Santander extends PPI refund deadline after website fails amid surge of claims
Santander has extended its deadline for submitting PPI claims after complaints its website was not working and phone customers were left on hold for hours.
Claims were supposed to be submitted by 11:59pm on 29 August, but customers were advised to apply sooner rather than later ahead of an anticipated surge.
The bank said the amended date is "due to a high volume of customers contacting us about PPI".
Santander confirmed it will be accepting PPI claims until 8pm on Friday 30 August.
Customers, angry at the bank for the failure of its services, posted on social media as the deadline loomed.
One user wrote: "Santander website is down for making a PPI claim and I was on hold on there phones for 45 min. Is there anything else i can do?"
Another Twitter user lambasted the bank's "ludicrous" policy of referring phone customers to its website - which was also down due to congestion.
What is PPI?
An estimated 64 million PPI policies were sold in the UK - many in the 1990s and early 2000s.
PPI was routinely added to products such as store cards, credit cards or mortgages.
It was intended to protect people if they could not keep up with their payments, due to illness or unemployment for example.
People were pressured into buying it, did not know they had it, or it was unsuitable.
It is the most complained-about financial product that the Financial Ombudsman Service has ever seen, receiving more than two million complaints.
Some complainants have reportedly received thousands of pounds worth of compensation after being mis-sold the insurance product.