Awful. Utter horrible. So my ‘spare’ account was sitting there with minimal money, just in case, for an emergency. I got an email telling me they were closing the account because i had not used the account in 3 years. I rang up on Saturday to be told i must go into branch to reactivate my card. So on the Monday i try to do just that, only the bank is closed with a piece of paper on the door telling me the back is closed for the foreseeable future…. But wait, when i opened the account just a few years ago, there were 4 branches close to me i could use, this closed branch was the last one i could use… the notice is telling me my nearest branch is a train journey away, but i do not wish to pay public transport just to activate a card, and why did i not get notified my local branch was closing? As well, currently bus and train strikes are making getting about quite hard right now… so i called the number on the card, and im waiting ages, and finally when i do get to speak with someone i can only describe her as sassy, as well as rude, as she argued that my branch was not closed, when clearly it is! She then asked me if i knew where my bank really was, and could i perhaps have got the wrong building? Really! As i tried explaining with all due respect that i did in fact know where my bank is, that i did in fact have the right building, Lady Sass hung up! I then tried for quite some time trying to access via the ‘Bot’, only to keep getting the same response of ‘please reword your answer’ to every time i wrote ‘Help’. I admitted defeat and tried calling again, waited for ages… again… this time i got a lovely bloke, but i struggled to understand his accent, and he clearly had problems understanding mine… eventually he decided he was going to escalate this as a complaint, so he put me on hold for yet another very long stretch. Eventually Mr Nice came back and told me there was no one in complaints available, so he said he would file the complaint himself, and he attempted to fill out a form on my behalf. I told him the only thing i really would want to complain about was the tone of the previous representative, as i felt she was not professional, and if they were to play back the conversation they would hear i was quite calm, i was not even challenging, but i did not deserve to be insulted as to how she made me feel… i was promised a callback, but in all honesty i had no confidence one would come. The bottom line was my account was imminent to closing, with my money still in it, that i felt i could not access, as i did not have a workable bank card, and no bank to activate the card in! So i did what anyone else would do in this situation, i simply accessed my mobile banking app and transferred all the funds over to my usual account (fortunately with a different bank). Even that was not easy, as i was bombarded with pop up responses ‘this is a scam’ ‘once this money is transferred we cannot get it back for you’ - yet the money was going to another account of the same person, with the same address, which is ME! Sometime later that day i did get a call off Customer Services, and lets just say, the representative spoke down to me, he was horrible, he would not let me get a word in, he basically called me a liar, and stated Lady Sass did not have a tone at all, and she never hung up! I believe he could not have listened to those recorded phone calls because i certainly did not imagine it. He also told me that i was never told to go to branch by the first guy, but wait, why did i make the trip anyway? I did not dream this, i had wrote down the first guys instructions in my diary during our call! As far as i was bothered, the money could have sat in that account for another 3 years, but only for the instructions given to me following the email Santander sent me in the first place, this whole fiasco played out leaving me overwhelmingly exhausted and upset! Mr Nasty reduced me to tears as he asked me what i felt i thought i would get from raising a complaint - i tried telling him it was the last representatives idea to raise a complaint, and all i wanted was to make them aware about how Lady Sass was talking to their customers, and perhaps maybe he could suggest a solution as to how i could get my money? Mr Nastys response to this was ‘what do you suggest?’ and i simply answered ‘well its your bank, i thought you would have more of an idea than me’… oh dear, that set him off again, and this time it was all too much, ranting on, not letting me speak, so this time i hung up. But Mr Nasty was not done, he only called me back to continue his tirade. I calmly said ‘there is a reason why i hung up, so please leave me alone’… but he was still ranting on when i hung up for the second time, i dont think he even heard what i said. I immediately blocked the number. So please… dont bank with these bullies, there are far better and much well known other banks on the high street!