I decided to take advantage of the £100 offered by Santander to change my account to them. That was after Halifax tripled the cost of my over draft with them from £10 to £1 a day or £30 a month. My over draft with Halifax was about £600 at the time. Santander only offered me a £150 over draft however but at the cost of no more than £5 a month. They wanted me to change all my Direct Debits over to them and said they would do that for me but only one was actually change the rest were not. Lucky for me I had not closed my Halifax account.

I was charged £25 once for the non payment of a standing order and recently have been charged £15 for being 11p overdrawn over three days due to me forgetting about a £10 charge that take each month they have offered to refund it but only after they have taken it out they will not cancel it before then.

My account was upgraded to one of these premium accounts where for £10 they give you RAC membership, travel insurance etc. I have used the RAC membership it was Green Flag at the time to pick up my broken down car and take it and me home which was good. I also saved on buying travel insurance which also is good.

Bad points are the queues at the desk the machine that is supposed to take cash deposits is never working so I have to go to the counter and there is always a Post Office style queue. Yes old people with deposit accounts are taking out or putting money into them. They are people whom have had accounts with the various companies taken over by Santander like Abbey and have never had Cash cards.

That reminds me I found that I had a dormant account with Santander dating back to 1997 with £100 in it. The interest over 13 years as 1p and I managed to get the £100 as well after alot of problems. They told me I had a dormant account which they found by accident when I upgraded my account with them as the cashier noticed there was another account in my name on her screen. To get the money out I needed to bring some id into the bank. Next day I did so but the account had disappeared! I went to see the staff member who told about the account and she phoned head office up about it. They had dealeted it over night not thinking I would come back with id. They thought they could therefore keep the £100. It was quite a shock to them when I CAME BACK with id.

Overall then Santader have low charges with give you a small overdraft have long queues of pensioners and people without cash cards will try and keep any monies from dormant accounts you have and will charges you at the drop of a hat for being overdrawn by 11p.