as non-resident account holders, the UK is now classed as a "3rd Party Payment Country" yet Santander never informed us of this or wrote to us explaining it - our accounts were just frozen and when I spoke to a lady in Santander Madrid (on the phone) she said we need to complete a "FIOC" Form in order for the account to be unblocked but I went on the Santander website and it's IMPOSSIBLE to find the form.

This is some hideous Kafkaesque nightmare where every door is slammed in your face and you end up going round in circles.

I actually hate Santander - they are a NIGHTMARE. AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE!

Worse bank EVER! They close their cash taking ability at 11am (BANK YOU CAN'T DEPOSIT CASH 1H AFTER THEY OPEN? WTheActualF!?). I came before 11 of course, but there was such a que that it was impossible to get there on time. I am closing the account as paying 20 euro just for having an account while others like ING or revolut offer accounts for free is a no brainer! Never again - this is as stupid as bank can get!

My father is 95 yrs old. Very frail and is no kinder alert and immobile. My mother is 80 years old. Very hard of hearing and very difficult to travel. They both live in Spain and I live in the United States. I visited a few years ago with my brother and sister. My brother lives in the UK and at that time my sister lived in the UAE. My parents signed a power of attorney covering all matters including financial. This gave us authorization to handle daily financial transactions. They had two bank accounts. BBV and Santander. My brother, sister and I wanted to conduct transactions online and needed password access. We went to BBV and within two days it was done. One day for their legal dept to review the power of attorney and the next day I travelled to the bank and got the password. Not so with Santander. I had to go back to the US. but I did get a contact at the moraira branch. I emailed my power of attorney and my passport asking for the password. No reply. Second reminder. No reply. My brother wrote in Spanish. No reply. I asked for assistance from a VP of Santander USA he was not helpful either. Now my sister moved to Spain. She visited the local branch in Calpe. The person she met and his colleagues could not care less. They said the power of attorney is useless because it did not say password and insisted one of our parents needed to visit. Despite knowing the physical challenges. Ok we asked for an appointment to help minimise my mothers visit. They don’t take appointments. So my sister dragged my mother to the bank and waited our turn. The system was down. The next day my sister went again and finally received the password. What an ordeal that spanned two years. I rate organisations on problem solving. BBV gets an A and Santander I grade them below F

This bank is the worse bank we have ever come across. Our Personal online Manager does not care at all about any problems we have. They encouraged us to have a credit card on the basis that if we use it twice a month we would not have bank charges , then proceeded to charge us each month. Our list of complaints would fill a few pages. Please avoid this bank at all costs.

This is the worst bank in the world!!. They have blocked my account for unknown reason and been talking to them for a month and no one has been able to do anything. PATHETIC!!

I call 3 times and spend 15min waiting to talk to them. And then, after 1 min. asking for information to open an account, they hang up on me! Bad service and no respect!

I opened an account because they have branches in Tenerife where I often go. It used to be free but suddenly they started charging 12€ a month. They have been difficult about paying my UK State Pension into the account to qualify for free banking. If you phone Superlinea it takes ages and they just refer you to your branch who said to phone them in the first place. They are definitely the worst bank we have ever used and we have had accounts with Unicaja, HSBC, Barclays España, HDFC in India, Den Norse bank in Norway, Deutsche Bank in Germany and Barclays Bank Kenya.

Don't do it. Overly-bureaucratic, generally in a state of confusion. Their online banking apps are atrocious. Staff easily confused (or mostly confused during working hours). They are an extremely expensive bank in Spain (possibly the most expensive) but you could deal with that if they were efficient..... they're not.

Used to be a real good bank, many things have changed.

They charge a 7 euro fee to withdraw money at an ATM. They charge 0.75% to the receiver when receiving an international wire transfer. Their fees are outrageous. My other bank charges 10 euro flat fee to receive an international wire transfer- I was charged 45 euros by Santander for the same thing. Bad customer service as well they dont speak English.

Book an appointment with your branch via the Online Banking Portal when you're logged in. Only way I've been able to get someone who "knows" what they're doing ... I think. I've been called back by my branch and since then they've been attentive, if a little hamstrung by the banks' processes and lack of transparency. If they do call you back, keep that number handy (a mobile number in my case) and use it to call them back on! I've surprised them a couple of times by using it, but they have been helpful once they get over the surprise.
I to have been told to "go into your branch...", we can't sort this out, via the Superlinea. When I posed the question ... "so you'll pay my return ticket and accommodation from the other side of the world to do that, and my medical bills if I get COVID?", they realised the futility of their statement.
Account blocked in October 2020 due to FIOC i.e. they're "missing" information regarding your Tax and Employment. All this information was provided over my history with the account from 2000 (then a Spanish resident) to now, a non-resident.
20 years I've held the account, from Citi, to Banco Popular-e, Banco Popular and now the nightmare that is Santander.
Lack of transparency, legitimacy, accountability, and absolutely zero responsibility.

Shockingly AWFUL customer service. Our Spanish bank account was blocked back in April 2020 through no fault of our own and we have relentlessly been trying to get it unblocked from the UK since then. November 2020 - our account not only remains blocked but is now overdrawn!…and no one but no one in Santander will reply to our emails in a bid to help us resolve this now urgent situation. And Santander's English-speaking non-resident phone line is all but useless (at a cost) with employees lacking even the slightest shred of empathy for our predicament being unable to travel to Spain during the pandemic to unblock our account in person. Absolutely unacceptable service. Once resolved we will be changing banks.

