Money "disappeared" from NatWest account

curiousperson

I hold a Current Account and an ISA account with NatWest.

About 10 days ago I handed the clerk a cheque of £3100 and asked her to pay the money into my ISA account and filled in the relevant paperwork.

Few days later I suddenly noticed that there was virtually no money left in my Current Account as £3100 had been transferred from my Current Account into my ISA account.
When I asked where the cheque money had gone I was told that they did not know (I do have a receipt proving that I gave them the cheque.)

I phoned the online banking service of NatWest the same day and put in a complaint. They admitted taht the cheque money had "disappeared".They told me they would investigate this and contact me the next day. They have not contacted me.

I had to transfer money from my regular savings account which I hold with another bank into my NatWest Current Account(and I will lose interest on that money and as I can only pay in a limited amount of money per month into my regular savings account so I will not be able to “refill” it easily).

When I spoke to them yesterday and today they fobbed me off saying that they were investigating this and they had 8 weeks time to do so. They did not care that I was basically left without money on my Current Account due to their mistake.

Any advice on what I can do to get my money back without having to wait 8 weeks?

agrinnall

You can't do much more than wait for them to investigate I'm afraid. What you definitely musn't do is transfer money back from your ISA, as you won't be able to replace that when all this is sorted out. NatWest should put you back in the situation you would have been in, so they should pay any interest that you miss out on as a result of their mistake. If you find you are short of money in your current account I would consider asking them to provide you with an interest free overdraft until the cheque appears. And you should certainly be in line for some compensation, others may have a better idea how much but I would have though maybe £50 - £100 would be a good starting point.

DCFC79

They didnt fob you off, they need to investigate where its gone but your case isnt the only 1 they are investigating. Give them a chance to find whats gone wrong.

opinions4u

Where did the cheque come from? Could you get it stopped and have a replacement issued?

That would sort out the cash flow issue asap.

Beyond that, make sure you itemise all costs incurred. Time, phone calls, loss of interest, overdraft charges etc.

Then let them have the breakdown at the end and ask them to reimburse the amount and make an offer of additional compensation.

jalexa

curiousperson wrote: »

I had to transfer money from my regular savings account which I hold with another bank into my NatWest Current Account(and I will lose interest on that money...

Hardly the issue to be concerned about.

Focus on the missing cheque and all failures to fulfill any undertakings made such as call-back promises.

chexum

curiousperson wrote: »

they fobbed me off saying that they were investigating this and they had 8 weeks time to do so.

:eek: I'm afraid there's no missing cheque, there's no mistake, and there won't be callbacks. Despite that, in all likelyhood, your money will be back without explanation in a few days.

Based on what you explain, and earlier reports from the forum, they indeed cannot tell you, but you're transaction has just been reported to NCIS/SOCA, so the transaction is frozen until a few conditions are met - either a few days more pass without their attention, or they come back to let you off the hook.

It may be a particularly unlucky thing that you deposited the cheque directly into the ISA, as any funds removed from there may never be replaced for the current tax year. While you probably had no intention to remove it from your ISA a while, it seems their way of "freezing" the transaction was to pretend you deposited it from your current account to prevent you losing the ISA allowance.

Generally there seem to be no "protection" against these kind of countermeasures, and even the FOS is instructed to offer no further explanation, despite this all being public information, but you could really argue that this way of "freezing" the transaction, for "whatever investigation necessary", was completely useless; as you had no intention to remove the funds from there - they could have "frozen" it by making you unable to withdraw it, so maybe you could keep a record of you costs and ask them about it.

agrinnall

Chexum, you may well be right about what's happened to the cheque, but that doesn't explain why NatWest transferred the £3100 from the OP's current account without any instruction to do so. And at no point did the OP say access to any accounts was frozen, so I think you may be reading more into the post than is actually there.

chexum

They don't need to freeze the accounts, only the transaction, and if they realised it needs to be "investigated" after being deposited into the ISA, they may have chosen this awkward method of replacing the frozen funds that *had* to stay in the ISA. In a very twisted way, but it makes sense to me.

agrinnall

Sorry, I misread your post, saw 'freezing' and thought you meant the account, when obviously you didn't.

I'm still not convinced about the transfer from the current account, there is no evidence that the cheque ever actually hit the ISA, and therefore there would have been no need to move money around to cover a withdrawal from it. And I doubt if there is anything in the T&C's that would have allowed NatWest to do that anyway. Seems to me more of a c**k up than a cover up.

Mikeyorks

chexum wrote: »

In a very twisted way, but it makes sense to me.

None to me, however.

If the cheque value can't be allocated to the ISA then it's regarded that no subscription has been made (HMRC guidance to ISA managers). So no part of the allowance is prejudiced.

It's not an 'awkward' method to syphon equivalent funds from the current account without authorisation - it's bordering on fraud.

xylophone

On whose account was the cheque drawn?