Natwest/RBS 2.85% esaver

SnowMan

h176 wrote: »

SnowMan, did you send the Google Cache version of the original advert to the FSA (as per JunkMail 42's #401 post), or your screenprints?

I sent the Google Cache version, which, as far as I'm aware, cannot be altered & is therefore acceptable evidence.

The only problem now is that, as I'm sure you're already aware, it has expired!..... (or possibly been removed by NatWest?)

The FSA haven't come back to me about the advert, but as they made it clear @ the time, they won't provide any feedback.

Just hope I haven't wasted my time & copying/postage expenses?!........

My main approach was going to be to refer the FSA to this thread rather than send reams of paperwork ( I only have the one screenprint in any case). Whether they will read it is another matter, but if they do it should be obvious what has gone on. I think the thread stands up to scrutiny and i hope nobody minds me referring the FSA to it.

The letter I have drafted to the FSA but not yet sent explains the website errors and that Natwest are still denying it.

We won't get any feedback from them on their investigations, as you realise, because of confidentiality.

However by formally complaining it perhaps increases the chances that the FSA won't just turn a blind eye to what Natwest have done. The FSA forced me into making a formal complaint about their handling (or not handling) of the issue, it is not something i particularly wanted to do. But if I hadn't done so, the information I had to provide would just have been ignored sadly.

Natwest haven't committed crime of the century, so we have to be realistic about what resources the FSA can commit to this. However I do hope the FSA realise that Natwest have blatantly put wrong info on their webite, have failed to correct it when asked, and by trying to deny the wrong info was on there when people who have lost out have complained, they have done something pretty despicable and reprehensible and the FSA do need to take some action. The way that Natwest are still not upholding your complaint leads me to believe that the FSA have so far done nothing.

djlest

Here is the latest response from natwest after my initial complaint
I advise everyone to read it...

Dear
As mentioned in my colleague's email to you dated 22nd November, I have been investigating your complaint. Thank you for your patience, I am now able to present my findings.

Our understanding of your complaint to the Bank

Before presenting my findings, I would like to re-iterate my understanding of your complaint as being that you feel the marketing material available for the e-Savings bonus rate was misleading, resulting in you losing interest on your funds for over a month. You are also unhappy with the lack of email communication available to customers, and the lack of response when you originally raised your complaint. Please let me know if you think i have misunderstood, or missed out any of your concerns.

Details of the investigation carried out and our findings

I have thoroughly investigated your complaint. The marketing material did cause some confusion when the bonus interest5 rate was first introduced, particularly because the information contained in the leaflet did differ to the information contained on the website. Although the information relating to the bonus rate starting on the 15th of the month following account opening was available on the website, and the leaflet, i do agree that this could have been made clearer to customer4s. I have calculated the interest youn would have received had the bonus been applied from account opening and have applied this to your account, this will be included with your standard interest paid at the3 end of December. The calculations are as follows;

6 October - 10 October (5 days) at 1.85% Gross on a balance of ....
11 October - 28 October (18 days) at 1.85% Gross on a balance of ...
29 October - 14 November (17 days) at 1.85 Gross on a balance of ....

Total - £... Gross / £... Net
figures are not important hence i've deleted them

With regard tyo the lack of email communication available to customers, the facilities currently available are webchat, using the Help 24/7 link available through the Online Banking Service or the Got a Question link available through natwest or the feedback facility available through the Contact Us link on ..... The webchat facility offers immediate responses from an operator and is used, gener4ally, for customers to query anything within their Online Banking Service or the website. When using the feedback facility our aim is for a response to be sent to the customer within 2 working days, however if necessary these can be forwarded onto a more appropriate department to deal with the query/complaint, i.e. the Care Team. The email you sent through the feedback facility on 20th November was forwarded to the Care Team, who logged your complaint on 22 November. A colleague tried to contact you by ntelephone but was unable to make contact; therefore a letter was sent to you on 22 November. I understand that, due to you not receiving a response, you wrote to the bank on 21 November. I have been unable to trace any previous correspondence you sent regarding this. Please accept5 my sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused by the delay in responding to your complaint, and for your previous complaints not being registerd with us.

Our decision and rationale

As a result of my investigation I accept and therefore uphold your complaint and I am very sorry that this situation has occurred. I have credited your e-Savings account with £20, which I hope goes someway to compensate you for your time in raising this complaint several times and to restore your faith with the Bank.



Next steps

If you thinbk I have misunderstood anything about your complaint, or you would find it helpful to talk through my findings, please do call me as soon as possible on *******. I am happy to discuss your case with you.

