January 2020 by Byanca Lara
Just thought I would share my experience, with this particular branch. On December 19,2019,I went to Santander Bank with my fiancee to open a Joint Savings account, and a Checking account for myself. As soon as I got there, a lady was available to help us. We didn't talk for more than a minute and as soon as I said I didn't had my ITIN number on me, nor do I have a social security, she said she couldn't open the account for me. Me and my fiancee thought ''okay we live close, so we can go get it''. We came back with the ITIN number. We sat down, and she says that she was going to start filling his info first because mine was going to be harder than his. She knew from the start I wasn't a US Citizen, but there was no need to be throwing shade, that my situation was going to be ''harder'' to deal than his. Because he IS a US Citizen, would be way easier. During the process she repeated that his account was way easier than mine, several times. Until it hit me, so I asked her what was so difficult about my situation, because I have an account with TD Bank, and Capital One. Which they never gave me a hard time. Plus, most of my friends who are in the same situation as me, went to another Branch in Long Branch, Broadway, and took less than 30min to open an account with Santander. No problem. After I asked her, she tried to sooth me by saying ''Its not a big deal, if I were in a different Country it would be the same with me.'' Which I GET!! But there is no need to be mentioning it multiple times. Then she started getting personal phone calls from family, which was completely fine, until it came to a point where it was taking her attention away from her job. And because of this, my card was sent to my home Country, instead of my local address. Which I found out only because my card was taking too long to arrive, so I called customer service, yesterday,January 1st. As she was filling up my information, she asked for a form of ID,I gave her my Capital One card, plus other ID's and she asked sarcastic if I got the card here, in the US. Which for me and my fiancee, it was as if I wasn't supposed to have one, again because I'm not a citizen. So she was surprised,I actually have one. We stayed there for almost 2 hours to open a simple account. I went this morning to the Branch on Broadway to have everything straighten out, which I had a way better experience. I would like to thank Roger Freitas for helping me and my fiancee with everything. Whatever happened in the Branch on 241 Monmouth Rd, was unprofessional. I called the Bank Manager,Billy, and explained to him what happened, he was very polite and apologized for the inconvenience and even said on the phone to me that the Bank Santander welcomes any type of ''creature''. Meaning, you, me, or anyone else. No one should be treated differently because of their status. I've heard really good things about Santander, but I thought I would share this, in case anyone ever experienced this with them, or anywhere! I just want to frame that I'm not disappointed with the Bank, just with the lady. I don't know if she never had this type of customer before, regardless, if she didn't know how to handle the situation, she should've asked for assistance from someone that has dealt with this before. The situation was handled in less than 15min on the Broadway branch. I would appreciate if there wasn't any hate. Try to think as if you were in my shoes. Thank you.
