Complaining to NatWest

Extant

iamassault wrote: »

Ideally I would like enough compensation to pay the overdraft (around £500), which would lift the limits on my account, get me back to zero with NatWest, and allow me to leave the account dormant and use a different bank without affecting my credit rating.

I just can't believe how ridiculous this has become.

You can ask for £500, but I'd not be surprised if Natwest told you to run and jump, in polite terms. Why? The FOS regards this as "substantial" compensation, up there with pensions not being paid properly etc.

Basically, handling FOS complaints is a balancing game. Paying the ~£500 for a FOS complaint is inevitable, and the real key to it is avoid minor complaints getting that far, or letting customers go there without a final response given (which costs nothing, and just gets a prod from the FOS).

FOS invoices (yes, they really do provide invoices) are not itemized. Despite the cost of a FOS complaint, there is little to no point in settling a complaint when it's not to the bank's advantage just to avoid the fee.

Natwest would play the balancing game of if this complaint went to the FOS, would they agree the customer's request for compensation, or would they give the customer compensation for distress and time spent dealing with this? This is what Natwest will be 90% sure the FOS will award, based on historic decisions and guidelines, which will be cheaper than your request and likely less than £300.

Long and short, compensation is not supposed to be a way to make some easy money or clear a debt just because there's been some problems with it.

iamassault

Thanks for the reply but I think you misunderstand. If I want to clear the debt I will simply pay it. The compensation is for my time and inconvenience, not to "conveniently pay a debt". It is 100% a bank mistake, and I have been dealing with this for three months now. I have had to make at least 2 hours of telephone calls, write around 5 letters, and have probably spent 10+ hours in the bank. Not to mention the affect this may have on my credit rating, disclosure of my personal details multiple times over a period of months, and the 10+ phone calls I had to make to move all bill payments etc to another bank, along with online transactions. I have spent a lot of time dealing with what the bank could have avoided were they not ridiculously inept.

I never asked for an actual amount in my letters to NatWest, but I think you will agree that £50 is insulting considering the fact that I still do not have a bank account after three months of dealing with this complaint.

natweststaffmember

iamassault wrote: »

Well, just an update in case anyone is reading...

I went to talk to the bank about 2 weeks ago, spent ages with a very condescending and patronising member of staff, who quite clearly did not understand a word I was saying.
It might be because he isn't selling you any products. Did he at least have a look at the complaints notes which he should be able to access via the complaints and queries bit on his computer?

He kept denying that the bank had done anything wrong, and told me that I could write to the FOS if I wanted, but that NatWest had done nothing. He suggested that it was my own fault that this had happened, since I should have paid the overdraft.
He clearly didn't understand the issue since he said you should have paid the overdraft and not that the overdraft was withdrawn by the bank in error.
When I explained that I could not use the account even if I put £5000 into the account, he answered with "yeah, but would you?". He also suggested that my direct debit with Orange was canceled by me, not by the bank (coincidentally at the exact moment my account was put on hold), and when asked why I would do that, he answered "well, you tell me".
I would probably ask him to investigate the fraud on my account if he said this since you clearly didn't cancel the Direct Debit.

He was extremely rude and unhelpful. He then called another member of staff over after me going at him for about 30 minutes, who understood the situation a lot better and actually had the intellect to understand that events that happened after my account being put on hold could not be responsible for the account being put on hold.
Finally some experienced member of staff.
They informed me that they cannot reinstate my account nor give me a new card since it is now with Birmingham collections. They also told me that Birmingham collections said my account was put on hold because of "unusual activity", that quite coincidentally happened at the exact time my brother was written to with my account details and told his accounts would be put on hold. Apparently this is quite coincidental. I was also told that Birmingham collections categorically stated that they did NOT send me a letter to inform me of the withdrawal of my overdraft.
This one is complicated. The account may well be with Birmingham collections NOW since the account would have been massively overdrawn. Furthermore, he wouldn't have had access to their notes system since branches do not have access.
The second member of staff that I spoke to in the bank did seem to understand the situation a little better, and agreed that it's ridiculous that they had not written to me to inform me of anything. He said he would take the matter further and write to me as soon as possible.
It sounds like he is onto the case on the complaint.
This morning I received a letter from NatWest offering me £50 in compensation.
This is their first salvo and possibly an indication that a mistake has been made so as BM has said above it's a negotiate compensation time.
Quite clearly this is ridiculous and rather an insult considering I have had no bank account for nearly 3 months now, have had multiple breaches of the DPA, and have visited and written to the bank on many occasions to sort out THEIR mistake.
How do you quantify this? For example, telephone calls, did you have to take time off work? Did you incur expenses parking for example, or even getting the bus to the branch? Is the matter actually resolved and that you have an account that is functioning?
What now? I suppose I need to write to the FOS and the ICO about the matter?
I think the ICO should have been involved as soon as your brother received his letter so a copy of it and him complaining as welll would be in order since he has also been wronged since you now know about his account.

The letter from NatWest suggests that "if you are unhappy to accept this please provide a breakdown of the compensation you are looking for". Should I attempt a final effort for compensation before I write to the FOS and ICO?
If you see the above there is verifiable costs, ie telephone calls, parking/travelling costs and unquantifiable ie inconvenience.
Ideally I would like enough compensation to pay the overdraft (around £500), which would lift the limits on my account, get me back to zero with NatWest, and allow me to leave the account dormant and use a different bank without affecting my credit rating.
I would ask them to make sure that any action to any relevant agencies has been corrected by them including any adverse data as well.
I just can't believe how ridiculous this has become.

