Advantage Gold at £12 per month

p1an0player

A friend of limited financial means, and easily fobbed off, recently went into a Natwest branch with the intention of opening a simple bank account (eg a "basic bank account").

It turns out he opened, without realising it, an account which charges £12 per month, the Advantage Gold account.

I got him to call the Customer Relations number on the back of a leaflet. They said this was an escalated complaints line, and he must talk to the branch first. The branch said, oh it's OK, you get discounts on DVDs, it's a trial, after 3 months, we'll contact you and refund the charges if you don't like the features of the account.

What to do now? Is it worth raising an official complaint that the Advantage Gold account was mis-sold?

I'm annoyed that this has happened - how can they open an account for someone and charge them £12 per month without saying anything in the branch?!

Also how easy is it to change it to a basic bank account (which they haven't offered to do)? Would it be possible just to ignore the Natwest branch, and go to eg Barclays and transfer the account over to a basic bank account?

Thanks for your thoughts on this

amandathepanda

There are a lot of benefits to the Advantage gold account, but it should also be suitable for the customer, and all the benefits and charges should have been explained. Unfortunately these are desperate times and branch staff are targeted to sell packaged account that incur a fee. If this is not what your friend wants and they are within the 90 day money back guarantee they should get any charges refunded and the account should be converted back to a standard current account.
If your friend insists that this be done straight away it should be done, but what tends to happen is that if the account is converted back within the 90 day period the branch lose all their sales points that they would have received for selling the product, so they will try and say that you have to wait until after the 90 day trial period.
I still think that the advantage gold is a good product for people who will use the free travel and mobile phone insurance.
As for mis-selling they would have had to sign the account opening form which would have explained all the terms and conditions, I know nobody ever does this, but NatWest will be covered.

Phoenix79_2

Do Natwest take 'revenge' if you cancel the Advantage Gold? I've got in on mine but don't justify the £12 expense. If i was to cancel it would they slash my overdraft? Its £2.5k at the moment and although the most I go overdrawn is £500 its always nice to have the barrier if the 'wheels fall off'!

amandathepanda

No they won't take revenge, they will try and get you to keep the account by reminding you of all the benefits. They will just get you to sign a form.

roxy7699

Many a year ago Natwest upgraded my account to this £12 a month one, when I confronted them they said that they had my signature from when I was in the branch. I challenged them to show my signature and they quickly converted it back and refunded my money (spesh as I hadnt been in a branch for many months). They won't take revenge but I don't find them the easiest bank to deal with, personally

topbombing

ring natwest normal customer services, tell them the situ and ask to speak to the CUSTOMER CARE TEAM, they will convert it , and tell him to sayu that he wants the fees back, they will refund them

maliachammy

Phoenix79 wrote:

Do Natwest take 'revenge' if you cancel the Advantage Gold? I've got in on mine but don't justify the £12 expense. If i was to cancel it would they slash my overdraft? Its £2.5k at the moment and although the most I go overdrawn is £500 its always nice to have the barrier if the 'wheels fall off'!

No but they will probably take every opportunity to get you to convert it to AdGold again. All customer contact, customer services on the phone, branch staff etc are on similar sales targets and will do all they can legally to get you to have this account, which was the holy grail when I was working there. it's not the correct thing to do but managers expect it and the staff justify it because they have to keep thir jobs. they will change it back and give back any money paid without taking revenge, just expect lines like 'have you thought about how much money you could save' every time you have contact with them.

tuux1598g

maliachammy wrote:

No but they will probably take every opportunity to get you to convert it to AdGold again. All customer contact, customer services on the phone, branch staff etc are on similar sales targets and will do all they can legally to get you to have this account, which was the holy grail when I was working there. it's not the correct thing to do but managers expect it and the staff justify it because they have to keep thir jobs. they will change it back and give back any money paid without taking revenge, just expect lines like 'have you thought about how much money you could save' every time you have contact with them.

I have noticed this too, I currently have 2 current accounts (basic and current plus) and everytime I go to deopsit cash at the counter they tell me about all the benefits I'm missing out on and ask that I take a few minutes to chat to a member of staff about this... first time they did it I was still at college and not earning so after a long chat they said 'sorry you aren't eligible', now its become so common that I just take it as normal and have my answers ready lol

maliachammy

tuux1598g wrote:

now its become so common that I just take it as normal and have my answers ready lol

That is the only strategy that works, even if it comes to saying 'sorry, my cat has just died, and this is the money for his cremation, can I go now?' to shut them up. you just need to give them something they can justify a missed sale to their boss.

Precious_Thing

Years ago my Current Plus account was changed to an Advantage Gold without me even having been asked.

When I questioned this, they said it was free for six months. I kept it for about 5 months and then said I wanted it changed back to Current Plus. They offered it free to me for a further 6 months. I said I didn't want this.

They eventually changed it back to Current Plus, but I had to contact them several more times before this happened. As a previous poster has said, every time I went into the bank, I was told I had an ``old style'' account and I was ``missing out''. What missing out on paying fees to them for nothing??

I think that this hard sell is outrageous, especially when some people are vulnerable and would find it hard to say no, or even to understand what differences in accounts are. To me this is unethical even if it's legal. However, ethics don't seem to be that important to many people anymore.

Precious Thing.

maliachammy

Precious_Thing wrote:

Years ago my Current Plus account was changed to an Advantage Gold without me even having been asked.

When I questioned this, they said it was free for six months. I kept it for about 5 months and then said I wanted it changed back to Current Plus. They offered it free to me for a further 6 months. I said I didn't want this.

They eventually changed it back to Current Plus, but I had to contact them several more times before this happened. As a previous poster has said, every time I went into the bank, I was told I had an ``old style'' account and I was ``missing out''. What missing out on paying fees to them for nothing??

I think that this hard sell is outrageous, especially when some people are vulnerable and would find it hard to say no, or even to understand what differences in accounts are. To me this is unethical even if it's legal. However, ethics don't seem to be that important to many people anymore.

Precious Thing.

I couldn't agree more PT. I was working in a natwest call centre a year or two back when they had done a campaign like that, and our bosses told us time after time when customers complained about it that the account would switch back to current plus at the end of the 6 months. surprise surprise after the 12 months or so they extended the 'free trial' to the accounts were not switched back and the fees were charged. i'm sure, as you would have been someone affected by this sort of thing, how er, peeved maybe is the word, customers were and they had to change tactics and swop the accounts back. and they still expected us to sell to these 'peeved' people, which is a reason why i did everything I could to get out of that kind of environment.

although I don't think this kind of practise is isolated to natwest, or indeed banks in particular, and I certainly don't think this bank are in any way the worst offenders of any of these type, but you are right in saying ethics don't stand for much.