Q. I have banked with Abbey – now Santander – for over 14 years, but I recently transferred to NatWest using a switching service which made contact with all my direct debits including, they claimed, for my Santander loans. But Santander wrote to me saying it had not received loan repayments. NatWest said it had written to Santander and received no reply. I contacted Santander’s loans division to arrange to pay the outstanding balance on two loans and on the 21 December it took £223 & £292.97 from my account for loan repayments. Santander then took a further £2,992.97 from my account. As a consequence I received numerous warnings of failed direct debit payments and incurred costs, which Santander has eventually covered. But I had no funds available to me over Christmas to buy gifts or pay for travel. The funds were only repaid to my account on 5 January 2010 and even then the repayment was £292 short. I have been promised the other £292, but still not received it. JA, West Sussex.
