Bank Charges on business account - help!

nej

Hi all,

Here is the situation: A couple of years ago we were thinking of starting a part-time business from home. We opened a business bank account with Natwest for this, which never got used (other than a monthly charge for a credit card machine, which we covered by swiping my own card through it every month to pay the rental).

Anyway for various reasons we decided to postpone the venture indefinately, but left the account open. We cancelled the card machine, and the balance was left at zero.

We didn't bother reading the statements (perhaps this was a mistake), because the account was inactive. Anyway, in February we open one to discover it was overdrawn by about £200 or so. We got onto the bank and it's taken 6 months to go through to get to this point. Basically they were charging us £5 or £10 or something every month, even though the account was not being used. They have finally offered to refund half the charges, leaving us to pay about £115. We simply don't have this money to spend, and I don't think we should. I don't see how they can levy charges against an unused account.

Any help here? I was thinking of sending this letter to the guy we have been dealing with (who I think passed it up the food chain to his bosses):

Dear xxxx,

My wife has been corresponding with you via telephone on the matter of the overdrawn amount on our business account, xxxxxx

As she has explained, the account was never actually used, as shortly after opening it we decided to put the venture on hold.

I object in the most extreme way to the charges that have been levied, given that the account has not been used. I understand that Natwest have agreed to cover some of these charges. This is simply not good enough. The account has not been used and the charges should not have been applied. To this date I am unsure as to what they are actually for. The fact of the matter is that an account that is not being used should not accrue charges, which then breed more charges.

I insist that all of these charges are removed from the account immediately, the balance set back to zero, and the account closed.

My wife first contacted you in February. This means that we have taken six months to get to this point. The is not the level of service I would expect. Due to it taking so long it has got to the stage where we are receiving threatening letters saying it will be logged onto our credit file.

I am aggravated by this, as we have done nothing to have these charges applied to the account. We have not used it, we have not gone overdrawn on it, and yet Natwest deem that this should be logged onto our credit history? This is unfair in the extreme.

In any case, we simply do not have £100 to pay Natwest as we currently live a very hand-to-mouth existance. As far as I am concerned, this money is not due and we cannot be intimidated into handing it over. This stance is made more resolute given that we do not have this money spare to pay.

I look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely,

Debt_Free_Chick

I think that these were maintainance or service charges and not penalties for breaching the T&Cs. Essentially, you normally pay £x per month just to have a business account, even if you don't use it!

So ... I would be happy that they refunded half. I think you're on to a loser trying to get more, but it's worth one letter.

nej

We didn't get charged anything at all to start with. It only happened after a while of it not being used.

A little letter saying "we're going to start charging you from next month" might've helped.

Debt_Free_Chick

nej wrote:

We didn't get charged anything at all to start with. It only happened after a while of it not being used.

A little letter saying "we're going to start charging you from next month" might've helped.

I understand exactly what you're saying ... most business accounts are "FREE" for the first 12 months and then the service charge kicks in. Plus the charge for every cheque, every DD, every SO, every credit ...... yes, many charge you to pay money IN!! :mad:

nej

Ah, maybe that was it then, free for the 1st 12 months or something.

Oh well, I'll write to them and see what happens. Thanks for the help!

buglawton

It seems that only the Abbey and the Alliance & Leicester offer long term free business bank accounts

nej

Well as a happy ending, the bank are going to refund all the charges!

I wrote to the man who we dealt with (local business account manager or something), who was on our side (or so he said), but didn't have the authority to do anything. His manager had said they'd pay half.

I got a reply back saying he would pass it to his manager. The same day I got another statement showing they'd refunded about a quarter of the charges (not half) but then applied another one!!

Anyway, I got back from holiday and there was a letter from our guy saying it had all been agreed to clear and close it.

Result!