See above and BM's comments.

GiraffeMan

BarclaysManager wrote: »

You can ask for £500, but I'd not be surprised if Natwest told you to run and jump, in polite terms. Why? The FOS regards this as "substantial" compensation, up there with pensions not being paid properly etc.

Basically, handling FOS complaints is a balancing game. Paying the ~£500 for a FOS complaint is inevitable, and the real key to it is avoid minor complaints getting that far, or letting customers go there without a final response given (which costs nothing, and just gets a prod from the FOS).

FOS invoices (yes, they really do provide invoices) are not itemized. Despite the cost of a FOS complaint, there is little to no point in settling a complaint when it's not to the bank's advantage just to avoid the fee.

Natwest would play the balancing game of if this complaint went to the FOS, would they agree the customer's request for compensation, or would they give the customer compensation for distress and time spent dealing with this? This is what Natwest will be 90% sure the FOS will award, based on historic decisions and guidelines, which will be cheaper than your request and likely less than £300.

Long and short, compensation is not supposed to be a way to make some easy money or clear a debt just because there's been some problems with it.

Barclays Manager, I'll think you'll find the FOS doesn't generalise compensation and awards of £500.00 are far and few between although i'm sure due to your experience, standing etc, you have resided over thousands of them..but anyways, mal-administration is generally around £250.00 from a FOS point of view so i'm told from an FOS adjuticator

Extant

GiraffeMan wrote: »

Barclays Manager, I'll think you'll find the FOS doesn't generalise compensation and awards of £500.00 are far and few between although i'm sure due to your experience, standing etc, you have resided over thousands of them..but anyways, mal-administration is generally around £250.00 from a FOS point of view so i'm told from an FOS adjuticator

The FOS does generalize compensation and has guidelines set. The whole point of FOS is to be an independent adjudicator for disputes that cannot be resolved between financial institution and customer. Such a service becomes entirely pointless if they are inconsistent in their approach.

iamassault

Thanks for the replies guys but I'm not really looking to debate whether or not my time and inconvenience is worth a certain amount of money or not. The fact of the matter is that this entire fiasco is a bank mistake, I've not had a bank account for 3 months now, and £50 is just a slap in the face. If the bank had adhered to their own protocols and written to me when they were deciding to withdraw my overdraft (for whatever reason), then I could simply have paid it off and avoided this entire episode. The bank is ENTIRELY to blame for this.

I'm not specifically asking for £500 compensation from them, since it's impossible to quantify why I should think I am due compensation of this amount, in the way that NatWest would want me to quantify it (ie receipts, proof of charged incurred etc). It was only by my own diligence that I avoided charged for unpaid bills, avoided my website going down, was still able to withdraw money from my PayPal account, etc, so of course all of these inconveniences cannot be proven. I do not drive, so I incurred no charges for parking, but I did take an hour to walk to the bank and back each time. I am self employed so I didn't have to take time off work, but again I see no reason why my old diligence and fortunate situation should get NatWest "off the hook", just because I make my own hours and could afford to take time during the day to sort this out, and work later in the evening.

I'll be writing back to NatWest to refuse their compensation suggestion, writing to their collections department to make another complaint, and writing to the FOS and ICO about it. I won't be using NatWest again, so they've just lost a 20+ year customer, who would have continued to use the bank for another 20+ years were it not for this ridiculous chain of events.

natweststaffmember

iamassault, the FOS will look at it in similar ways that BM has said. I agree with everything you have said re complaining about the issues but £50 is merely the first salvo so you have to quantify it since the FOS will want you to do the same thing. Good Luck and I would do exactly the same as you on the last bit should the same have happened to myself.

iamassault

Yeah, like I said, I'm not specifying £500 (it's just what I think the whole ordeal should be "worth"), but it's pretty much impossible to quantify any sort of claim, so I'm just gonna have to write back to them to decline the £50 and see what they say.

This country has pitiful customer service. I've had problems with so many companies this year, but NatWest has been the worst by far!

natweststaffmember

iamassault wrote: »

Yeah, like I said, I'm not specifying £500 (it's just what I think the whole ordeal should be "worth"), but it's pretty much impossible to quantify any sort of claim, so I'm just gonna have to write back to them to decline the £50 and see what they say.

This country has pitiful customer service. I've had problems with so many companies this year, but NatWest has been the worst by far!

If you decline, then quantify the amount cos this is kinda a cat and mouse bit, ie you say £200 they say £50 so they may raise the amount or stick to that amount. If you simply decline it then it opens the bank out to simply saying "we offered £50 but the customer turned it down but didn't say how much they thought they should be compensated" to the FOS. They might see it as reasonable so you have to show that it isn't and why. I don't think that simply declining it is your best approach, to be honest.

never-in-doubt

iamassault wrote: »

Yeah, like I said, I'm not specifying £500 (it's just what I think the whole ordeal should be "worth"), but it's pretty much impossible to quantify any sort of claim, so I'm just gonna have to write back to them to decline the £50 and see what they say.

This country has pitiful customer service. I've had problems with so many companies this year, but NatWest has been the worst by far!

You could speak to a loss adjustor as they can actually assess worthiness of consequential damages, which is what you'd really be seeking (i.e. you could have lost due to the website etc if you'd not seen it earlier).....

Its up to you what to ask for really, i'd just go in and say I feel £500 to be nearer the amount of compo - not an insult like £50!

Good Luck... :j