Natwest Overdraft

toffee123

Hi I wonder if anyone can give me some advice.

Back in October of 2011 I switched my bank account from Santander over to Natwest. At the time I was told that my £800 overdraft would be transfered over too, on more than 1 occasion.
My account was opened on Oct 29th and was told that the overdraft can take 21 day to be put on (apparently 100% wrong) and that everything would be paid off on my Santander account.
By February, despite several trips into my local branch the overdraft still wasn't in place. During this time Santander had been applying charges to my account (i was about £7 over my overdraft) so my original £800 overdraft was now £1017.13!
I complained to Natwest, after several attempts again in the branch, and they started an investigation back on February 28th.
We're now nearly 12 weeks down the line and I've had 2 letters and 1 phone call which was today (pretty disgraceful customer service in my opinion). I was told today that that i should never have been offered the overdraft, and they won't offer me one now. And more surprisingly, the peice of paperwork from the bank to see if an overdraft was even applied for has "gone missing"!!
Basically they want to offer me some kind of compensation, she said £270 should cover the costs i've had to pay out to Santander (I've had to set up a payment plan to stop them adding more charges).
I'm just wondering where to go from here, I'm pretty cheesed off as i'm now going to be out of pocket for somehting that was a simple bank account transfer.

Any help would be very gratefully received...

coldhandoff

If your complaint has been resolved refer it to the FOS.

toffee123

Thanks for the quick reply.

It hasn't been resolved yet, I'm getting a phone call tomorrow apparently. I'm just wondering how much the FOS can do. If Natwest won't offer me any overdraft surely the FOS can't make them. Or ask them to offer me enough compensation as rto effectively pay off my overdraft...

stclair

Overdrafts are subject to status.

Im presuming you have spoke to lending the computer says no.

Even if you take it to the FOS they cant make the bank give you an overdraft.

When the account was being switched who offered you the overdraft?

toffee123

I spoke to the guys (including one of the managers) in the Natwest branch when swapping my account over back in October, and was told on 3 different occasions that the overdraft would be swapped at the same time. No search or application on computer, just told it would be swapped. Unfortunately I believed them. But had no reason not to.

It was only yesterday that I was told that I wouldn't have even been accepted for an overdraft!
It seems crazy that people can promise something in branch but nearly 7 months later I'm being told the complete opposite. If I'd known that in Oct i wouldn't have even opened the acc and left my account at Santander.

I've been told that people in the branch have "moved positions", which i'm assuming means demoted/sacked/reprimanded over this but its no consolation to me at the moment.

stclair

Did alarm bells not start ringing when you never recieved confirmation of your overdraft by letter etc.

It all sounds abit like he said she said ........

Anyway I hope you get it sorted.

toffee123

Yes I admit I have been a little naive about it. But as I said above I didn't have any reason to doubt them. And Everytime I followed it up I was told they were looking into it, and it was being sorted.

Anyway, after a call today, they've offered me compensation of £500. I'm tempted to take it, as it will be a load of my mind and to be honest I'm getting a bit bored of the saga.

Does this seem like the best option? I'm not in this to try and get more money. Just wanted people's advice as this is my first experience with banks in a matter like this

Agricolae

If it covers your losses then I would accept it.