Problems with Santander taking over Alliance & Leicester bank accounts

[PayPal_john]

Hello everyone,

There's been quite an issue over the past few days with anyone who has an Alliance & Leicester bank account registered on PayPal. Now that Santander have taken them over and the grace period where both details worked simultaneously has ended a large number of Direct Debit instructions with PayPal have automatically been cancelled.

In some cases the sort code has changed, in some it has not. Either way, as these instructions are all automated the moment the bank name changed the systems determined that the mandate was cancelled and removed the bank from your PayPal account.

Our automatic security prompts you to fax us proof of ID and a bank statement, ** please note this is not necessary ** . All you have to do is send an e-mail to customer service who should be able to re-enable the bank on our system. You will then be able to re-add it and set up a new Direct Debit.

I've copy and pasted the template for adding a bank below, once it is re-enabled you can follow the steps:

Here’s how to re-add your bank account:

1. Log in to your PayPal account at www.paypal.co.uk
2. Click 'Profile' near the top of the page.
3. Click ‘Bank Accounts’ under ‘Financial Information’.
4. Click ‘Add’.
5. Enter your bank’s information.
6. Review the account information and click ‘Add Bank Account’.

For security purposes you may be asked to confirm ownership of this bank account. You can confirm your bank account by following these steps: You can do this by following these steps:

1. Log in to your PayPal account at www.paypal.co.uk
2. Click 'Profile' near the top of the page.
3. Click the 'Bank Accounts' link in the 'Financial Information' column.
4. Select the bank account you wish to confirm and click 'Confirm'.
5. Click the 'Set up Direct Debit' button.
6. The next page will display your bank details. Enter the full address of your bank account then click 'Submit'.

We’ll then send two random deposits, between 1p and 99p, to your bank account. These deposits are at our expense and you'll find them on your online bank statement within two to three working days, or on your next paper statement

Note:

• It is not possible to confirm a savings account
• If the bank account is a business account or more than one person is required to authorise debits, you must print and sign a paper Direct Debit Instruction and post it to the address provided

When you know the amounts of the deposits, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your PayPal account at www.paypal.co.uk
2. Click 'Profile' near the top of the page.
3. Click the 'Bank Accounts' link in the 'Financial Information' column.
4. Select the bank account you wish to confirm and click 'Confirm'.
5. Enter the two amounts.
6. Click 'Submit'. If the amounts are correct, your bank account will be confirmed.

Completing this process enables you to add funds to your PayPal account balance from your bank account, make Instant Transfer payments and eCheque funded payments.

[dunncha]

Hi everybody

I have had the same problem with my A&L/Santander bank account as everybody else. Reading this and other threads I have seen the problems others have been having re-adding their bank accounts.

I first tried to re-add my A&L account but got a strange confused message which told me the account had been blocked.

..... so I tried to add a HSBC account instead and got the same message. 'Account is blocked'

So the question is has my Paypal account become locked due t the changes made by A&L. So that I cannot add any account: A&L or HSBC.

or should I just give up on Paypal and go back to no-chex or Gpay

Paypal has been easy up to this point but their emails about this have been so ambiguous as to be useless. I sent my first 2 off to spoof @paypal and heard nothing back. This is very poor service from Paypal

[Murxidon]

This is absolutely ridiculous. I have just received the two said e-mails and now my account has been removed, and I can't re-add it. What exactly should we be doing here?

E-mailing PayPal, waiting for a response, then re-adding our bank accounts with the new Branch and Sort Code?

Then what? Wait a week whilst the money is deposited so we can verify the accounts Santander ruined and PayPal removed??

Utter disgrace.

[Dee108]

In case it's of any help to anybody here the other thread running on this issue can be found under - Managing my money / Sending and receiving money / Just what is going on?

[Kerethuk]

Why didn't anyone tell me, an email costs nothing to send, then I could have sorted everything out. All this waiting two to three days is a lame joke. Just because some Spanish company now owns the building society that I use, I have to jump through hoops to get paypal to accept my details.

Come on paypal pull your finger out, and let us use our accounts. . .

[adamski]

hi, i seem to be one of the many, having problems with paypal disabling my alliance and leicester/santander bank account. i still cant determine which bank name my account is with ? anyway, im on my 2nd attempt in correcting the problem. the first attempt, in which paypal suggested that i change the name of alliance and leicester to santander seemed to work. the direct debits went through and i thought job done. until that is, i made a couple of purchases on ebay. i decided to use my credit card through paypal because i didn't want any other problems. the payments went through and the orders were completed but when i checked my emails, yet again, paypal had disabled my bank account. i have now checked my bank account details again online and noticed the sort code has changed, thanks santander for telling me, not !! ive just re-entered my bank details using santander as the bank name and the new sort code, leaving the address and account no the same. surely, this has to be the answer. its weird though how the direct debits went through with the old sort code and why i still have to access my bank account through the alliance and leicester web site and not santander web site. the whole experience is something out of a laurel and hardy film,

good luck adamski

[rhobags]

I have had this problem for the last four weeks, every time I'm told it's resolved, it isn't.  The latest today is that again I received emails (two one without date or account number and one with!!!) from PayPal saying that my Direct Debit cancelled.  Speak to Santander - of course it isn't cancelled.  I have just spent 40 minutes with a very helpful person at PayPal but he really wasn't able to resolve it.  Whenever you go to the "Complete Set Up of Bank Funding" page and put in the two amounts they've deposited on my account - it won't verify them and the process starts all over again.  Latest is to wait for the next amounts to appear on my account, print off the statement and fax it to Accounts Review on 08707 303190 with my name/email address and tell them to verify the account for me.   Watch this space

[Dee108]

Just a point worth repeating, you have to make sure the two deposits are defo the two latest amounts they sent your bank, I found it can take up to 5 full days for this. Mine still ok thank goodness!