Consumer complaint received 2016-07-09
Company: SANTANDER BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: NJ
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Other bank product/service
Issue: Account opening, closing, or management

Complaint:
On Friday, XXXX XXXX, XXXX, my husband and I visited the Santander Bank on XXXX XXXX, XXXX NJ to review our accounts. Because of work obligations we had not been to the bank in quite awhile and for some reason were no longer receiving paper statements in the mail. We planned to leave work early that day to review our accounts. We spoke to the branch manager, XXXX, who reviewed the accounts with us. We learned that they were earning close to no interest and that our checking account was being charged a monthly {$16.00} fee for inactivity since XXXX, XXXX. This checking account was originally opened in order to qualify to earn higher interest rates on our XXXX XXXX account. I never used it as my primary checking account and made no secret of that. XXXX told us that we needed to continue to keep the checking account open to earn future higher interest rates. During that visit we asked to move our money into something that earned around 1 % since we had accounts next door at Investors Bank which were paying that rate of interest. We also asked to have the inactive fees that were charged to our checking account refunded. We were told that although this could be done, it could only be done by our XXXX Banker, XXXX XXXX, who was not in. XXXX promised to have XXXX call my husband 's cell phone early the next week to take care of our requests. After not receiving a call from XXXX, my husband called him on Thursday to follow up on our requests. He told my husband that he would take care of raising the interest rates on XXXX accounts that were in my name in trust for XXXX of my children as well as on our Money Market account. He told him he would also request the inactive fees on our checking account be refunded. He called my husband back several days later to say that everything had been done. Shortly after that, I logged onto my online banking to find that XXXX of the inactive fees had not been refunded. My husband again called XXXX who said that XXXX had taken care of all the fees she was able to and there way nothing that could be done about the last fee. Today I received my Money Market statement which shows the interest rate at .40 %, not the .99 % that we were told. My husband called the telephone number on the bank statement. He learned that none of the account interest rates had been adjusted and he was referred to the branch to speak to XXXX. XXXX told him that he would make sure they got changed and when my husband asked about receiving an adjustment for the time period that it should have been done, he said he could not do that but we were fine since the higher rate would be guaranteed from today ( a longer period of time. ) XXXX also said that we would need to start using our checking account to qualify for the higher rate of interest. That was the first time there was any mention that using the checking account was a condition for the higher rate. I called XXXX back and told him this was completely unacceptable. We had asked for this change on XXXX XXXX and it was now XXXX XXXX and it still has not been done. I asked to speak to his supervisor. He told me the manager was not in and no one could help me until Monday. I told him that I had waited far too long for this to be taken care of and that I expected to resolve the matter today. It was clear when we hung up that I would not be hearing from anyone today. I called back the number on the bank statement and asked if there was someone who could help me resolve this issue. I was told that I would need to speak to someone at the branch office and they further told me that interest rate increases needed to be sent to management for approval and the status on my interest rate request was not yet approved and XXXX never be approved. Upon hearing this my husband and I went to the bank and closed all our accounts.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed