Nationwide bank charges

en1gma_2

Help please

I have an account with Nationwide and had a debit card with them that declined payments if I did not have enough cash in my account to fund it. Some months ago without asking me they sent me a visa card to replace my debit card.

I am on benefits because I cannot work due to severe health problems and this is paid into my account fortnightly.

Today I received a statement showing two deductions - one for £60 marked paid item fee and another for £20.00 for unauthorised overdraft fee. I received no prior notificaiton of these charges and had no idea that I had at any point been overdrawn because whenever I checked my account it showed me in credit. However on going back over the last two months online statements it seems that I had been overdrawn by a few pounds several times but I had not been informed of this and my account had continued to let me withdraw money.

I telephoned them today and basically they said I should check my balance more carefully before I withdraw money and they would refund £15.00 of charges but a further £30 would be taken from me in April for being £4.31 overdrawn in February. My previous account did not let me withdraw anything if I did not have funds to cover it.
My question really is - how can they just switch my account from a debit account to a visa account without consulting me and then fail to notify me that I had incurred charges. Is this legal?

thanks for reading and sorry for being a bit long winded.

Janice

Rich1976

en1gma wrote: »

Help please

I have an account with Nationwide and had a debit card with them that declined payments if I did not have enough cash in my account to fund it. Some months ago without asking me they sent me a visa card to replace my debit card.

I am on benefits because I cannot work due to severe health problems and this is paid into my account fortnightly.

Today I received a statement showing two deductions - one for £60 marked paid item fee and another for £20.00 for unauthorised overdraft fee. I received no prior notificaiton of these charges and had no idea that I had at any point been overdrawn because whenever I checked my account it showed me in credit. However on going back over the last two months online statements it seems that I had been overdrawn by a few pounds several times but I had not been informed of this and my account had continued to let me withdraw money.

I telephoned them today and basically they said I should check my balance more carefully before I withdraw money and they would refund £15.00 of charges but a further £30 would be taken from me in April for being £4.31 overdrawn in February. My previous account did not let me withdraw anything if I did not have funds to cover it.
My question really is - how can they just switch my account from a debit account to a visa account without consulting me and then fail to notify me that I had incurred charges. Is this legal?

thanks for reading and sorry for being a bit long winded.

Janice

According to their t's and c's they have to give you written notice before deducting any charges - I think this is 28 days but could be wrong. They will do this by sending you a letter or possibly sending you a statement showing the charges and the date they are going to take them.

You could always write a complaint letter if you haven't received anything but if their system shows letters/statements have been sent then they are not responsible if you haven't read them or if they have got lost in the post.

You could ask them to revert your account back to the cash card account if you are worried about going overdrawn. alternatively can you not ask them to set up an overdraft limit just in case?

The other advice is to take more interest in what's coming out of your account. Nationwide like any other current account provider are not a charity and it does state you will be charged if you exceed your overdraft limit.

fiendishlyclever

It amazes me how many people take no action to manage their money and then complain when the banks charge them.

Checking your balance before a transaction is not managing your money - the best way is to keep a spreadsheet with transactions on or use a specialist piece of software like MS Money.

When I was a student many years ago I worked on paper - I always knew how much should be in my account. Now I use MS Money - despite the fact that I always keep a large 'float' in there as well.

If you don't work, and don't have that many transactions on your account, a little bit of home accounting won't be very onerous and will save you a fortune in bank charges.

Mrs_Arcanum

Think the main issue the OP had was Nationwide changing to a debit card (with overdraft) for what they thought of and only used as a basic account with NO Overdraft facility.

Would swap to a different bank who will offer a proper basic non overdraft account.

Chrisblue1962

A good basic non-overdraft account is Co-operative Bank's Cashminder account which serves my purposes.

By the way, I don't work for the Co-op

fiendishlyclever

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

Think the main issue the OP had was Nationwide changing to a debit card (with overdraft) for what they thought of and only used as a basic account with NO Overdraft facility.

Would swap to a different bank who will offer a proper basic non overdraft account.

The charges would have been minimal if the OP had an overdraft facility.

