Complaining to NatWest

stclair

Just had a thought when i was hanging out my washing lol

The bank may have thought was financially linked as a couple and thats why they put a stop on your account aswell as your brothers as he was using a debt management company.

Never-in-doubt a poster on this site is very good at letters writing reading some of his posts maybe you could approach his for some assistance.

I hope he dont mind me name dropping lol

Try using inconvenience and distress caused somewhere in your letter....

Extant

iamassault wrote: »

I'm currently getting my letter together, but I was just unsure as to what I should be asking for. It seemed pointless to just be looking for an apology, since an apology (although nice) doesn't help me at all. I'm still also unsure as to how I should word any request for financial compensation, if I choose this route. Could anyone suggest a way to slip this into the letter?

Just put something along the lines of "I feel it reasonable to ask that you compensate me for both my time and inconvenience."

What are you expecting from this?

iamassault

Thanks for the replies again!

Stclair that sounds like it might be the sort of silly thing they may have done lol... They didn't tell me why they were linked (for "security reasons" since it was my brother's account that did it), but just told me that they were.

BarclaysManager wrote: »

What are you expecting from this?

I'm not really sure! But now that I've moved all my direct debits and other bill payments to another bank, I am looking for an incentive to bother using NatWest at all. If they don't offer me anything, and an apology is all they can give me, then I will just pay off the remainder of my overdraft when my account is working and close the account. I just think that this sort of mistake, where someone's account is frozen for a month, deserves some kind of compensation, if only a token one.

stclair

iamassault wrote: »

Thanks for the replies again!

Stclair that sounds like it might be the sort of silly thing they may have done lol... They didn't tell me why they were linked (for "security reasons" since it was my brother's account that did it), but just told me that they were.


I'm not really sure! But now that I've moved all my direct debits and other bill payments to another bank, I am looking for an incentive to bother using NatWest at all. If they don't offer me anything, and an apology is all they can give me, then I will just pay off the remainder of my overdraft when my account is working and close the account. I just think that this sort of mistake, where someone's account is frozen for a month, deserves some kind of compensation, if only a token one.

Yes i agree.... make sure nothing goes into the account for the time being until its sorted. Keep us informed of how you get on.

jambosans

iamassault wrote: »

I'm not really sure! But now that I've moved all my direct debits and other bill payments to another bank, I am looking for an incentive to bother using NatWest at all. If they don't offer me anything, and an apology is all they can give me, then I will just pay off the remainder of my overdraft when my account is working and close the account. I just think that this sort of mistake, where someone's account is frozen for a month, deserves some kind of compensation, if only a token one.

I have to reiterate what BarclaysManager and others have already said: you haven't suffered any financial loss as a result of this mistake. The possibility of financial loss is not grounds for compensation. You do, however, have a complaint which can be resolved with some goodwill compensation for your time and the inconvenience this has caused. I wouldn't be expecting the proceeds from the sale of the RBS Corporate Jet to be coming your way any time soon though. A letter of apology and a few quid to forget the matter, and if you don't agree, take your business elsewhere.

It is best to be direct when asking for compensation, however, in most cases (I would imagine), a complaints team will automatically offer goodwill on top of an apology, depending on the severity of a complaint.

iamassault

jambosans wrote: »

I have to reiterate what BarclaysManager and others have already said: you haven't suffered any financial loss as a result of this mistake. The possibility of financial loss is not grounds for compensation.

Not direct financial loss (ie money disappearing from my account), but I have suffered indirect financial loss through having direct debits canceled (I'm quite sure I will be charged for this, even if it is only a nominal fee for not paying by direct debit), and having to call companies to pay them via another means (ie the cost of the phone calls). I am planning on making it quite clear that the only reason I didn't suffer more financial loss is because of the fact that I acted fast, and the lucky (if you can call it that) timing of the hold on my account so that it didn't interfere with the date of my bills. I may also have suffered financial loss due to late charges paying some bills (I will find out in my next statement), possible negative marks on my credit rating due to having paid bills late, and the embarrassment of having to call all these companies to explain that my bank account doesn't work any more.

jambosans wrote: »

You do, however, have a complaint which can be resolved with some goodwill compensation for your time and the inconvenience this has caused.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm looking for. I'm not expecting to become a millionaire, but a goodwill gesture in the form of cold hard cash would perhaps persuade me to keep my NatWest account. I'm not sure if they will care for my business, but I'm assuming that banks don't like to lose customers.

