Consumer complaint received 2017-06-03
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Funds not handled or disbursed as instructed
Company: SANTANDER BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION (MA)

I have a checking account with Santander Bank. Santander has an online bill paying service called BillPay which allows you to schedule checks from your checking account to be sent to companies or individuals. To pay a company or a person using BillPay you must set up their name, address and phone number in the BillPay system. Anyone who is not in your BillPay list of payees can not be sent a check from your account through the system. <P/>In early XXXX 2015 I used Santander 's BillPay to send a check for {$2000.00} to our contractor doing work on our house. His name is XXXX XXXX. He is in my BillPay list and I had used BillPay many times to pay him. He called a few weeks later to say that he had not received the check. I looked in my checking account and saw that Santander has issued a check from my account to someone named XXXX XXXX and that check had been cashed. {$2000.00} was charged to my account on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX. <P/>I do n't know anyone named XXXX XXXX, and I have never authorized payment to XXXX XXXX. I have never had anyone by that name in my BillPay payee list and so I could n't authorize payment to him through BillPay. <P/>Clearly, do to the similarities in the names someone at Santander had sent a check from my account to the wrong person. I called Santander immediately when I discovered their mistake. The customer support person I spoke with said that they would look into the issue and credit my account when it was resolved. They did look at my BillPay payee list at the time and admitted that I had no one by the name of XXXX XXXX in the payee list. This has been established with multiple customer service people over the last 2 years. <P/>The customer service person suggested that I put in another BillPay request to pay XXXX XXXX and on X/XX/15 the correct person, XXXX XXXX, was paid {$2000.00}. You can see both transactions on the attached Santander monthly statement. <P/>It has now been 2 years and Santander has still not credited the XXXX to my account. I have contacted customer service dozens of times and have multiple cases open on this issue. I 've received many different excuses for why they have n't returned my money, including : - BillPay is a separate company, therefore we have to resolve this through them, XXXX is not responsible. - You did n't contact BillPay within 60 days, so there 's nothing we can do about this. ( I contacted Santander immediately upon discovering their error and there is no information whatsoever on their site about contacting BillPay. When I asked how I would contact BillPay the rep said " through Santander '' ) - The fact that XXXX XXXX cashed the check makes this a federal fraud crime, and must be resolved by the FTC. So refunding your money is out of our hands. - We have to contact XXXX XXXX before we can credit your account. - We 're working on it. Be patient and we 'll call you back. <P/>I finally gave up dealing with customer service and brought this to the attention of an officer at a local branch. She has been very friendly but equally unable to get someone at Santander to respond to my issue. I have also reported this recently to the Massachusetts Attorney Generals Office but they have n't responded to my query yet.