Santander Consumer UK plc Reviews 289

Santander contract hire vehicle. Very very poor service. Communication and a scammer . Parking ticket challenged twice , and emailed them directly and paid the ticket which is supposedly under appeal. Charged admin fee 15£ on top of the said ticket.
They should atleast communicate with me , as their customer they trade their customer for a 15£ admin fee profit , they have no idea and history what us going on. That's how dumb, selfish and useless these Santander car lease. Please be very careful do not use this ever.

Simon from custoner hire was amazing, he needs an award. he asisted me today and put my mind at ease. i have been stressed moving home and he was able to extend my car. he honestly needs employee of year

Very simply trying to stop paper statements for my wife. Not possible online for a second person on a joint account. The chat bot was up for more than half an hour then dropped. Calling the 0330 number resulted in being on hold for ages and ultimately also dropped. Long time customer but seriously considering ditching them.

Absolutely Shocking Customer Service. I have called 6 times now and each time been on hold for over an hour with NO answer.
If you try to send an email you get the same automated response and then nothing after that.
All I am trying to do is return a car that they have financial interest in!!

TERRIBLE COMPANY!!
Extremely disappointed with the service from Santander Consumer Finance. My complaint has now gone beyond the expected timeframe, and communication has been poor throughout. I’ve constantly had to chase for updates, with very little urgency or support shown despite the stress this situation has caused.

Customer service responses feel generic and unhelpful, and nobody seems willing to take ownership of the issue. For a large financial company, I expected far better treatment and professionalism.

Would not recommend based on my experience.

On hold for an hour and nobody answered, they stopped a payment to a garage that had delivered a car to my house. Luckily they trusted me to make the payment the next day and left the car with me. I am wondering if I'm with the wrong bank!

E-sign - it's appalling !!!! the image is 90 degrees wrong on the mobile phone (landscape phone to take a portrait picture ???) . When images are crystal clear for drivers licence and selfie it rejects them. The zoom on the process is so large that a selfie is impossible - it needs someone holding the phone about 2 metres away! Forget it, they won't be getting any money from my credit application !

Santander Consumer Finance made several errors when I returned my lease car. Basic errors. Customer services appear to be untrained.
I lost £300 because I couldn't risk my credit score being affected.
3 weeks to respond to email.
1 hour wait on the phone

My experience with the Customer Service of Santander Consumer Finance (SCF) is completely unprofessional, incompetent, treating customers with utter disrespect and without empathy. I would not recommend dealing with this company for personal hire if you are expecting a reasonable and fair treatment.
My wife who owned the lease contract passed unexpectedly recently. The company’s credit agreement and policy clearly have a gap in how bereavement would be handled. As a result, the process they follow is totally at the discretion of Customer Service.
Instead of allowing the contract to continue to run to end of term as I requested, and treating their customers with respect, sensitivity and fairness, they demanded the immediate return of the car and intended to charge 50% of the outstanding lease payment of over £4k (with about half-way through a 4 year contract). They repeatedly quote section 10.1.5 as the basis of charging this amount as their loss due to early contract termination and refused to acknowledge it is them who has trigger the termination the contract and not us, the customer who in fact, has elected the complete opposite. To add insult to injury, the collection of the lease payment will now be contracted out to a third-party debt-collecting agent.
The way they go about bereavement says a lot about this organisation’s ethics and culture. Would you still want to deal with a company who treats their customer like this? Not only did they deprive us of the use of the car, they are claiming the entitlement of 50% of the unearned outstanding lease payment which is totally greedy, iniquitous and exploitative.
Numerous email exchanges with SCF (Customer Services) and every time their response come from a different person in that department. They allegedly had passed this case to their Complaints Department. Their response failed to articulate any explanation on what investigation had been carried out or what facts and legal angle had been considered before concluding my complaint was not upheld. Instead of addressing the questions raised, their response repeatedly stating exactly the same by quoting section 10.1.5 without acknowledging that the termination of the contract was wholly triggered by them and therefore they do not have legal right to claim any damages.

