Nationwide Unauthorised Overdraft Charges

bobthedambuilder

My DD has just received a statement for her Nationwide Flexaccount, and it turns out that for a few days last month, for the first time in several years of banking with them, she dropped marginally into negative balance. Along with the statement came a separate page informing that for each transaction leading to or while she was overdrawn, she was going to be charged a "Paid item fee" of £15.

The items that put her overdrawn were respectively £10.48, £3.99, £6.23, £1.14 and £30.00. She was never overdrawn more than £31.14.

She has since paid a decent chunk of money into the account to put it into the black again.

She now has charges of £75 which will be taken next month (and presumably a small interest charge, which I would accept as reasonable).

I have looked at posts for Nationwide on this forum, and all I see mentioned for overdraft charges is a one-off monthly fee of £20. Can anybody clarify this matter - have NW overdraft fees changed recently, and would you say that these charges were unreasonable?

opinions4u

It's on their web site.

Charge for an unpaid item (excluding cheques) when you do not have enough cleared funds (Note 1) £15 each time

Charge for an unpaid cheque when you do not have enough cleared funds (Note 2) £15 each time

Charge for a paid item (excluding cheques) when you do not have enough cleared funds (Note 1) £15 each

This document was updated November 2010.

I would recommend the "polite request for a refund" as a first offence. She might get lucky.

Hopefully this will be a defining moment in her banking life that will ensure she never lets them get a penny out of her in future!!

bobthedambuilder

opinions4u wrote: »

It's on their web site.



This document was updated November 2010.

I would recommend the "polite request for a refund" as a first offence. She might get lucky.

Hopefully this will be a defining moment in her banking life that will ensure she never lets them get a penny out of her in future!!

Cheers, looks like a recent change - in the bank's favour! No surprise there then. We'll be pleading ignorance / poverty (she only works part-time at minimum wage, so this represents a big part of her income).

yummum24

I am with Nationwide and have found that if you are a 1st time offender, they do ref someting, i only ha one charge for being overdrawn and they did refund this to me, not sure if they will refund all for you though. good luck!

CLAPTON

presumably the charges wouldn't apply if she had a small authorised overdraft?

bobthedambuilder

CLAPTON wrote: »

presumably the charges wouldn't apply if she had a small authorised overdraft?

I'm sure you're right, but it was never her intention to overdraw - she had a couple of periodic big bills for her car which came together (road tax, service and MOT), and she didn't think to check she had sufficient to cover these and her small daily bits and pieces which pushed her marginally into the red (she has a Traumatic Brain Injury from a car accident 5 years ago and although she's made an incredible recovery, she still has poor short term memory).

The aggravating thing is that if she'd drawn one amount out of a hole in the wall to buy her bits and pieces with cash, the charge would only have been £15.

Once bitten twice shy - we'll get the authorised overdraft set up forthwith.