Well I am not one for giving up on this - I phoned Santander again, to have to go through a major security check to be told at the end - You have already been told several times that your account is frozen until the payment has been verified. He was actually quite rude about it.
I have now been in contact with the Ombudsman, but it seems this is a slow process and can take up to 8 weeks to even get a reply from Santander.
Mr Charlie Elphicke's office has been in touch and I have been in contact with the SE BBC who will be coming out to see me tomorrow, hopefully this may get a quicker response from them?
I do hope that this highlights what a bad practice this is and that it gets resolved quickly.
I have also been advised that this could affect my financial rating, if bills do not get paid - something that is not helpful in this economical climate - so what do I do in the meantime?
Lucky me to have such a supportive family - I do hope that they have the same understanding when they don't have any Christmas Dinner to eat and presents to open if I can't get this sorted beforehand.
Thank you Santander for a wonderful start to my Christmas
