bank messed up, any advice please?

nessie4

I hope i am posting this in right place, ive put it in MO as its about personal money issues. Its easier if i start at the beginning so this may be a bit long and drawn out im afraid. Basically i opened a student account in October 2003 with Natwest. I had the agreed overdraft and never had any issues with the account. I had never been over my limit, never had charges or anything. I had a regular income going into the account and as of June 2008 i was working full time as a nurse so always had plenty of money going in there, however i still had the agreed overdraft of £2000 as i now had a graduate account and was pretty much living off of that whilst reducing it down reguarly since working FT. Anyway in Feb 2009 i went to use a cash point a day after pay day and the machine swallowed my card. Contacted the bank on the phone and was told i would have to go into the bank as they couldnt tell me anyhting over the phone. So i go into the bank where im told that for some unknown reason all my bank cards/cheque books/direct debits have been cancelled yet my account is still open. They couldnt understand this so decided to ring head office. After awhile they come back to me completly baffled saying that they have been told it is top secret why this is happenening but i no longer have access to my account and they will be writing to me to advise me that i had 7days in which to clear the remaining overdraft of £900 and once the amount was cleared my account would be closed. The woman who i spoke with could not understand the reasoning for this as she looked back at my account and saw there were no problems with it since i had opened the account. As i had just been paid into the account i had lost that entire months wage as it had gone into the arranged overdraft, the bank had cancelled all my direct debits without informing me beforehand therefore all my bills hadnt been paid which meant i incurred charges on them. I spoke on the phone numerous times to the bank and was told basically tough, they are within their rights to do this and they do not have to give me a reason. I was told that as i had an outstanding debt with them now i would not be able to open a bank account until it was cleared. Which meant i had no where to have my wages paid etc and was pretty much screwed. I contacted The financial ombusman (sp?) and local MP who all tried to find out reasons and get the decision reversed as there was no reason for them to have done this to me. Natwest werent interested and i gave up eventually. I made an agreement to pay a set amount every month to clear the outstanding balance and used a spare account my brother had as i was not able to open a new account anywhere, not even a basic one

So i just tried to forget about it all as i was so stressed and was lucky enough to come into some money in July 2010. As soon as i got this money i contacted Natwest and paid off the remaining balance, i was told that they would update my credit report within a month so i shouldt have problems with getting another bank account then. I rang a week after just to confirm the payment had cleared and was told the same thing. I checked the experian credit site reguarly after this and there was nothing on there so assumed they had done as they said. A few months after i was allowed to open a basic bank account only but was so happy at this.

So fast forward to present day and OH and i are in the process of buying a house. We are both on good incomes and have money to put down for a deposit. All was going great and then i get a phone call from the mortgage advisor to say the bank had seen something adverse in my credit history and had declined our mortgage. I explained what had happened with natwest and how there was nothing at all on my credit report now and was advised to look on Equifax site. So i sign upto them and OMG i see that Natwest have never bothered updating the credit report and are saying i still owe £786 and have defaulted onn all the payments since i Feb 2010 (all a lie). I contact Natwest and they have admitted liability as the person who took payment just never bothered filling in any of the required forms to update the credit report. I have now got to wait upto 28days for it to be updated before we can go through the process of reapplying for a mortgage. I just wondering if anyone knows if it will take this long? I have been advised (by mortgage advisor) that i need to take this furthur and i should be compensated for costs ive incurred/stress etc as now our move will be delayed and we have lost out on the good interest rate that we were being offered. Does anyone know if its worth doing this? or have any experience with this?

jonesMUFCforever

You need to start a formal complaint in writing - please keep to facts and make it concise and use paragraghs.
Your posting was a bit heavy to read in one block.

I do not know what kind of compensation you should seek but if you are offered a mortgage deal on worse terms than the one you were applying for I would seek the difference (eg application fees, interest rates etc).

ses6jwg

One thing I don't understand, is why would you open another account with a bank that obviously treated you with such contempt?

If I had been treated in such a way by a bank I would sever all financial links with them and tell all my friends about my experience.

nessie4

ses6jwg wrote: »

One thing I don't understand, is why would you open another account with a bank that obviously treated you with such contempt?

If I had been treated in such a way by a bank I would sever all financial links with them and tell all my friends about my experience.

I didnt open another account with them, i also never would after that. But i was unable to open a bank account anywhere at all (i tried lots) until about 9months ago when i managed to open one with Barclays. Sorry if that wasnt clear in my post.

Also apologies for the big block of writing, its just so much information and with a baby here i was trying to get it all down quickly on another site and just copied and pasted it here when i was recommended to do so