Nationwide (merged)

flossy_splodge

Firstly, sorry to hear you're going through a rough patch. Chin up.

Secondly, have you got a branch of nationwide near you?
Always worth the personal appearance gambit.
However, my experience is their service is detiorating now they are so big. Don't seem to care. So don't take it personally! Actually had a so called customer service person hang up on me! And no, I was not getting cross, just not willing to be told there was no manager to take my call.

I thought that there was now a ruling that the maximum late payment charge that can be made is £12.00
Was this a late payment fee or were there other bits to it? Others on here can probably quote chapter and verse but I'm sure I've seen that the charge amount is now capped.

See if you get more responses and if not have you tried asking for a manager? Seems the grass roots staff get to say what they want and no come back. Give it a go and let us know?

I'll go into my branch tomorrow and ask them if they're observing the £12.00 cap. What sort of account is it you have? Is it a Flex account?

militantconsumer

If the personal asking nicely approach doesn't work then by all means write to ask for it back, but you will have to wait until the outcome of the court case into unfair charges before you actually get anything. (Unless you can prove financial hardship, then they will have to refund it sooner.)

To clear up any confusion about the £12....

1. This doesn't apply to bank (or building society) current accounts, it is just for credit cards and store cards.

2. Nobody ever said £12 was fair or ok to charge. The Office of Fair Trading simply stated they would automatically consider anything over £12 to be unfair and start investigating. They didn't actually state what the fair level is. Therefore all the credit card companies reduced their charges to £12. But it is still way too high in most people's opinions - and therefore the companies all give in and refund the charges when sufficient pressure is applied.

nova

Hi lm having a massive gripe with NW,they owe us £4555.00 in charges which l have'nt yet gone after as they were being ok about stopping charges on our account to help us get back on our feet, well they did that for one month then lowered our ,so our WFTC that gets paid in (so we can actually eat) is now taken, last month £199 was paid in and they snatched £150.00 in charges, and this month l cant take it out as they want it to clear our OD, so they just say 'no available funds' hey but never mind lm sure they're are not going hungry and their kids will have a fab xmas, well now the gloves are off, its like theft as far as lm concerned.
So what lm saying is they're not easy to get money out of, and customer services are bad, my mum died earlier this year and we were told that they were not a councelling service and she had her own family problems!!:mad:

egon

Hi,

We have been overdrawn once. I have been told the same as you. But then I popped into our local branch. The lady sent a message to them via email and I had the money back within 3 days.

Always worth speaking to someone in the branch.

militantconsumer

nova, go after them, you can only go back 6 years so best to get the claim in as soon as possible. you will have to prove you are in financial hardship by filling in forms, but you will win and they will have to pay the charges back straightaway

nova

militantconsumer wrote: »

nova, go after them, you can only go back 6 years so best to get the claim in as soon as possible. you will have to prove you are in financial hardship by filling in forms, but you will win and they will have to pay the charges back straightaway

Thanks for that, it was like a kick in the teeth from them, we made a deal with them for our cc and loan and we.ve kept to our side of the bargain but they have'nt, theirs was not to add anymore charges to give us a chance to recover financially as OH's work has suffered due to credit crunch, and as soon as money was paid in to the account they wiped it out. l've been looking after my brother who has Downs Syndrome,to give my dad a break and l was horrified as l didnt have any money in the account to feed him.

militantconsumer

You can see what you need to do on the bank charges side, but you will also find more constructive help on managing day to day in the debt section of the MSE site and also that part of the forums.

Pete_MW

Hi All,

Nuby here and here's my tale,

I have had both sole and joint flex accounts with Nationwide for over 10yrs.

For the last six years my overdrafts were growing and growing on both accounts.

Last year they removed the OD facility and replaced it with a reducing overdraft, like a loan to pay off the 2.5k and 3.5k OD's on these accounts.

I failed to keep up the repayments for these, so they defaulted the accounts and handed them to their debt collection company KPR.

I have managed to keep KPR at bey with some payments and talk of this process to reclaim the charges, but I had no idea how much they would be.

With the change of hardship rules, I restarted the process due to my marriage breakdown, and all the costs involved in living two lives instead of one.

When I got the charges statement back I was gobsmacked at two things, one) that they totalled over £10,500 and two) that there was a correlation between the charges and my overdraft increases... So was I funding the charges in such a way, surely not.

Anyhow, the last letter I have back from them wants more information about IE, do you have to complete this?? afterall the bank has access to my accounts and what a poor position they have been in for years, one year they charged me £4,500, that's nine times the indicative limit for hardship according to the FSA.

So advice please, if nationwide, don't cough up till the last minute, then why prolong the agony, shall I just go in for the kill now, or just play their timewasting games with IE forms only for them to say no, they have afterall said no to some on here, with much worse circumstances... Pete

Tigerchaser

Hey people. Going to start a hardship claim with the nationwide soon and have a few questions.
-Background.
In October (20th) I lost my job, got made redundant, a week later I broke my leg really badly and was in hospital for two weeks, I'm not allowed to work at the moment while it heals. I think I have more than enough case for hardship at the moment and fit more than one of the criteria needed according to Martin's guide.


- Has anyone had any luck claiming for older charges, pre-
2008? I noticed some people had problems getting charges that
were before march of this year or on inactive accounts. One of
the accounts i'm claiming for was closed well over a year ago

-Will I need to send cheques for the accounts I want to claim
on? Will I need to send off for all my old statements? Seems a bit unfair if your supposed to be in hardship.

-Is there a template letter for hardship I can download or should I just
write my own using Martin's guide?

-What address should I send the letter to?

All help greatly appreciated of course!! :j

wrutless

Hi all. I have had an account with Nationwide since the age of 18, A flexaccount infact. I'm 24 now and over the years I have been charged upwards of £30 a pop everytime one of my DD's have been returned.

Now I am keen to reclaim these charges but there are a couple of instances that worry me before I attempt to do this. The main being the fact that my credit rating is poor and I'm frightened that Nationwide will close my account if I attempt to reclaim these charges ( I estimate a total of at least £800 in charges ). If they do this, I'm not confident that ill be able to open another bank account elsewhere - as i've tried Barclays and been rejected. I have no problems applying for savings accounts but Barclays would not give me a current account with a VISA debit card or Solo/Maestro equivalent.

I am full time employed but do not earn as much as I did 3-4 years ago so I am finding things difficult at the moment, so the extra money would be welcomed. However, I do not want to lose the abilty to pay by debit card.

I welcome any help from this community, as my expierience with the Nationwide advisers have not been as great as they portray on their television adverts.