Nationwide - Not so flexible features

Geedoubleu_2

Just had a crazy conversation with Nationwide after they ignored my numerous secure messages via Internet Banking for the past 3 months.

Basically I have a flexible lifetime tracker that allows up to £500 overpayments per month with no fee.

So I'm overpaying the mortgage £500 every month so that I can build up a reserve to take payment holidays if I have a bad time or pay it off early. Of course I don't want my actual repayment reduced asI want to pay it off early if all goes well.

So for the past 3 months I get a letters reducing my monthly payment further each time.

When I phone them they tell me I as I'm paying overpayments of £500 or more they will reduce my monthly payments to meet the termination date and that I should be paying £499.

My beef with them is:-

1/ They completely ignored all my secure messages and had they told me this when I first queried it, I would have altered my overpayment to £499.

2/ Now they have reduced my actual monthly payment I'm going to be about £240 shorter each year and they have refused to put the repayments back.

I'm !!!!ed because this is a stupid technical detail hidden away in the terms and conditions, which isn't consistent with the marketing of their flexible features and they won't work with me to put me back on track.

Anyone else had daft dealings with Nationwide, I've always found them to be helpful, but not recently.


"Our fixed and tracker rate products enable you to make overpayments up to £500 per month without charge. If you overpay by more than this there will be an early repayment charge payable on the entire overpayment amount."

andysdad_2

I believe they adjust your basic payment when the base rate changes, so it may not move much now. re the £240 I overcame this problem by changing the term remaining to add the money back onto the basic payment can you do the same?

Z1ppy_2

very strange.

we have 2 mortgages with nationwide and when we started making overpayments (always £500) they reduced the monthly repayment. after the first overpayment and letter i called them and asked to not reduce the monthly payments but to shortern the term.

they did it no problem and have since made several overpayments with same effect.

from experience it seems to depend if you get someone usefull there or not!!!

RosieTiger

Almost certainly people like ourselves are proving to be costly to them and they would like to ensure they keep earning from us all !

uzubairu

Z1ppy wrote: »

very strange.

we have 2 mortgages with nationwide and when we started making overpayments (always £500) they reduced the monthly repayment. after the first overpayment and letter i called them and asked to not reduce the monthly payments but to shortern the term.

they did it no problem and have since made several overpayments with same effect.

from experience it seems to depend if you get someone usefull there or not!!!

We had the same problem initially, but after 1 phone call with someone who knew what they were doing, the term gets reduced every 2/3 months.

We''ve been overpaying a minimum of £650 (£500 + extras) every month for the last 7 months and we have had no issues.
We've also not paid any charges.

We've changed the term 3 times so that we could pay more, as the £500 was a little restrictive.

Originally ending in June 2031, it is now stands at August 2020.

Thriftyknickers

We overpaid our Tracker by £500 every month - now we've just moved on to the SVR. We just opted for our payments to reduce but I did ask at the branch what we needed to do if we wanted to reduce the term instead. They said they would email the relevant department for me and they would just reduce the term as the default instead. (I for one love my flexible mortgage - found drawing down on the overpayment 'pot' very quick and easy to do - so definitely no complaints from me!

littlemrtinkle

i find the nationwide awesome reduced term twice in three months by justing filling out a form, no charge. you can do this as many times as you want?

HoolyNI

I've just changed from reducing monthly payments to reducing term, and think they actually back-dated to reduce term for the 3 months i've been making overpayments.....one gripe though, they only applied term reduction to my original mortgage and not the further advance....should be sorted now though.

Geedoubleu_2

Very strange.

It seems I spoke to a numpty, I was very patient and clear with her on what I wanted to achieve, I wanted to keep my repayment the same, overpay £500, reduce the term if necessary. She just spoke like a robot explaining the terms and conditions over and over again, until I got angry.

Secondly I've sent a further message via Internet Banking and again 5 days have passed and no response.

Very very very disappointed with their customer service, so much so I wouldn't think twice about moving somewhere else now, if their service is this shocking and I can get an even slightly better deal, why not.