‘I sent my son a £200k house deposit, but Santander took £5k'
Dear Katie,
On March 3, I visited my local Santander branch and asked for £200,000 to be sent from my account to my son's GBP account in Zurich, Switzerland. I paid the £25 fee and was told that the funds would land overnight.
However, this did not happen. I made multiple attempts to get Santander to sort it out, and then when the funds did finally arrive, they were presented in Swiss Francs, having suffered significant exchange rate and handling fees.
On March 6, I complained to Santander that the money had been sent via the wrong route (the one that triggers a currency conversion rather than a straight transfer, which is far cheaper to do).
I was told that the complaints team would be in touch within three to five working days, as this had been flagged as urgent. However, no one called.
It was only on Friday, March 14 when I phoned repeatedly that I was able to make contact with someone. The lady promised 'prompt action', but another three days have now passed – nothing has been done and no one has been in touch.
If my son accepts the funds into his account, he will lose another £4,700.30 due to conversion rates and fees. My son needs this money soon to help him purchase a home in Zurich.
The funds are an advance from the Bank of Mum on his inheritance as – while I really do not want to play the 'poor me' point – I deal with advanced, incurable cancer.
– PE, via email
Dear PE,
Your receipt shows the transaction was made in Swiss Francs, which is in line with Santander's usual policy.
When you visited the Bristol branch for the second time, two days later, you advised that your son had not received the expected funds, as the receiving bank could not deposit the Swiss Francs into his account.
At this point, Santander became aware that you initially intended to send the funds in pounds.
In order for the money to be applied to your son's account, it was converted from Swiss Francs to pounds, with the currency conversion rate reducing the amount of pounds he received by £4,702.30.
Following my involvement, Santander has now arranged to send this amount back to you, as well as £300 to acknowledge that it could have resolved this issue sooner. It has also reimbursed your original £25 transaction fee.
I hope your son is able to now proceed with his house purchase, and I wish you all the very best with your cancer management.
A Santander spokesman said: 'At the time, Mrs E made her international transfer it was not clear that she wanted the payment to be made in GBP. Mrs E clarified this two days after the transfer was made, when it became clear that, due to currency conversion rates, her son would receive less than she intended.
'We're sorry we did not act sooner to review this once she raised it with us, and we can confirm that we have now arranged for the shortfall to be sent to her son, as well as offering an additional £300 for the delay in reviewing her complaint, alongside a further £25 to reimburse the transaction fees.'
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Reduce your spending - cancel Amazon Prime, Netflix and any subscriptions you don't use. Make lunch at home. Only buy what you need. Before you invest, build an emergency fund of £1,000. Pay off high interest debt such as credit and store cards. Invest in a low fee, simple global index fund like the Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund. Do it in a tax efficient way (stocks and shares ISA or SIPP). Don't forget your pension. It's sensible to see if you can increase contributions into your workplace pension scheme. 'We saved £1million in 10 years using the FIRE method - we've retired to travel the world' HUSBAND and wife Katie and Alan Donegan saved £1million in just 10 years by following the FIRE savings method. They retired when Katie was 35 and Alan was 40, and now travel all over the world from Rio de Janeiro to California. "You don't have to be stuck in a job you don't like," said Katie. "That is what truly inspired us. "People just assume retirement is an age, but it's actually a monetary target." The couple got into the FIRE savings method in 2009. At this point, Katie, now 40, worked as an actuary, while Alan, 45, was a landscape gardener. Both were fed up of the daily grind, and couldn't stomach the idea of working into their 60s, so they started researching how they could retire early. That's when they began to strip back their spending and start piling money into the stock market. When they first started FIRE, they earned about £50,000 between them, but this soon rose to £150,000 as their careers progressed, which helped to fast-track their savings. Katie said: 'Usually, when people earn more their spending goes up too. 'Ours only went up a tiny amount. We worked hard to push up our earnings and keep expenses down. 'We never upgraded from the small two-bed flat we bought. 'We downgraded to a smaller, second-hand car. 'We never turned the heating on. We wore extra layers, used hot water bottles and made it a bit of a game. 'We saved over £40,000 in ten years simply by taking our own salads to work each day.' Alan invested the cash using ready-made funds, where the hard work is done for you by an expert. "Choose a platform such as Vanguard Asset Management or Interactive Investor and invest in one simple index fund. It's surprisingly easy and simple to do." As the couple do not have children, saving for an early retirement was much easier. By 2019, they had hit the target of saving 25 times their annual spend - which was £1million. Since then, they've managed to invest an extra £265,00 - £182,000 of which was from the sale of their property and £83,000 from the sale of Alan's business. Thanks to the power of compound interest, their pot now stands at nearly £2.2million. This supersized savings pot is held in global index funds, one of the most diverse kinds of portfolios where your money is invested in thousands of companies across 49 countries. They have crunched the numbers and believe that if they withdraw £40,000 a year to live off, this is enough money to last them for their entire retirement. They say this is more than enough money to be able to travel across Asia, America and Mexico. The couple now rent places on Airbnb or stay in hotels, depending on their location. This has included a five-star suit in Bogota, Columbia which costs just £42 a night. Other locations have included West Palm beach in Florida for £112 a night or Poland for three months last year where they paid £38 a night. 'I retired 28 years before the state average," said Alan. "I clawed back 28 years of my life. I couldn't think of a better use of cash. 'If you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s or even 50s, you can make it to being a millionaire.' How ANYONE can adopt the FIRE rules to improve their finances Before embarking on FIRE saving, really assess if it's right for you. Laith adds: "A lot of FIRE saving can be a bit joyless. "It requires sacrifices now, sometimes very high sacrifices, as the idea is that you put away a lot of money. Then, in retirement, you live quite frugally. "There's no point in your life where you are enjoying affluence. That might perfectly fit some, but it's not for everybody." If you feel like FIRE is too difficult to achieve, you can still follow the principles of the method to boost your savings. You're not in a position to save half of your income, but investing just £25 a month can help grow your savings to a healthy size. If you invested £25 into the FTSE 100, for example, which is the collective name for the 100 largest UK companies by value, you could turn £25 into £4,465 after 10 years. Over 20 years, that pot would grow to £12,609. That's assuming that your investment grows at a rate of five per cent a year after charges. A great principle of FIRE is to pay off your debts as quickly as possible. By focusing on paying off your debts, you end up saving yourself a lot of money in interest repayments. For example, if you were focusing on paying off a £150,000 mortgage debt and making £200 worth of over-payments a month, you'd clear your debt seven years and six months early, saving you £33,130. Before making over-payments, check if your lender lets you do this penalty-free. Most let you make over-payments worth 10 per cent of your outstanding mortgage debt per year.
