Natwest current account horror story

joelikesbacon

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the really long post! I thought I would share my recent experience with NatWest for the benefit of anyone considering opening an account with them or RBS, their parent company. When I was about 11 my parents opened me a child current account with them, and when I was 16 I opened my own account with HSBC, and abandoned the natwest one, leaving a penny in it.

Just under a year ago (I'm now 22) I decided to overhaul my finances, and asked to upgrade the old account to a gold one so the phone insurance looked like a good deal. After receiving the full terms and conditions in the post however it looked like it didn't actually offer the cover that had originally been described to me, so I phoned them up to close the account down. The guy on the phone told me I'd need to write a letter into my branch to close down the account, so I typed one up and handed it into the service desk, who promised me it would be shut down, that charges for the gold account hadn't been applied yet, and that I'd receive a cheque for 1p (exciting!).

Months went by and I received no statements or my cheque for a penny, so assumed that the account had been shut down and either they sent the cheque to my old address (they struggled in branch with updating my address) or they decided paying postage on a 1p cheque was silly. Fast forward to a year later, and I receive an automated phone call claiming that I owe natwest over £300, and need to contact them immediately. I immediately went to my local branch (last friday), and after queueing for about 15 minutes made my way to the only person serving, and explained what a massive !!!!-up had been made. The guy explained that he'd have to send an issue off and that I should hear back in 48 hours (which rather confusingly he insisted took us to tuesday). Through-out the conversation he disappeared into the office to ask advice on three separate occasions while the queue got longer and longer, and when I insisted on speaking to a manager informed me that there were none in the branch today. When I asked to speak to the person he kept running of to confer with he told me that she was a complaints specialist, who did not speak with customers. Being late for work, I eventually accepted this, however tuesday sailed by with no contact, but a further 6 automated calls informing me how much money I owed them.

On Wednesday (my day off) I went into the branch spoke to the branch manager who said that the department investigating the my claim were really busy at the minute (which didn't surprise me) and that I would definitely hear back on Thursday. After a lot of arguing I managed to get his email address so I could get straight back in touch with him if I didn't hear back. Thursday came and went with another 4 automated calls with no option to speak to anyone, but no phone call, and my email asking for a response from the branch manager went unanswered. This morning after being cut off twice and kept on hold for just over 25 minutes I managed to speak to someone who EVENTUALLY agreed that it was NatWests mistake and that I was owed a penny. They tried getting me to pay for the first months use of the gold account for a long time, but eventually it would appear common sense won through. Several times it has been suggested to me that it was my error, and that the charges were legitimate, and I can see how a less argumentative person could have been intimidated by the constant calls and started to pay the money back.

The next thing I am worried about is that NatWest have marked me as being overdrawn for just under a year on my credit report, I've been told it will take a week for them to check if they have done that. I've run my own credit check, and am waiting to get that back to see if the saga continues. The service from NatWest has been the worst I've received from anywhere, and I would encourage anyone thinking of going with them to reconsider.

brokeinyorkshire

Months went by and I received no statements or my cheque for a penny, so assumed that the account had been shut down and either they sent the cheque to my old address (they struggled in branch with updating my address) or they decided paying postage on a 1p cheque was silly.[STRIKE][/STRIKE]

You should never assume anything as far as banks are concerned.

IMHO all banks are alike. Small amounts of people have problems but the majority are happy. Apart from santander!! :rotfl:

Hope you get it resolved to your satisfaction!

J

joelikesbacon

Thanks for the support, and you're quite right of course! I took the fact that the person in branch had confirmed the account had been closed to be proof enough. I also assumed them checking my closing balance would leave some sort of footprint on the system. My job is dealing with customer complaints for a communication company and any time someone accesses an account it leaves a footprint so if they mess up or you want to check what they've done/said you can see who dealt with it. It would appear that natwest either don't bother to do this, or it's in their interest to let staff members only pretend to close gold accounts.