I paid £100 into a Santander cash machine – and then it went missing

I TRIED to deposit £100 into my Santander account via a cash machine outside the bank.

After I had inserted the final note, a message appeared on the screen, telling me it couldn’t process the transaction. A member of staff had to open the machine to retrieve my card.

I completed a form and was told that someone would phone me by 1pm the next day and the money would be credited to my account.

No one called me, so I contacted customer services, who told me that all they could do was ring or email the branch to ask them to phone me.

I then visited the branch, where I was told my money had not been found.

An employee said that it might be jammed somewhere in the machine, but admitted they hadn’t actually looked. She was very unhelpful, but said the complaint had been escalated to the manager.

I was told the only way I could speak to them was by phoning the customer services number.

Yet, on the two previous occasions I had phoned customer services, they tried to connect me to my local branch — only to tell me they were not answering the telephone! R. J., London. There’s only one way to describe your situation: you were given the runaround by sloppy staff who couldn’t be bothered to help. Fancy branch staff telling you to call a central customer services number so they could contact that same branch. What a waste of everyone’s time!

The clear impression is they just don’t care about the reputation of the business or for you as a customer.

If an organisation promises to call a customer back, they should do so, rather than expect the customer to call them.

checks were finally made two days after you reported the incident and the branch manager did then contact you to confirm the £100 had been credited to your account.

so, if you had been the victim of fraud, you would have lost two days, thanks to this branch’s lackadaisical attitude.

santander has now offered a rather measly £30 to apologise for the inconvenience. I OWN a rental property, which was vacant for 11 days in June last year, with no gas used.

I provided Scottish Power with the departure date and meter reading for the outgoing tenant on June 5. I also provided the name, date of arrival and meter reading for the incoming tenant on June 16.

Despite this, Scottish Power issued me with an invoice, based on estimated readings, for £97.73, covering the period June 5 to July 23.

I told the energy company about the error, but it referred the matter to a debt collector — which eventually referred it back to Scottish Power.

I then received a demand letter from another debt collector dated March 21, for payment of the bill plus an administrative fee of £20.03. Mrs C. T., Rugby, Warks. scoTTIsh Power apologises for not correctly closing your account and billing your tenants. It says it has now calculated the new bill based on your readings.

This shows a small balance of £3.01, presumably for the standing charge. It has written this off and issued a £50 goodwill payment. I WAS forcibly removed from a Ryanair flight after being cleared to travel by two-stage airport security checks. My innocent mistake — not known to me until after the incident — was to print my outward boarding pass twice, rather than one inward and one outward.

The airport security’s mistake was to accept my outward pass as valid for the return flight and clear me for boarding.

Ryanair’s mistake was to treat me, elderly and infirm, as a criminal in front of my fellow passengers, insist that I leave the plane at a speed and manner inappropriate to my dignity and disability and have the police waiting for me at the bottom of the steps, leaving me stranded, confused and angry late in the evening at Memmingen Airport, in Germany.

I managed to get an alternative flight home.

I have since received an empty, no-responsibility apology from the airport authorities and, from Ryanair, a deafening silence. Mrs C. M., Malaga, Spain. mosT of us accept ryanair is a no-frills airline: you pays your money and you takes your chance. But, if this incident took place as you describe, then the conduct of ryanair staff is shameful.

I took your complaint to the airline and, as expected, received the verbal equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders.

Its statement was as follows: ‘It is each customer’s individual responsibility to ensure that he/ she is travelling with the correct boarding pass. There was no “deafening silence” from ryanair — we responded to this customer’s complaint on november 24 and again on may 12.

‘since this matter relates to a security breach at memmingen Airport, it’s a matter for memmingen Airport security.’

It is a reminder to all readers that when a ryanair flight works well, it is perfectly acceptable — but if things go wrong, you might as well complain to the Tooth Fairy for all the help you’ll get.

on a general note, as holiday season gets under way, check and double-check all your documents before heading to the airport.