Ultimately, if we cannot reach agreement then you will have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, but I hope that will not prove necessary. If i dont hear from you within eight weeks from the date of this letter then I will close your complaint.

Do let me know if I can help you any further, in the meantime, thank you for bringing this to my attention



SO..... 20 pounds... and the interest bonus restored....
Its great what These Banks can get away with these days with a few 20 quids at their disposal....

They therefore uphold my complaint....
You are entitled to Interest from when you opened....
Unfortunately no one will receive it unless they complain and make a fuss...

of course - The Financial Ombudsman Service is still a valid option for a LOT of people. i'm interested in your thoughts?

djlest

If the google Cache has expired dont worry

We all have a SCREENSHOT of the ad

i think its obvious now that the screenshot is sufficient evidence to prove the natwest ad was incorrect.

should there be a problem with that - there is also HTML code of the page which is better than any cache. as its the exact code of the page source.

But still - a screenshot is best as it displays everything.

If things needed to be investigated its easy to check images to see if they have been altered. We are sure there was never any need for that as the ad was clearly wrong from the start.

SnowMan

Dear *****



Complaint against the FSA


Thank you for your letter of 9 December 2010.

My sole intention in this matter is to make the FSA aware of a misleading advertisement by Natwest and of the fall-out of that advertisement in that customers have lost out. All I ask is that when information is supplied to the helpline it is not glibly dismissed for some non-reason such as ‘we can’t take evidence from an internet forum’.

I would like to clarify however that my complaint is not in any way directed at the individual who took my call but at a wider perception that the FSA misleading complaints helpline is not working as it should.

Surely the helpline should be a straightforward way for consumers to inform the FSA of misleading advertisements so that the FSA can take prompt action.

At time of writing Natwest are still not upholding complaints as a result of losses through the misleading advertisement. This indicates that my reporting of the misleading advertisement on 7 October, the report to your same helpline by another user of the MSE forum at the same time, and the detailed information you have been supplied with by a third user of the forum amongst possibly others has not been acted on by the FSA. Why has something that could have been easily resolved by the FSA on 7th October been allowed to escalate to this point?


The evidence you ask for can all be found on the moneysavingexpert (MSE) thread on this Natwest e saver at

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2754900

The thread can be read by anyone without needing to register for the website.

In that thread is amongst other things

a) evidence that at least 2 people reported the misleading advertisement on 7 October, see posts 160 and 161
b) evidence for example a Natwest screen print in posts 434 and post 370 that Natwest did advertise the bonus incorrectly.
c) Quite compelling evidence from numerous individual posters including one who has had his complaint turned down by 4 separate people at Natwest, even though he had provided them with copies of the incorrect advertisements; Natwest incredibly deny these existed. Did the FSA take copies of the incorrect web pages when they were reported on 7th October, if so they will show Natwest are wrong in this claim, and if the FSA didn’t not why not?

I can understand that for confidentiality reasons you can’t tell me of any action or discussions with Natwest on this matter. However I would simply like a) a reassurance that the FSA will make a quick informal review of how they have dealt with reports of this misleading advertisement and b) a further reassurance that you will look again at the evidence provided and see what needs to be done.

I am not remotely interested in whether you uphold my complaint about my call (I was told effectively that was the only route through the bureaucracy for the FSA to look at these issues). I am however interested in the points in the previous paragraph.

I look forward to hearing your reply. Please contact me if you would like further information

Yours sincerely



SnowMan

neilsedaka

NatWest have settled with me regarding the 2.82% net interest offered on the website on 29th September and as printed in the Important Information booklet. They have calculated and paid 2.82% - 2.28% = 0.54% interest on the whole of my current balance for a whole year which is a substantial amount of interest, plus a three figure sum of compensation regarding the other points that I raised. I think it helped that I had lots of evidence.

SnowMan

djlest wrote: »

SO..... 20 pounds... and the interest bonus restored....
Its great what These Banks can get away with these days with a few 20 quids at their disposal....

They therefore uphold my complaint....
You are entitled to Interest from when you opened....
Unfortunately no one will receive it unless they complain and make a fuss...

of course - The Financial Ombudsman Service is still a valid option for a LOT of people. i'm interested in your thoughts?

Thanks for taking the time to post up your reply :T

It is slightly annoying that they don't admit to the wrong information about the bonus being for the "first 12 months" or for "12 months from account opening" which was prominently displayed on their website; they only mention that the contradictory information that the bonus started from the 15th which was hidden away in the 16th question could have been clearer.

Mmmmmm. It shows they are not quite there yet in taking responsibility for what they have done, although they do seem to have realised that anyone taking it the full distance to the Ombudsman will win.