I believe the main gripe was them letting transactions through which they expected to be bounced/stopped at the point of sale due to insufficient funds. As I said a little money management prevents this from happening.

The choice is there - move banks or take responsibility for knowing what is in your own account.

sophiasmummy

I had a cash card account with NW and last year they wrote to advise that the card on the account was to be changed to a visa debit (as were all cards on this type of account I believe)
The account details would remain exactly the same and I would still have no O/D however I would have a card I could use to shop online and pay in store instead of having to withdraw cash all the time.
This suits me perfectly and I have not been able to go overdrawn just had the convenience of a debit card instead.
Sorry just re-read and OP had a debit card previously....

EarthBoy

en1gma wrote: »

I have an account with Nationwide and had a debit card with them that declined payments if I did not have enough cash in my account to fund it. Some months ago without asking me they sent me a visa card to replace my debit card.

Your story doesn't ring true at all.

Nationwide have only ever had a Visa Debit card; they have never issued any other sort. Until last year, this was always a full debit card, i.e. no authorisation required. The Nationwide basic account only had a cash card, and you couldn't use it anywhere else except in ATMs. It wasn't a debit card in any shape or form. Then in the summer they started to issue basic account holders with full authorisation Visa Debit cards.

The only way that your story can be true is if you had one of these for a short while last year, starting last summer, and you were later upgraded to a full FlexAccount with the full debit, no authorisation required card. Nationwide are not in the habit of upgrading people without them asking. Quite the contrary, in fact. If they really upgraded you "some months ago" then you could only have had the basic Visa Debit card for a very short time, and there is no way they would have upgraded your account if you really run it as you claim.

Olipro

What's happened is this:

He's been upgraded to their Flexaccount from the standard cash account; he's obviously been sent notice of this at some point and he hasn't paid attention to it or bothered to read the T&Cs of the Flexaccount, hence he's used the card with the expectation of cash account functionality.

I should point out however, that Nationwide do now allow you to make your flexaccount behave in this way; just login to your account, go to Overdrafts and then disable the reserve "feature"

mabinogion_2

Hope you don't mind if I jump in on this thread as I have a very similar problem.

My daughter is a full time university student, has been with nationwide since toddlerhood, and now has a flex account. She operates her account via the internet, but last month had technical problems logging on for about four weeks. This was not nationwide's fault, but an issue with her pc which has now been fixed.

She had patchy access to her account due during this time, and was not able to spot that she overdrew over a 7 day period a number of small sums ranging between £2 and £18. The result of this is a letter from Nationwide notifying her of overdraft fees of £60. This seems disproportionate given the sums, though I know this is covered in their Ts & Cs.

What are the chances of them waving these charges, which are a first for my daughter, and which were borne out of the occasional technical challenges which online banking can present? Is it worth her having a chat with them. As a student she cannot afford these fees.

olly300

mabinogion wrote: »

Hope you don't mind if I jump in on this thread as I have a very similar problem.

My daughter is a full time university student, has been with nationwide since toddlerhood, and now has a flex account. She operates her account via the internet, but last month had technical problems logging on for about four weeks. This was not nationwide's fault, but an issue with her pc which has now been fixed.

She had patchy access to her account due during this time, and was not able to spot that she overdrew over a 7 day period a number of small sums ranging between £2 and £18. The result of this is a letter from Nationwide notifying her of overdraft fees of £60. This seems disproportionate given the sums, though I know this is covered in their Ts & Cs.

What are the chances of them waving these charges, which are a first for my daughter, and which were borne out of the occasional technical challenges which online banking can present? Is it worth her having a chat with them. As a student she cannot afford these fees.

1. She should go and talk to them. No one can answer your question except NW.

2. She should open a student bank account with another bank that offers them and sign up for an interest free overdraft. Then deliberately not use it. That way she will never be charged for being overdrawn as a student if this happens again. (Which it will.)

3. There is no need to close her nationwide account though it's better if she just has a savings account with them so she can remain a customer. This means when she graduates if she wishes to operate another current account or change current accounts to NW she can do it with ease.

Most importantly you all need to learn in your family banks and BS are not loyal to customers anymore they are there to make money. Therefore while you should expect to be treated decently you should show no loyalty to them.