Thanks again to everyone for all your replies - you've all been very helpful! This website was my first thought when I needed banking advice. I read it all the time but had never had the need to post before. I'll see what happens this week since my account is supposed to be "fixed" by Wednesday, then I'll get my letter sent to my bank manager and see what happens. Meanwhile, I'll be sending all of my earnings to another bank.

never-in-doubt

Hi

Weird but I actually know someone that this has happened to - only last week (wonder if I know you - the internet is full of disguise lol)...... :cool:

Their situation was Brother & Sister, neither married so shared surname. Lived together in deceased parents house and shared all bills etc but obviously ran separate finances.

Anyway, long story short was that Natwest found out that the brother was b/r in October 2008 and so decided to freeze his account (step a/c) which was fair enough as he had that account prior to b/r but thought as it wasn't a credit scored account he didn't need to declare it. Anyway, Natwest were one of the creditors. They froze his account and used funds to offset (problem here is that he went b/r so was illegal to attempt to offset at this point) afterwhich they froze his account.

Fine, you think that is that and so he went and opened an account elsewhere and all of a sudden, within a day or so, his sisters account got froze - this had the funds in from the parents estate (several thousand) and they emptied this and used toward the brothers 'bankrupt' debt.

Suffice to say she went nuts! She is a big old gal as well and i'd not mess with her! Anyway, after about a week of threats and visiting branch she finally got to speak to her branch manager who did sort everything out for her. She didn't even think of compo (til she spoke to me), and I suggested £10 per hour to include phone calls plus £50 ex gratia payment. She sent a polite(ish) but firm letter to the branch advising that she wished to claim £100 in compensation or she would move banks and report the fiasco to the FOS.

A few days later she got a letter from Natwest with the apology she asked for and a cheque for £250.

I guess the moral here is do not give up and argue til you get somewhere. If they do not back down then simply report them to the FOS and let them fine them, which will cost much more than a bit of compo to you.

Final point, the bank do not have to apologise if they protected your account from fraud; nor if they froze it due to AML (money laundering). They will just unfreeze it and that will be that. No apology is needed in these instances, chances are they will try and fob you off with AML to start with but then just SAR them and you'll get the real reason within the SAR pack :rotfl:

Good Luck - keep us posted.

Fire_Fox

If you share the bills do you have any joint credit agreements? A mobile phone is a credit agreement, for example, not sure if a TV and internet package counts likewise. You might want to get hold of a copy of your credit reports to check why the bank has linked your account with your sibling.

iamassault

never-in-doubt, that sounds promising, thanks for sharing. I'm currently a couple hundred pounds overdrawn on that account, so a cheque basically clearing my overdraft might go some way to convincing me not to leave NatWest.

Fire_Fox wrote: »

If you share the bills do you have any joint credit agreements?

No, we don't share any bills. The only thing we share is our address and our surname. Even our branches are different. That's why I couldn't figure out why they'd linked the accounts. The guys at the bank didn't know either, nor did the people on the phone that they spoke to.

This thread has been very helpful, so thanks again to everyone. I think I'm going to get my letter together asking for £10 per hour compensation for the time I've had to go to the bank, call them up, or call other companies to deal with things relating to my account being shut down. I'll see what happens. I'm not really expecting anything but if they do nothing then I will just leave the bank. I'm due for a large lump sum when an old company of mine that I still have a share in floats itself in a couple of years, so I'd like to make sure that's put into a bank that won't make such ridiculous mistakes.

iamassault

Just updating this thread in case anyone is interested or it may be any help to anyone in a similar situation.

After talking to my brother, it turns out that he received a letter on the 12th May stating that his accounts were to be put on hold, and to cut up his cards. At the top of this letter were 3 accounts, 2 of them being mine. He's blind, I know.

Anyway, I went into the bank again today since their "5-7 business days" had now turned into 9. They inform me that my overdraft has now been reinstated, but my account has not. I know, a little bit backwards. They also informed me that it's taking a long time to sort out because the problem has now been referred to the FSA. The reason being that my brother had been sent a letter with my account number, sort code, account type, and balance, for both my current account and e-savings account.

So, I have a couple of questions. Has anyone had any dealings with the FSA? Should I just let things pan out and wait for a letter about it, or should I write to them? And does anyone know what guidelines and/or laws have been breached by them revealing my account details to someone else? I've been looking on the FSA website and obviously they deal with a wide range of issues so it's not easy to find the exact documents that refer to this sort of thing.

It looks like I am going to have a much better case of compensation now, since my accounts have been on hold for 5 weeks now, and the case has been apparently escalated to a more serious matter.

Thanks again to anyone that replies!