RBS clueless?

capeverde

just thought Id share my experience as Im about to be discharged. Id banked with Rbs for over 15 years and had numerous current, savings, business and isa accounts with them. For most of that time I had 6 figures invested and put much more through the accounts. Around 2005 I started suffering badly from panic attacks to the extent I had to sell my companies, to this day I cant believe how severe they were and the impact they had on my life. I had always invested on the stock markets so carried on doing this from home, unfortunately with the margined trading I was doing I suffered some bad losses and had to withdraw (this was pre crash) I was still having the PAs' but forced myself out of the house and into employment. This was a severe challenge due to the fact that un numerous occasions every day I would be in a situation where I thought I was going to die and couldnt breathe. I should add that before all this I sailed my yacht single handed around the atlantic and road a motorcycle down africa, so Im not exactly a fragile person. Anyway gradually I managed to beat the attacks until they finally went. I should add doctors tend to be a waste of time and just try and subscibe pills, which I turned down. Unfortunately the work front wasnt going great as we were in the middle of the recession and by now Id used up all of my savings and owed around 50k to rbs. When an old friend called and asked me to move and join him in his business, it seemed like perfect timing. I relocated with my family and launched into things only to be told the work had run out and he couldnt pay me after just 3 weeks. Undeterred I managed to fins a contract project managing a development, but again just a couple of weeks before it started the guy found out he had cancer and had to postpone things. It was at this time I called RBS and asked to speak to somebody about my position. Now please bear in mind to this point I had never been even 1 day late with a payment in my life and had a perfect history. I gave them a brief synopsis of my situation andd asked if I cold speak with somebody to formulate a plan to move forwards and was flabbergasted when they told me I couldnt speak to anybody in their debt dept as I wasnt behind with any payments. I explained that I soon would be and asked if they thought it prudent to deal with matters before they compounded into something worse. Regardless of what I said, they wouldnt speak to me, so I then had to let things roll until payments were missed. At this stage I asked if I could have a 3 month payment holiday and discussed restructuring the debt, but they turned this down. I then offered them 41p in the £ as full and final settlement which would have been provided by family, but they turned this down. I told them the third alternative was bankruptcy and ultimately thats what I did. I still to this day cant belive how unprofessional and haphazard the bank were. Just as an aside, the ombudsmen have upheld a ppi mi selling case against them and rather than accepting it where they would have got the funds back as I was BR, they have argued and now the money will come to me as its a pretty straightforward case.

fiveyearplan

Hi Capeverde. Yep, doesn't surprise me. Banks, no matter how long you've been a customer only look to see what you're doing at the moment. I had an account with barclays for 20 years and had never once been overdrawn on that account. As soon as one dd didn't go through it all just spiralled and before I knew it was £600 overdrawn. I couldn't believe that my previous 19 years counted for nothing - but it didn't!

Glad you're getting over your panic attacks - must have been terrifying.

capeverde

yes thank you, the attacks have been gone a couple of years now and things couldnt be better. My wife has a new business in her name for whom I work and things are going great, she's just signed a lease on a second factory and the companies employing more people on a weekly basis!!! Should break the 7 figure mark in year 3 TO which is absolutely phenominal. Shame the RBS didnt have a sensible person to actually look back over my history and see what Id achieved. If they had, they would have more than likely been paid in full very soon, but that would be too easy for them wouldnt it. I really didnt want to go bankrupt and did all I could to negotiate, but it fell on deaf ears.

Worcsman

capeverde wrote: »

just thought Id share my experience as Im about to be discharged. Id banked with Rbs for over 15 years.............................

Sounds like you had a run of bad luck mate, many of us here have. I found the banks on the whole to be OK so far, Lloyds was where I used to do most my uk banking, they took the biggest hit when I went BR, well their mortgage arm, Cheltenham and Gloucester did.
I had another account with RBS, Now I got three with them as I found them to be reasonably BR friendly. I think that RBS not letting you talk with a debt help line was a mistake on their part. You're BR now so really... and no pun, it's their loss.

On another note, your offer at x-pence in the pound.. They should have given that more consideration, my wife is now responsible for the shortfall on our mortgage, she will when the time comes, offer C&G £600 in full and final settlement of the near 100k outstanding (
advice from this forum in another thread). If they turn it down they will get nothing at all as she has no job, hasn't since 1996 and has no assets what so ever and no means to pay anything at all. I'm guessing they will turn it down and the money instead will go to the inslovency people in way of paying to go BR.

I won't blame C&G for saying no but if the boot were on the foot and it was me looking to take that ultimatum , I would take the 600 quid, it's gotta be better than nothing what so ever.
C&G valued our house at 320k, leant on it then sold the same after repo for just over 200k, with judgement like that I have no way of second guessing what they might do!
They deserve to take the hit, they pretty much manafactured it for themselves.

capeverde

ive asked on another thread, but nobody had replied yet, i disclosed all of my accounts to the OR, and the rbs and barclays have been closed, but a nat west one is still open and hasl a visa debit with it. ive not used this during br and it has a zero balance, but can i just start using it after my release. i did all the paperwork correctly so its either an oversight on their behalf or they are happy for me to remain as a customer.

Ineedaname

There's answers on your other thread now. It tends to be a bit quiet over the weekends which is probably why it took a little time.

kepar

I would check on that PPI as I believe you might lose it to the OR.

capeverde

kepar wrote: »

I would check on that PPI as I believe you might lose it to the OR.

not if its awarded to me after my discharge, the or has finished all his investigations and drawn a line under it and my discharge is next week.

JCS1

capeverde wrote: »

not if its awarded to me after my discharge, the or has finished all his investigations and drawn a line under it and my discharge is next week.

You might want to check that with the OR. It would be a potential asset at the time of the BR, other people on these forums believed the same only for the money to go either to the OR or for the bank to use right of off set to reduce their debt,

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2847300

capeverde

how does that work then as I believed the OR had signed himself off so to speak satisfied all the paperwork was correct. If the chq was sent to me for example as I dont believe RBS are clever enough to put two and two together, would I be wrong to just bank it after discharge? I was under the assumption that after discharge everything was written off.

Toe-Jam

Be careful with the account with Natwest, They are owned by RBS and run off the same computer system. They can help themselves to money in a Natwest account if they feel they are entitled to it. You are best to stay away from that group of banks.