Natwest - Extra charges for settling direct debit

cobblex

Hello, short story is me and gf both have Natwest accounts into which we pay monthly salaries. We then manually transfer out half our rent each into a shared account which is then taken out on either the 7th, 8th or 9th of the month. This month we both forgot to make the manual transfer by the 7th and the rent payment came out of the shared account paid on our behalf by Natwest. This pushed us over our overdraft. Therefore we received a maintenance charge of £28 and then a paid referral fee of £30. We both transferred the cash across as soon as we noticed (the next day on the 8th), the money was already in our other Natwest accounts.

Before I start, yes we should have set up a direct debit from our salary accounts!

My question is is it worth writing a letter to Natwest (i tried calling and no luck) to argue that as our direct debit withdrawal date varies and that we had the money sitting in other Natwest accounts and that therefore the charges are harsh and could we please have our money back!

My main arguement is the paid referral charge of £30 is incurred when they pay a direct debit on our behalf. But this charge then creates the knock on maintenance charge (£28) for going over an overdraft. Surely the two aren’t mutually exclusive and I’m being effectively double charged i.e. if they hadn’t paid the direct debit on my behalf then I wouldn’t have gone overdrawn. I’m not objecting to a fee for an unpaid direct debit but I do object to Natwest paying bills for me and then charging me for it. I mean of course they are going to pay it because it then results in £58 of charges coming their way.

Do I have a leg to stand on, are they ever reasonable (they certainly weren’t on the phone)? Also can I request to them not to pay my direct debits if the money is not in the account. The idiot on the phone told me that as there was a history of the direct debit being paid (i.e. we’ve never defaulted before) the bank takes the decision to pay it for us. How convenient for the bank.

natweststaffmember

The answer is that if you have already asked and they have said no then they are unlikely to reverse that but you can write to customer relations or email them and ask them as a one off to refund one of the charges:
customer.relations@natwest.com
You can reclaim the charges using Martin's guide to reclaiming.