Late Fee - Natwest

nicki_2

I've been a customer with Natwest Credit Card since February 2002 and this month I am about 2 days late with a payment clearing :mad: I've just rang them up and the operator informed me that the power of refunding fees etc have been taken away from customer service advisors & Team Leaders :mad: Now I'm stuck. I have a £12 late fee on my account and I want to know if there is anything I can do to try and get it refunded?

humfer

nicki wrote:

I've been a customer with Natwest Credit Card since February 2002 and this month I am about 2 days late with a payment clearing :mad: I've just rang them up and the operator informed me that the power of refunding fees etc have been taken away from customer service advisors & Team Leaders :mad: Now I'm stuck. I have a £12 late fee on my account and I want to know if there is anything I can do to try and get it refunded?

That seems a tad odd - I would phone up again and ask again - you never know it could just be one less generous CS person not trying to sort it out for. Ask to speak to a team leader and see what they can do. As you have been with them for over 4 years would have thought they could do something for you

YorkshireBoy

Anything you get now will be down to how much goodwill they're prepared to extend, since they've now reduced their default charges to a more reasonable £12.

You may also receive a late payment marker on your credit file. If it's your first, then it shouldn't have too much impact on your ability to gain credit elsewhere.

Have you considered setting up a direct debit (for at least the minimum amount)? This simple measure should eliminate all late payment charges in future.

Gordon_the_Moron

If you go into a Natwest branch the customer service desk can give you the direct debit form for the above.

£12 is not more reasonable, it is simply less, it still in no way reflects the cost to them, for them to ever be able to argue it did it should depend on the amount you go overdrawn, going £1000 over for nearly a month must cost them more than going a penny over for a day, but both incur the same fee. I still doubt they would risk asking a court to uphold the £12 charge.

Call_Centre_Monkey

Your payment was late... therefore you deserve the charge. And I doubt you'll have any luck trying to get the £12 charge back, as the OFT have agreed this is a fair charge.

Of course, you have the campaigners who said £25 was too much to charge to thank for this. Banks had a lot more discretion before the change took place, and if you had been a good customer with the credit card provider for a number of years you may well have got the charge back.

MABLE

My advice is take your medicine and let this be a lessson to you.

The_Boss

Yep. Learn from the mistake.

nicki_2

I know I should learn from my mistakes I completely forgot about the fact we were going away for the bank holiday weekend which turned out to be the date when I would usually transfer the money then with the back to school stuff I had to do I just completely forgot. I just thought they might have been able to reduce it further or waive it since it's the first mistake on my account in 4 years! I know better now, and I'm going to have to sit down with my partner and try to figure a way to afford the minimum payments in one lump sum instead. It's going to mean tightening our belts major style as the payments just keep going up and up BT to stop the interest maybe the only way to go now. :rolleyes:

Call_Centre_Monkey

Could be worth giving them a phone and saying you're thinking about transferring (say you've be offered something by other company), and they may be able to decrease the interest rate a little bit for you.

kenshaz

Request an interview with the area manager ,explain your situation

Gordon_the_Moron

Call_Centre_Monkey wrote:

Your payment was late... therefore you deserve the charge. And I doubt you'll have any luck trying to get the £12 charge back, as the OFT have agreed this is a fair charge.

I'd still like to see a court uphold this, according to the consumer credit act the charge is supposed to reflect the companies costs NOT a penalty. I have in my hand a letter in response to a request for a refund from Natwest card services (from a Miss Jo Durrant) stating that the system is electronic and automated so it can't tell the difference between you going £1 or £1000 over your limit (apart from when it calculates the interest I guess... or is the interest the same?) and the £12 charge is a fixed penalty. Her words, not mine, the charge is "a fixed penalty"

Regardless of the OFT judgement that is unlawful, ask Natwest to explain the costs incurred by them or refund the charges, if they refuse to give you a breakdown they are breaking the law, if they admit that it didn't cost them what the charges came to the charge is unlawful. At the end of the day they will give up. Don't put this down to experience.

Probably worth trying cancelling before that though, have a look around if any cards offer a buffer zone like some current accounts do (not sure off the top of my head if any do) then ring up and ask to cancel and give that as the reason. They might refund then and it would save !!!!!! them off with threats.