Natwest Credit Card

craaazyuk

I am not sure if anybody can help me with this but here I go anyway!

My boyfriend has a Natwest Credit Card and it used to have some kind of payment protection on it, it was not the sort that covered him if he was off sick but was more like a protection against fraud and if he lost his cards (don't know what it was called?). It cost about £30 a year to have, I have since made him cancel it as it seemed pretty pointless to me! Anyway we were paying his credit card by DD and so they were taking the minimum payments each month but one month they took this extra £30 out and it took him over the credit limit so he was charged an extra £12, we knew nothing about this as we thought paying by DD it should never go over the limit as we were not using the card for anything so as far as we were aware there should have been no additional transactions. I only realised that the card was over it's limit when I checked one of the statements a few months later and with all the additional £12 charges for being over limit it was now about £100 over the limit, we do not have the spare cash to bring it within it's limit as each month it is going up! The minimum payment does not even cover the interest charged and the £12 over limit fee!

My question is, is there anything I can do to get the £12 charges back and if so how?

Also should the minimum payments be reducing the balance? I feel like they are purposely setting the minimum payment low so we are continually paying charges, are they allowed to do this?

We should be able to get the balance within the limit in the next couple of months so there should be no more charges but it frustrates me so much that all the payments that we have made over the last two years have made absolutely no dent in the debt! :mad:

Hope that makes sense and sorry for the long rant!

podperson

Hi there,

I feel for you, these companies seem to go out of their way to frustrate you sometimes :mad: The good news is that these charges are claimable back - am assuming since they are recent charges you will have the statements with them on? Transfer these into a list or spreadsheet and send to the card company along with a letter requesting a full refund on them (there are letter templates for this on the site, check the credit card charges reclaiming guide). Since these are very recent and not for a massive amount (well in the eyes of the bank anyway!!) would have thought they will cave in fairly quickly. Am just about to settle with barclays and ongoing with some other companies so if you need any extra help feel free to pm me.
Make sure that the extra protection is definately cancelled now, ask for it in writing from them so they don't try and do this again to you.
Regarding minimum payments, yes they do deliberately make them low, not necessary to catch you out with charges (though I'm sure they see this as a bonus!) but so it takes you much longer to pay off the balance and they get a ridiculous amount of interest from you. Of course you don't have to just pay this so if you have any extra money throw it at the balance
Good luck with it x

craaazyuk

podperson wrote: »

Hi there,

I feel for you, these companies seem to go out of their way to frustrate you sometimes :mad: The good news is that these charges are claimable back - am assuming since they are recent charges you will have the statements with them on? Transfer these into a list or spreadsheet and send to the card company along with a letter requesting a full refund on them (there are letter templates for this on the site, check the credit card charges reclaiming guide). Since these are very recent and not for a massive amount (well in the eyes of the bank anyway!!) would have thought they will cave in fairly quickly. Am just about to settle with barclays and ongoing with some other companies so if you need any extra help feel free to pm me.
Make sure that the extra protection is definately cancelled now, ask for it in writing from them so they don't try and do this again to you.
Regarding minimum payments, yes they do deliberately make them low, not necessary to catch you out with charges (though I'm sure they see this as a bonus!) but so it takes you much longer to pay off the balance and they get a ridiculous amount of interest from you. Of course you don't have to just pay this so if you have any extra money throw it at the balance
Good luck with it x

Thanks for the help

If I request the money back for the charges will they then close the credit card and request full payment? We are not in a position to offer full payment so I do not want to get a couple of hundred pounds back off them and then find they want £2500 off us to close the account! Also as they are charging us the £12 fee which is supposedly the the lower fair amount (ha!) will they not just say no because of this?

Sorry for all the questions but I have never tried to claim charges on a credit card and only ever tried on a current account and we were too late to get them! Natwest again :mad:

Thanks

podperson

Are you still using the card at the moment? To be honest I would think it highly unlikely that they would cancel such a high balance card for a few hundred pounds but I have heard of a few random cases where banks have thrown their toys out of the pram so to speak and closed down accounts. This doesn't mean that you would have to pay all the amount back at once, you would have to come to a payment arrangement with them, plus if they closed down your account they would have to stop the interest on it so another reason why it's not very likely.

Regarding the £12 fee it is still claimable back, OFT have merely put that amount as a guideline amount and said themselves that they weren't suggesting the amount was fair. The report actually says:
a default charge should not exceed a reasonable pre-estimate of the administrative costs that the consumer ought to have realised would be likely to be incurred by his or her card issuer in dealing with defaults

Meaning that the charge should reflect the costs incurred by the company by you making a late payment, going over the limit etc. I'm currently at the point of asking Cap1 for a full breakdown of how they have arrived at this amount as by my calculations they send me a 2nd class letter informing me off the charge - about 25p, oh and someone had to put the computer generated letter into the envelope, lets say it took them a really long time and make it £1, not quite adding up is it? Amazingly they don't seem to want to help me figure this out! :rotfl:

I would send them the first letter and see what they say. Like I said since it's a small amount once they realise that you know you can claim them back they will probably back down anyway - they don't want to have to be bothered with court or fso for a few hundred pounds.

BigCraigJohn

They are reclaimable. Be prepared that you may have to issue court summons as I dont think the FOS will challenge the £12 charges. But even if you do they will likely settle or wont acknowledge and youll win by default. Different banks seem to work differently.

craaazyuk

podperson wrote: »

Are you still using the card at the moment? To be honest I would think it highly unlikely that they would cancel such a high balance card for a few hundred pounds but I have heard of a few random cases where banks have thrown their toys out of the pram so to speak and closed down accounts. This doesn't mean that you would have to pay all the amount back at once, you would have to come to a payment arrangement with them, plus if they closed down your account they would have to stop the interest on it so another reason why it's not very likely.

Regarding the £12 fee it is still claimable back, OFT have merely put that amount as a guideline amount and said themselves that they weren't suggesting the amount was fair. The report actually says:
a default charge should not exceed a reasonable pre-estimate of the administrative costs that the consumer ought to have realised would be likely to be incurred by his or her card issuer in dealing with defaults

Meaning that the charge should reflect the costs incurred by the company by you making a late payment, going over the limit etc. I'm currently at the point of asking Cap1 for a full breakdown of how they have arrived at this amount as by my calculations they send me a 2nd class letter informing me off the charge - about 25p, oh and someone had to put the computer generated letter into the envelope, lets say it took them a really long time and make it £1, not quite adding up is it? Amazingly they don't seem to want to help me figure this out! :rotfl:

I would send them the first letter and see what they say. Like I said since it's a small amount once they realise that you know you can claim them back they will probably back down anyway - they don't want to have to be bothered with court or fso for a few hundred pounds.

Thanks so much for your help!:)

I am on a mission now to get my charges back, just discovered the reclaiming credit card charges section and it has opened my eyes!

Good luck with the Capital Once card, do not know how they come to the amount of £12 for the charge either, especially when my credit card company Egg do not even send you a letter but an email instead and I am sure that is computer generated! Don't get me started haha