NatWest Advantage Gold Charges

frustratednorfolkperson

Hi everyone, this is the first time I have used this site......so sorry if I get anything wrong! We have a NatWest Advantage Gold Account. We originally had Advantage Blue, a basic account as we are with a debt agency,(because like the banks....someone took all our money, but thats another story!). We were pushed into upgrading our account & everything was running smoothly until this months charges. Seeing as we are with a debt agency, we are only left with a certain amount of money to live on. When reconciling the bank the other night I noticed that the bank are going to take nearly £100 out of our account tomorrow, money we don't have. The main problem is that they are claiming 'Guarenteed Card Payment Fee's'. This is a tricky one because you have no idea that you are accruing these fee's!. I used our debit card on 3 occasions £5 £5 & £3.92. These payments went through & were not declined, this was because the money was in the account! They cleared our bank account about 2 days later (debits were instant with the Blue Account). On the day when the payments showed on our account there were 3 DD's. In total our account became £42 o/d. Instead of returning one of the DD's & charging us £5, they put everything through charging us £15 per debit card payment & £20 for going into an o/d we do not have. So that is £65 instead of £5. Of course we have phoned them & argued but they will not back down. When we said that they could have returned a DD, they just said that it was the banks decision on that day to charge us the way they have & they are within their rights & the law. this has now put us in a situation that we will never get out of as the problem will just get bigger as we do not have the money in the account to pay the charges. Is there anything we can do????!!!!!:(

Premier_2

Do yourself a favour and contact natwest and tell them you want to revert to a standard current account which will save you over £150 per year

natweststaffmember

frustratednorfolkperson wrote: »

Hi everyone, this is the first time I have used this site......so sorry if I get anything wrong! We have a NatWest Advantage Gold Account. We originally had Advantage Blue, a basic account as we are with a debt agency,(because like the banks....someone took all our money, but thats another story!). We were pushed into upgrading our account & everything was running smoothly until this months charges. Seeing as we are with a debt agency, we are only left with a certain amount of money to live on. When reconciling the bank the other night I noticed that the bank are going to take nearly £100 out of our account tomorrow, money we don't have. The main problem is that they are claiming 'Guarenteed Card Payment Fee's'. This is a tricky one because you have no idea that you are accruing these fee's!. I used our debit card on 3 occasions £5 £5 & £3.92. These payments went through & were not declined, this was because the money was in the account! They cleared our bank account about 2 days later (debits were instant with the Blue Account). On the day when the payments showed on our account there were 3 DD's. In total our account became £42 o/d. Instead of returning one of the DD's & charging us £5, they put everything through charging us £15 per debit card payment & £20 for going into an o/d we do not have. So that is £65 instead of £5. Of course we have phoned them & argued but they will not back down. When we said that they could have returned a DD, they just said that it was the banks decision on that day to charge us the way they have & they are within their rights & the law. this has now put us in a situation that we will never get out of as the problem will just get bigger as we do not have the money in the account to pay the charges. Is there anything we can do????!!!!!:(

Do you know that you are paying £12.95 for advantage gold?
Do you save over £150.00 a year with the account?
On what basis did you upgrade the account?

As Premier has said change the type of account if it does not suit you because you are already giving £12.95 to the bank but yet are more concerned with the £15.00 guaranteed card payment fees which are for consideration(which I do think you stand a chance of getting refunded on the basis of how much was taken against the total of the payments).

frustratednorfolkperson

Thanks, I have made an appointment with NatWest for next Friday. We will change the acccount & will also try to get the charges back as you have said.............................Always a sucker when I get pushed into things (i.e the account upgrade!)
I think we will qualify for the hardship bit, Thanks again x

natweststaffmember

frustratednorfolkperson wrote: »

Thanks, I have made an appointment with NatWest for next Friday. We will change the acccount & will also try to get the charges back as you have said.............................Always a sucker when I get pushed into things (i.e the account upgrade!)
I think we will qualify for the hardship bit, Thanks again x

The branch do not make any decisions on financial hardship so the appointment in the branch will be very useless I would imagine but please update us on what they say.