NatWest changes

Charles_Ponzi

Day 5 and no phone call from NatWest (yet).

The phone has rung twice this am, one for burglar alarms and then solar heating plus had a knock at the door for double glazing! Wish Natwest was as eager to contact me. Fully expect to be phoning them tomorrow. Is there a Complaints Dept for their Complaints Dept?

And just to rub salt into the wound, we have the RBS bonuses on the news!

CPfan

I finally managed to get through to speak to someone just now, having tried quite a few times last week, enduring the awful music and irritating message telling me that my call is important to them!

I've given my details and apparently they'll be passed to the savings team who will contact me within 5 working days i.e. the same as others have been told. Have any of you actually heard from the savings team yet?

dulcieb

As five days have now passed I have also renewed my calls...I haven't spoken to the ISA people responsible, but it has been suggested to me by others that this arose from a computer programme that just picked up all accounts with initial credit after that date in May, regardless of what happened. They were quite reassuring.

As noted earlier, another example of loopy systems...

Charles_Ponzi

Well surprise surprise, no call from NatWest. Guess they're too busy sorting their bonuses out! Plus see in the press that RBS/Natwest have been fined nearly £3million for poor complaint handling.

Anybody else waiting for a call, I wouldn't hold your breath!

As for phoning them back, sounds like all you'll get is another poor sod in a call centre without a clue, who will take down the same details as before and promise they'll get back to you.

Charles_Ponzi

Just an update. Couldn't resist, gave the Customer Service lot a call. Pretty much went the way I thought.

They couldn't say what was going on as not in their remit. However, I am told it should have been 10 working day for a reply not 5 as I was originally told. They at least confirmed details of my original complaint and that it had been passed to the Savings people on the 4JAN to be dealt with, so I assume it's 10 working days from then. So they've got til 18JAN to reply, gives them a bit more time to decide how they want to play this.

dulcieb

Success!

They've come back to me promising to reverse everything. Seems like it was an over-active computer...

Charles_Ponzi

Blimey, well done dulcieb.

Who called you? The Savings people? Funny how you got some joy but I was pretty much fobbed off this am.

Did they say about re-paying the interest lost from 16Dec to now?

CPfan

That's wonderful news dulcieB. :T

Let's hope the rest of us get the same result!

According to the guy I spoke to, I should hear something from the Savings Team by 1115 next Monday. He assured me the timescale was 5 working days, not 10. We shall see!

SimonM_2

Can someone tell me exactly which account this was, and what was the interest rate (AER) changed from/to? Also can you confirm that the rate changed on December 16th 2010, but that you didn't get notification until December 31st 2010?

dulcieb

Well, following up and thanks for the messages!

Charles Ponzi -- I heard from some central customer services person. I was outraged on 31 Dec so e-mailed, phoned and did what I could. There's some sort of e-mail facility in online banking and that's where it was picked up from.

The savings people (the ones whose new year starts before everyone else's) never got back to me. I think that 0800 015 4212 is also a useful route -- that's customer services or complaints and they should be able to register this. They were also finding it impossible to get through.

I'm now waiting for the letter but the very nice lady who rang me today said that they'd reinstated the higher interest rate and would recalculate interest owed. And because I've been through this twice (now and setting up the account) they're giving me £10, which is nice.

I did get the impression that they're absolutely swamped and they did say that it might take some time to get the letters out.

CPfan -- not sure who you spoke to. I don't know what records there are on your situation and what happened. I spoke last year to phone banking people and am relieved that records were actually kept. The phone banking people should be able to tell you what notes are on the account. I suppose you could ask customer services what the wider policy is. I'm sure that they're all aware of this by now. Again, what I've heard is that the computer just picked up all accounts that missed the original hopeless deadline. Not testing such systems will ultimately cost them a lot more!

SimonM -- This is the e-ISA that launched somewhat catastrophically for April 2009. NatWest's internal systems failed to meet demand, not least because they forgot to put vital fields into the form. Many of us whose accounts were delayed were told that we'd missed out on the higher interest rate (sorry, I don't have it to hand -- can anyone else advise?) but they relented on this after so many complaints. A letter dated 16 Dec went out announcing a rate cut in response to this "error" but most of us received it on 31 Dec, when it was too late to do anything.

I have to say that I always expected them to back down -- partly because it was clearly a silly and uninformed error on their part, and partly becuase they'd done so previously with good grace. Although the whole thing has been rather annoying, they do seem to be willing to look into things and to recognise that they've got it wrong. Many other companies would benefit from adopting similar approaches and I for one am happy to applaud NatWest for taking the issue seriously and sympathetically -- once you can get through to someone.

I hope that everyone else has similarly positive outcomes and will be looking to see.