Natwest and my Dormant account

susiewalker2000

I'm a student who has a natwest student account. Because I have another main account with another bank I rarely use the natwest one. Despite this I do from time to time put money into it but it seems not in the last 6 months.

I started getting letters from them telling me to put credit into my account within 14 days, 7 days etc etc. But being at Uni my parents only send things up every once in a while.

They started calling me but I always missed them. So today I called them back to discuss some kind of repayment and what the situation was.

Turns out, as they consider my account to be 'dormant' I need to pay off the full amount for it to then become active again and then I can simply take the money out again!

The ridiculous thing is, they told me I had to pay it today. I had no time at all to gather money, I was to find family/friends/strangers even to borrow over a grand from to pay off this overdraft.

I don't have that kind of money and neither do my parents to hand. I'm embarrassed to ask my partner or other friends and I'm very worried that once I've paid the money in they'll close the account.

Surely if I just ignore them calling back, get the money by the end of the week then there will be nothing they can do? Or do they have more sinister plans??

What are my rights in this situation and is it likely that they'll close my account after recovering the money?

Susie

natweststaffmember

Sounds to me like its Birmingham Collections department. It also souns like you have used the overdraft and may not have been aware that you have to pay money into the account and use it as your main account as a student. Have you spoken to NatWest Collections OR has it now gone to Credit Management Services?
If you are within the overdraft facility but have not put any money into the account the bank will write to you. I would try and pay something into the account and IF you have an overdraft facility with your main account provider, clear the overdraft and shut the account.

natweststaffmember

To add something else, never ignore it because the next step COULD be debt collection agents and they are not a nice bunch of people. It may be worth speaking to a student adviser from the Student union or CAB to try and work something out