Natwest "Maintenence charge"

thenightporter

My wife and I are due to start a CCCS DMP in May and we have been making token payments to our creditors for 2 months. One of our debts is an unsecured personal loan from Natwest in my wife's name.

My wife was making the payments to this loan from a Standard Natwest current account at the same branch via standing order. In January we notified Natwest that we were in financial difficulties and made them a token offer of £1 and stopped the standing order. We did not close the current account though. Since that time Natwest have sent us a default notice on the loan account. However - my wife has now received a statement from Natwest regarding the Current Account which states:

"Pre-advice note
Details of the account charges for the period 31 January to 27 February 2009
The total account charge we will take from account no xx on 31 March 2009 will be £28.
Your arranged borrowing limit is £0."

The current account has a balance of £13 (we should have taken it out I know) and this charge will put us overdrawn and they will no doubt heap charges and interest on. I'm particularly p*ssed off with this as it appears that Natwest are inventing a "charge" to extort money from my wife via this account after they have defaulted her on the loan account.

My questions are:
1. Can they do this?
2. What on earth is a maintenence charge - we've never had it before?
3. What should we do about it?

Many thanks

RAS

I suggest you complain like hell, preferably in person to the bank manager.

What you may find is that if you do not pay in x amount per month, thwey have written in a maintenance charge for a non-functional account.

becky_rtw

Not sure it sounds like they've taken the standing order anyway and this an unauthorised overdraft charge on the current account - they call them maintenance charges (cheeky beggers) so they're not fees apparently...

You should be close the account asap if you still can because now you are in the overdraft they will charge £90 a month for being there which of course makes it worse...

thenightporter

Thank you both - I was wondering if we shouldn't just close the account! Is there anything they can do to stop us?

thenightporter

...and if they did take the standing order anyway did they have the right to?

becky_rtw

Yes if both accounts are Natwest they can pillfer from one to other - even though the current account is empty they've charged you a bounce fee I would guess for unauthorised overdraft request or whatever they call it...

But still ring them or go in and see what they say...

thenightporter

I know this is a bit "after the horse has bolted" but I suppose the sensible thing to do would have been to close the bloody current account first!

Miss_Marple_2

£28 is Natwest's 'gone over your overdraft limit' charge, which gets taken over a month after the event has happened, so it would have been sometime in February. Their 'bounce' charge is £38, so it's probably not that.

As everyone has said - go down to your branch and kick up a fuss, they should cancel it - it's a scandal that they can charge so much in the first place

thenightporter

I have since recieved a statement from Natwest. They have charged me £38 for "Unpaid item(s) S/O" (presumably for canceling my standing order to my loan account - which I thought I was perfectly entitled to do) and are now charging £28 for an un-authorised overdraft. I have drafted a letter to the Natwest account holding branch manager (which is not local to where I am living now) and I wil be making an appointment to see my local branch manager this saturday to kick up a stink. The letter is as follows:

"Dear Sir/Madam

Re Account No: xxx Sort Code: xxx

I am writing to complain about unfair charges that have been applied to my account.

On the 22 January 2009 I cancelled an outgoing standing order from the above account and withdrew £200, leaving a balance of £(small +ve balance). On the 16th of February 2009 I received a “pre-advice note” informing me that a “maintenance charge” of £28.00 was to be debited from the above account on the 31st of March 2009. On the 18th of February I received a statement for the above account that showed a charge of £38.00 had been debited from the above account on 26th of February for “UNPAID ITEM(S) S/O” which leaves the account overdrawn by £(small amount).

I strongly object to the £38.00 unpaid items charge that was levied against my account as you have no right to make this charge as I had legitimately removed a standing order from my account. I also object to paying an additional maintenance charge of £28.00 as you have offered no explanation as to why this charge is being levied.

Please refund the charge of £38.00 and cancel the pending charge of £28.00 immediately. I also wish to inform you that I wish to close the above account.

I will be visiting my local Natwest Branch (my town) to discuss both the refunding of these charges and the closure of the above account with the branch manager on the 21st of March 2009.



Yours....

What do you all think? Have I worded this correctly? Should I change anything? Will it make any difference? What shall I say in person?

Thanks for your kind advice.

thenightporter

I've reworded the letter as an official complaint:

FORMAL COMPLAINT

Dear Sir/Madam

Re Account No: xxx Sort Code: xxx

I would like to make a complaint against your company. The details are set out below:

• On the 22 January 2009 I cancelled an outgoing standing order from the above account and withdrew £200, leaving a balance of £(small amount). On the 16th of February 2009 I received a “pre-advice note” informing me that a “maintenance charge” of £28.00 was to be debited from the above account on the 31st of March 2009. On the 18th of February I received a statement for the above account that showed a charge of £38.00 had been debited from the above account on 26th of February for “UNPAID ITEM(S) S/O” which leaves the account overdrawn by £(small amount).

My complaint is thus:

• I strongly object to the £38.00 unpaid items charge that was levied against my account as you have no right to make this charge as I had legitimately removed a standing order from my account. I also object to paying an additional maintenance charge of £28.00 as you have offered no explanation as to why this charge is being levied.

I would like you to:

• Please refund the charge of £38.00 and cancel the pending charge of £28.00 immediately.

I understand that you must send a written acknowledgement of my complaint within 5 business days of its receipt. If you are unable to resolve my complaint within 4 weeks you must send a holding response, explaining the reasons why and indicating when you will make further contact.

If you fail to resolve my complaint within 8 weeks, or if matters are not settled to my satisfaction, I will have no alternative but to escalate my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. This could result in you being ordered to pay compensation if my complaint is upheld.

I also wish to inform you that I wish to close the above account. I will be visiting my local Natwest Branch (my town) to discuss both the refunding of these charges and the closure of the above account with the branch manager on the 21st of March 2009.

I look forward to your reply.


Yours...

thenightporter

Well we tried to get an appointment with the manager (or indeed anyone) but were told that we couldn't because 'someone else' was dealing with the account - no idea who, they wouldn't tell us, but there is a note on the file that says we have to phone X number (which I'm 99% sure is collections related to the loan account). If we did come in to get an appointment all they would do is 'sit us in a room with a phone and tell us to call the number'. :mad:

I'm so angry. I've reiterated to them that we will only be dealing with them in writing (or face to face with manager). The complaint was sent on March 19th - if we don't hear anything by early next week I'll be following up with complaints to the finacial ombudsman/FSA/OFT.

In the meantime I've put enough money in to take us out of the overdraft but I don't think for a moment that that will stop them taking more money out. they really are evil f*****s.