Santander by a million miles.
This.
Their consumer finance division handled the finance plan for my car. 3 months before the finance plan is due to finish, I call them and tell them I'm handing the car back at the end of the term, which their letter to me says I can do (call them, that is). They assure me they'll be in touch to arrange to pick up the car from me.
The wording of their letters was very specific, in that it's possible to call them on a given number and verbally terminate the contract at completion and without penalty.
We get to a month before end of term and still I've not heard from them, so I call them again and tell them what I'll be doing, as well as what I expect them to do.
Nothing.
Two weeks later, I call them again for the third time, after which they assure me again that everything's fine and that someone will be in touch. I gently remind them that as I've given notice to terminate, I will not be expecting the best part of £5000 to wing its way from my bank account to them in couple of weeks. Person I spoke to agrees and suggests that I cancel the direct debit, although it's extremely unlikely that they'll try to take final payment and that everything will be fine.
Cut to the day after the final day of the contract term and my home phone, work phone and mobile phone are all called by a very keen lady from Santander Consumer Finance, who'd really like the £5000 I owe them for the car I still have.... at this point, I gently remind her that I've contacted them several times, my intentions have always been clear and that no, they won't be getting the large chunk of money they want from me.
Unfortunately, very keen lady becomes very rude lady and robustly suggests I should have written to them to serve notice of termination, as per the terms of the contract.... I respectfully disagree with her and say that the contract doesn't say this and their recent letters (x2) don't say this either.
Rude lady now tells me that the call notes say I'm keeping the car and putting it in for part-ex on another vehicle, to which I reply by telling her that my call notes and my call recordings suggest otherwise, and that she might want to go back and check the call recordings on her end.
An hour after keen/rude lady's first call, she calls me back and apologises profusely for the mixup, and that everything will be sorted within two days....
Still took them another 10 days to sort, but I really don't think I've personally come across a more useless bunch of nuggets to deal with than these guys.
On the flipside, the local agent that came to pick the car up was brilliant, and an absolute joy to deal with. He also had a good read over the notes they'd been passed and asked if I'd had any hassle with Santander, as the notes appeared to hint at. Oddly, I wasn't charged the rather hefty pickup fee that's usually required, although I can't think why after the shambles above.
tl;dr - Santander Consumer Finance are utter idiots.
.
. Now I just write a transfer form, print it out and send it to the bank by courier.
for which I also had to pay a legal "stamping fee" (only £2 at least..)
Also had the wrong sofas delivered from Harvey's after an initial 3 month delay.