Of course there are people out there who have given up with their complaint and others who are probably not aware that their bonus wasn't from the start. Sadly dishonesty sometimes pays and you have a nasty feeling Natwest will come out of this in 'profit' overall from the wrong information.

Personally I would be tempted to accept the offer. If a case is taken to the ombudsman then they would make an award for distress and inconvenience. The only reference I can find to this on the ombusman website is an old one at

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/14/feb-awardsfordistress.htm

However I read it as saying they will pay up to £10 per hour for your time in having to pursue the complaint ( I don't think you can argue there is much distress here just inconvenience).

So if it has taken 2 hours or less to pursue then it would be hard to argue against £20, albeit it is not generous of Natwest.

You can always ring Natwest up and say "£30 (say) would be more appropriate because I've had to do this and that....." but that is not something I personally would do.

SimonM_2

neilsedaka wrote: »

NatWest have settled with me regarding the 2.82% net interest offered on the website on 29th September and as printed in the Important Information booklet. They have calculated and paid 2.82% - 2.28% = 0.54% interest on the whole of my current balance for a whole year which is a substantial amount of interest, plus a three figure sum of compensation regarding the other points that I raised. I think it helped that I had lots of evidence.

Interesting, sounds similar to what has happened for me, although they wouldn't pay the whole end balance for me, paying the years worth of difference on the current balance and wanting me to contact them at the end of the 12 months if I have the amount that I think I may have in there based on my previous savings habits.

Have they paid you on your current figure, or what you feel you will have at the end of the year?

They haven't solved the other issues that I have reported to them, and have repeatedly asked them about, maybe that will come with a three figure compensation too, as it seems the only answer they have to solving problems is throwing money at it rather than correcting the problems...

SimonM_2

SnowMan wrote: »

Just had a reply back from the FSA

You claim
You allege
You state
You allege

Please forward to us by 24 December 2010

Seems a bit heavy handed and as if they want you to not really reply doesn't it? What is the deadline of 24th of December for - do they have published deadlines for responses from the public back to them on complaints? I can understand for example 30 days or 8 weeks, but by 24th of December when we are at mid December now?

SnowMan

SimonM wrote: »

Seems a bit heavy handed and as if they want you to not really reply doesn't it? What is the deadline of 24th of December for - do they have published deadlines for responses from the public back to them on complaints? I can understand for example 30 days or 8 weeks, but by 24th of December when we are at mid December now?

At least I can kill two stones with one bird by looking up the last date for posting my Christmas cards and the FSA letter at the same time :rotfl:

Hadn't thought of it that way in terms of them not wanting me to reply but to be fair to them the sooner the deadline the sooner they are able to get on with looking at things.

My impression is they like to do everything by rules and regulations and employees have to leave common sense in the doorway at Canary Wharf when they go in. I'm still half expecting them to say that under rule 15.2 para 2 or something my letter can't be looked at. But hopefully they will prove me wrong.

gunjin

I have just had a *challenging* 24 hours trying to deal with the "helpful banking" folk at Natwest. I was going to write it up as a cautionary tale in a separate thread but see that I am clearly not alone. To summarise my problems:

1) Took longer to open than any other savings account i have opened (and I've had a few). Customer support utterly unhelpful.
2) Bonus interest earned up to 6 weeks after account opening = misleading, deliberate rip-off. Customer support: "it is stated in the terms and conditions, you need to look more closely"
3) Nominated current account (with another bank) registered at application but then not tied to the savings account. Customer support: "I don't know why they do that but that is the policy"
4) Moving money out of the account to another bank account requires a card (not given to new customers by default), a card-reader (not given to new customers by default) and pin (not given to new customers by default) which combined with the failure to connect the nominated current account to the savings account means that anyone wanting to take money out has to wait 15 or so days. Customer support: "I don't know why they do that but that is the policy"
5) Even with the ability to transfer money out of Natwest, the daily NOT transaction limit is just £10k.

My predicament is that I need to pay some hefty bills by the end of Dec. The solution suggested to me by the esavings support line is that I go to a branch, present them with ID and they can CHAPS the money out of Natwest. I followed their advice and then spent two and a half hours A) trying to convincing them that they were able to send money out of Natwest and trying to prove my identity. I failed with the first one (and have had to open a current account with them through which my savings account monies can be transferred!!) and almost failed with the second despite having (and I kid you not) a passport, driving licence, HMRC bill, local council bill, an existing Natwest account and assorted credit/debit cards. It was my first experience of high street banking for over a decade and was one that will ensure I will never touch a high street bank again in my life.

I can only conclude that this Natwest esavings account is nothing but a dangerous trap and one to be avoided by anyone seeking a standard online savings account.