Bought a Tesla in June 2025 using `Santander's PCP. Numerous problems at Santander's end which resulted in me having to complete something like 6 different finance applications despite being told my application had been agreed and I was allowed to collect the car!

This was eventually resolved but Santander changed the agreement date from June 25 to September, meaning the 10,000 annual mileage limit ran from the end of September 25 instead of June when I collected the car.

I have raised a complaint with Santander as if I hand back the car at the end of the PCP and they claim I have exceeded the mileage (due to them working from September and the mileage being prorated from the wrong date) they will bill me.

I've made several complaints about this, most of which are ignored by Santander. I keep chasing them and they occasionally tell me it has been handed to the complaint handler. The complaint handler is clearly ignoring my complaint which is now over 4 months old with no resolution.

Avoid this company like the plague, they are entirely incompetant! Although I love my Tesla, I would doubt buying another in future if I had to deal with Santander again!

I really wouldn’t recommend using this company for personal contract hire.

I was charged an extortionate rate for exceeding the contracted mileage. Prior to collection I had the tyres checked and I had it valeted. I was then charged £50 for a basic valet and £116 for a new tyre due to a “cut”.

Well and truly fleeced. Never again.

Poor poor service- despite 5 phone calls still no resolution. If I could give zero I would They say the problem will be resolved and it isn't Culminated in getting a default notice because of their horrendous internal communication - or none!!!
I will never use this lease company again

Ideally should be a zero star option.
Levels of customer service and communication never seen before in my 35 years as an Adult on this planet. Raised a complaint after some shoddy mistakes. That complaint have been moved around over 6 months with zero direct response. Chased many times and just fobbed off. Awful company. I thought the Ant & Dec TV ads were crap...but this is a new level of crap.

Whilst trying to finance a lease for tesla, I was directed to apply via Santander. The details were entered and once complete a message appeared saying there was a problem their end. Unfortunately the application is now in limbo saying pending but hasn't actually been submitted.

‘What went wrong' here is such a litany of failure I don't even know where to start.

So rather than re-live it and bore you with one of the most stressful episodes of my life, I will whittle this down to something digestible for anyone considering taking a Santander consumer finance arrangement; please, listen to everyone here and think very hard before you do.

-- 1.5 hour waits to speak to first-line who can’t answer anything more that what’s already on the FAQs on their site (and will refer you to them even if they don’t answer your question)

-- FAQs that are, at best, rudimentary

-- I needed to write, recorded delivery, with the keyword ‘ombudsman’ to get anyone to begin to take ownership of matters that are a big deal to me

-- emails wholly ignored, including repeated communications for critical, time-sensitive information such as who the owner of the car should be on the V5c document when it is collected. Really basic. Contacted me to provide said information a WEEK after the car had been collected. Useless.

-- no ability to self-serve / log into an account portal, forcing you to the above service options that just don’t work

-- an attempt to close my complaint without it being resolved, presumably to massage ‘resolution’ stats

-- sloping shoulder attitude from some front-line staff

-- having to store the car, including insuring and taxing it, on my drive, for 2 weeks after it was technically no longer mine. I made various contacts over 7 months to try and avoid this

-- receiving an arrears letter, threatening a credit default – demanding the balloon payment for my car – which they have already arranged to collect (2 weeks late)!

-- car was collected. Received two communications, same day, from the contracted collector. Absolutely nothing in confirmation from Santander themselves.

-- discovered that, despite making all the payments and the car being collected, they've actually had the incompetence to slap a ‘late payment’ on my credit score! I owed them no money, and never did after making the last payment and sending the car back mint with a glowing condition report. I've never missed a payment in my life.

Overall, a nightmare – clearing one of their errors is really just paving the way for the next problem in what seems to be a never-ending saga that is affecting my health.

Some of these issues have been blamed on ‘teething troubles in a new system’. These are not teething troubles – it doesn’t work and should never have passed UAT.

These issues affect and ruin people’s lives. Matters are still ongoing and I was going to hold this review until resolution. Since it seems to be one failure after the other, I think it's enough to post and warn people now because I am just not seeing an end in sight.