I have a mobile that alerts me to transactions going on in an account a relative(early stage Alzheimer) has. I became aware of an attempted access by an unrecognised mobile. I emailed the personal Rep to look out for things but not even an acknowledgement. A withdrawal of 1KEuros happened on the Saturday. It was impossible to get the call centre to do anything. Santander Spain don't seem to allow non-residents to have an account(I've an NIE no) so when asking me for my passport no etc they found no record of me even though I've Power of Attorney.
On the Monday I rang the branch and the line was dead. Another illegal withdrawal happened late PM.
I got a neighbouring branch to email them for me. No response. I obtained the jefe's email address and alerted them. No response. Ringing became futile as one morning I was first to ring and after a while the phone was cut off and the line dead. After more transactions I had to make 4 calls to the call centre number(cut off at call1) and the chap knew I wouldn't stop. When he was convinced I knew contact names and explained the phone to my father wasn't being answered so they couldn't verify, he accepted that the account had been hacked and stopped it.
That evening I sent an email to the jefe of the 4418 branch(surname ends que) titled "formal complaint". At least they confirmed they'd seen it but no responses yet. I shall escalate this but now stand to make a special trip to Spain in the dangers of Covid-19 when I'd rather not. There'll be more hassle as the UK Government Pension payment may be returned and I have to write to them.

A recent experience of Business ID Theft described the following:

"Every other digital platform we pay to use has good customer service, whereas *********, which is a good shop window for many businesses, is very different," The victim says:
"It feels like an iron fortress.
"It's very hard to speak to anyone.
"And the chatbots aren't yet intelligent enough to help."

These quotes typify my experience with Santander.

The other banks were such a different experience when alerting them to what was going on.

I know which Spanish Bank I WILL NOT BE USING in future in Spain. My experiences with Santander UK have been rather better and they are separate entities.

My only consolation is all the other -ve experiences expressed on this website!

By law Spanish banks must provide a basic account (no commission) for those who are unemployed or experiencing hardship. Normally Banco Santander charge 12 euro a month ! if your income is less than 600 per month. How many millions of people in Spain are currently unemployed receiving unemployment benefits and are being charged 12 euro a month by this bank out of 430 euro unemployment benefit from SEPE. I tried to get my 123 cuenta changed to a basic account. First they lied saying it wasn't available, then when they had to admit they were available they made it very difficult to apply. Then in desperation they made up a regulation surrounding my situation to prevent me getting the basic account. I am now, with the help of a solicitor, making a complaint about banco Santander to the Ombudsman and bank of Spain. Heed my advice, look at the 94% one star ratings and avoid this bank.

I was at the bank today to open a new account. Usually the New Customer is welcome. But the Customer service was very bad from senior employees. I had expected more experience as Santander the biggest bank, but the situation turned out to be very poor. I went and opened the new account in the BBVA.

The worst bank you can ever deal with
Especially the office in Avenida machado , Benalmádena Spain . Very rude people working in that office and no attention what so ever to customers .
Mrs elena.gutierrezirissarri should probably révise her customer service skills and learn to be respectful to people . Her job is never done ... I have been a customer there for the last 33 years and have been obliged to close the account due to the lack of professionalism and respect the team in this office provides you.
NOT RECOMMENDED AT ALL

I got my life sayings in there. Same as other complains very frustrated how this bank is dealing with customer service. No response on emails nor calls. I life in Thailand and have to fly to Palma de Mallorca to do a transfer!! They just screwed up a financial investment I tried to do. Thank you Santander... also coming from previus banco popular. I think they don’t care.

Horrible experience, poor customer service, and stealing my monet through stupid commisions in a saving account - 12 Eur a month for what????? Really stay very far away!!!

One of the WORST WORST bank ever that i have come across. They charged me maintenance fees during state of alarm when my card to access the account was lying with them. No information/communication to me for arrival of the card also. Customer service is impolite and they wont listen instead of marking continuous mails to them. they are SCAMMM and only want to take money from customers

I am a spaniard living overseas and Banco Santander started charging me 12€/month for my previously free account.

As I wanted to close the account I had to do three transfers 2 x 6.000€ and one 4.000€ because the bank charges in case your transfer is over 6.000€ (this is already substandard).

One of the 6.000€ transfers was not properly executed by the bank, i.e. it never arrived my other bank. Also no confirmation PDF could be loaded that the order had been executed. For the other orders I could.

Still Banco Santander displayed it as having been executed and subtracted the amount. I spent over 120 minutes in their hotlines and personal accountants with several call operators and everyone of them denied any wrongdoing and failed to investigate.

Still, as today, I have not received my 6.000€! This is a shame of a bank. Never ever Banco Santander. Never!

________

Soy un español que vive en el extranjero y Banco Santander comenzó a cobrarme 12 € / mes por mi cuenta previamente gratuita. por lo cual decidí cerrar la cuenta.

Para cerrarla hay que bajarla a 0€, así que tuve que hacer tres transferencias 2 x 6.000 € y una 4.000 € porque el banco cobra dinero en caso de transferencias superiores a 6.000 € (esto ya es deficiente).

Una de las transferencias de 6.000 € no fue ejecutada correctamente por el banco, es decir, nunca llegó a mi otro banco. Además, no puedo descargar el PDF de confirmación de que la orden se ha ejecutado.

Aún así, Banco Santander lo mostró como ejecutado y restaba el importe. Pasé más de 120 minutos en su servicio telefónico con varios agentes de atención al cliente y todos denegaron la culpabilidad del Banco.

Aún así, a día de hoy, ¡no he recibido mis 6.000 €! Esto es una pena de banco. Nunca jamás volveré a Banco Santander. ¡Nunca!