Result Credit Card Rebate from Nationwide

cepheus

I received a phone call from Nationwide today, they have eventually rebated my £24 credit card charges for late payment (the direct debit payment failed and I was a week or so late) after the Ombudsmen contracted them. Small amount but satisfying outcome :j

Of course it was all goodwill, no obligation, one off etc etc.

Chris2000

I fell out with Nationwide years ago after being a victim of their 'Base Mortgage Rate' scam. After the Ombudsman had found against them (and a few other banks) they continued to claim that they had acted fairly - even in the letter they sent along with a cheque refunding the overcharged interest.

It still annoys me every time I see one of their 'proud to be different' adverts. Their continued denial that they had done anything remotely unfair annoyed me far more than the overcharging itself.

Mozette

Chris2000 wrote: »

I fell out with Nationwide years ago after being a victim of their 'Base Mortgage Rate' scam. After the Ombudsman had found against them (and a few other banks) they continued to claim that they had acted fairly - even in the letter they sent along with a cheque refunding the overcharged interest.

It still annoys me every time I see one of their 'proud to be different' adverts. Their continued denial that they had done anything remotely unfair annoyed me far more than the overcharging itself.

I've tried googling this to no avail; what scam? (I ask as I'm on Nationwide's BMR)

Chris2000

Mozette wrote: »

I've tried googling this to no avail; what scam? (I ask as I'm on Nationwide's BMR)

I don't think it's a problem now.

They used to have a Standard Variable Rate (SVR) which generally moved in line with the Bank of England Base Rate but was not guaranteed to. I had a discounted rate mortgage pegged at 1.55% below SVR.

Then in 2001 the BoE cut its base rate a couple of times in quick succession and the Nationwide devised a cunning plan whereby they could pass on the rate cuts to borrowers on SVR, but not to borrowers on discounted rates.

They achieved this by inventing a new interest rate which they called Base Mortgage Rate (BMR). This was lower than the SVR. They automatically moved all existing customers who were paying SVR onto the new, lower BMR. But they left customers on discounted rate mortgages pegged at a discount to the old SVR.

So anyone who was paying SVR got the rate cut, but anyone paying a discount to SVR did not get the rate cut.

In effect they had reduced the size of the discount from 1.55% to 1.05%, reneging on the deal that customers had signed up for. But they still never saw anything unfair about this.

I found a few articles such as those below by googling for nationwide base mortgage rate ombudsman
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1833608.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/transcripts/jan02_july02/1834316.stm