I will likely refer the matter to the ombudsman.

UPDATE 20/04/26: I wrote, one week ago via Special Delivery (recorded), to ask for the completely erroneous credit default to be removed from my credit file. Letter was delivered with proof, but I haven't had as much as an acknowledgement. Credit damage still intact. Email on the subject also ignored. Additionally, by now, they have had the car back almost a MONTH also without an acknowledgement.

UPDATE 26/04/26: received a letter in the later part of this week, stating the complaint would be looked at. Nobody has been in touch - and I can see my returned car is now listed for sale online! Credit damage has not been corrected.

UPDATE 05/05/26 : no communication at all from SCF. Credit damage still in place, car for sale online.

UPDATE 12/06/26 : matter was taken to 'final resolution' with compensation and assurance that the erroneous credit damage would be removed. After waiting the requested period, it has not been fixed.

UPDATE 28/06/26 : had to write again (fifth time now I think) to point out the above. Something shifted, and last night got a credit score update and the damage is now gone.

October 25 - June (almost July) 26, to carry out a routine car collection and account closure.

Absolutely dreadful company. Too many issues to list here but main one is had a car on PCP, exercised right to VT prior to halfway. Emailed them to arrange payment of remaining balance, was asked to fill out an expenditure form and nake an offer which I did and returned to them within a week or receiving it. Heard nothing back for 2 months. Then saw they had reported a default against my name without sending a 28 default notice as required. They failed to engage with me despite me making a fair offer and multiple communications from me were ignored. I Complained about it, they have opened an investigation into that but have yet to respond to any requests for an update, still haven't responded to my offer of a monthly payment or the sending of an expenditure form that they requested. Yet they have been happy to damage my clean credit score (no defaults on my record until they put one there) and instruct a law firm to come after me for money and payments that I have already offered them months ago! Left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing. Also complained to Ombudsman about them on a separate issue. Ombudsman told them to pay me some money back as they had not handled that complaint fairly, they have ignored Ombudsman on that and not paid me or contacted me at all. Awful, money grabbing company with no customer service whatsoever ever. Will never use them again for anything, ever. Avoid at all costs.

Have had the misfortune to have to contact them a few times - average wait time is 40 minutes.

Received 5 copies of the same letter stating I was expected to make a payment when I had already confirmed to return the car.

Waiting a "few weeks" to tell me what the final charges will be... i'll tell you what.... i'll wait a few weeks to pay you.

I'll give it to them, the finance was cheap - you can see that everything else is too ! avoid unless you have no choice!

Had a lease for 3 years and all was fine (aside from having additional road tax payment taken via direct debit WITHOUT having notified me) and they were very helpful and quick to respond initially.
At the end of the contract, I looked to potentially extend at a reduced price as I didn’t have time to shop for a new car. Despite prior conversations, I was informed (rather rudely) that allowing me to extend the lease was essentially a flexible courtesy to me so they wouldn’t reduce fees. They kindly added that I had to have my MOT completed 8 weeks in advance…with 6 weeks left. I was assured if I returned it before then, I wouldn’t be liable for that - this was incorrect.
That was the beginning of the issues and ended with customer service not knowing what a 1 month deposit was, or why I should be getting £25 back on it, given I’d reduced mileage, and having multiple invoices issued for road tax (and a car I no longer have) and invoices for additional excess days (despite returning the car the day before the contract ended).
Hopefully sorted the outstanding invoices now but I’ve been down this road before so we’ll see!
Lots of hidden elements that they don’t tell you about when signing the agreement, you can’t easily access contracts on the platform, and outside of a few members of staff, the rest tend to be dismissive and rude.
Totally put me off leases going forward and I’d absolutely steer clear of any type of agreement with this finance company going forward.

Wish someone would answer the phone every time I contact them over an hour to answer

Bought a car through PCP first time in my life, during pruchase I was never explained that mileasge cannot be increased once purchased - contact the company not helpful- now the car becomes a headache.