Can bank withdraw overdraft without any warning?

TequilaMockingbird

My husband and I had a business account with the Nat West, but the company went in to liquidation and is being dealt with by administrators. We owe nothing now - after paying £300k guarantees. My husband's personal account was with the bank and has no connection with the business account. He has tried to use his overdraft today and it was refused. He called and no-one in the call centre would speak to him- only this One Man (in the oh-you're-in-the-!!!!!!-dept) could speak to him. He told him the o/d had been frozen and they didn;t want to reinstate it and it had probably been cancelled at the same time as the business account...

Can this be done?

They've said it will take 5 days to find out more (which means that direct debits etc will be refused)

It's a mess.

Can they do this to his personal account, and, if they can, what should he do now?

Thanks!

flossy_splodge

Sorry to say but it appears they can do exactly what they like.
They are autocratic and uncaring in the main.
I have always insisted on going much higher up the tree to get any sense out of a bank, the front line staff don't have much authority anyway.
Can you not get into the branch and deal with the matter face to face?
Good luck anyway.:o

TequilaMockingbird

Thanks Flossy... I'm appalled (but not surprised)... Is there ANY law I can quote to them to get his account reinstated as it was before?

stclair

Im sorry to say but overdrafts are repayable on demand.

TequilaMockingbird

Ok... should he look at opening a new account? The problem now is that he is unemployed...

stclair

I would consider opening another bank account outside of the RBS Group.

TequilaMockingbird

Thanks stclair. Which is the best one for someone who has no income..?

ehlo

If you have no income I'd be surprised if any bank would be willing to provide an overdraft

stclair

He may want to try for a basic bank account.

http://www.moneymadeclear.org.uk/pdfs/bank_accounts.pdf

I hear barclays are very good and they offer a visa debit card too.

stator

They can suspend your overdraft and stop you using it any more, but they can NOT force you to immediately repay it all. Be nice to them and try to work out a repayment plan where you will repay a certain amount each month. Make sure they are freezing the interest on the debt too. Open up a basic bank account with another bank and make sure all the money you get in goes into that account. If he's in real trouble contact the CAB, CCS, debtline etc

PNPSUKNET

they normaly have internal links with business accounts and personal, so they see you as a high risk