Nationwide £75 bank charges

Chris123643

I have been charged £15 for every transaction I made that took me into the minus, this totaled £75. I have no overdraft set up. The only reason this happened it because I had direct debits coming out of this account into another which I had forgotten about, and I always move money from the current account into various savings accounts (saving for a mortgage). I was in the minus for about 8 days before realising and quickly putting more cash in. This is the first time this has happened, would I have any chance to get any of this back? I am not in any financial hardship, it was just a little slip up that ended up costing me £75!

dunstonh

would I have any chance to get any of this back?

Banks will often refund on your first error if you ask nicely. Normally this can be done at branch level with the local staff.

Voyager2002

As always, dunstonh is right.

I have found Nationwide to be particularly good about this kind of thing. You do need to telephone them; to be apologetic and not try to make out that it was someone else's fault when clearly it was your own slip-up. Above all, if you are kept on hold for a while do not allow yourself to feel irritated. Once you speak to a person, you are likely to have a brief and pleasant conversation and be granted a refund of at least half the fees, quite possibly the whole lot.

Joe_Bloggs

You will lose nothing more than your dignity if you try and grovel some of these fees back. Since pleading poverty is out then you will have to find another angle where you appear to be a worthy cause for their pity.

I run my flex account with a float of 100. The rest is in savings. There is a never used 1000 quid overdraft facility if things go wrong. This is solely in place to prevent potential 'penalty' bank charges.

It would be nice if there was a sweep facility from savings to current account. Some form of text messaging if the current account level was too low would be nice. Wishful thinking gets us nowhere. Better to use a diary to forcast future income and expenditure.
J_B.

Premier_2

Chris123643 wrote: »

I have been charged £15 for every transaction I made that took me into the minus, this totaled £75. I have no overdraft set up. The only reason this happened it because I had direct debits coming out of this account into another which I had forgotten about, and I always move money from the current account into various savings accounts (saving for a mortgage). I was in the minus for about 8 days before realising and quickly putting more cash in. This is the first time this has happened, would I have any chance to get any of this back? I am not in any financial hardship, it was just a little slip up that ended up costing me £75!

Sorry, I don't understand fully.

You get charged £15 for each occassion you do not have suffient cleared funds available to cover such a payment.

If you have no overdraft in place, then a £20 unauthorised overdraft fee is also charged.

Could you explain further how you incurred 5 lots of £15 charges when you say you were otherwise in credit?

It seems to me that if your first transaction took your balance negative, then the subsequent 4 transactions you had authorised were themselves transactions involving uncleared funds.

Chris123643

I have been moving my money about for years, I like to play the game to get the most out of my money I can, which all seems pointless after a mistake like this is made!

I have no problem pleading my case, and I'm glad I asked the question here as now I know the tone I need! It would have been one of anger as I would have thought that would get me the furthest, but now I'll be very pleasant and honest.

One last question, probably just a matter of personal preference, but do you think I would be better off calling in at a branch and speaking to someone, or phoning? It is easy for me to call in on my lunch break, and think I would feel more comfortable face to face with someone.


Edit: Premier, sorry if I was unclear, basically I went into the minus on my current account, and on 5 occasions continued to use my current account taking me further into the red, these 5 occasions I was charged a fee of £15. I had plenty of money elsewhere but did not notice this happening until it was too late. Does this make sense?

Premier_2

Chris123643 wrote: »

I have been moving my money about for years, I like to play the game to get the most out of my money I can, which all seems pointless after a mistake like this is made!

I have no problem pleading my case, and I'm glad I asked the question here as now I know the tone I need! It would have been one of anger as I would have thought that would get me the furthest, but now I'll be very pleasant and honest.

One last question, probably just a matter of personal preference, but do you think I would be better off calling in at a branch and speaking to someone, or phoning? It is easy for me to call in on my lunch break, and think I would feel more comfortable face to face with someone.


Edit: Premier, sorry if I was unclear, basically I went into the minus on my current account, and on 5 occasions continued to use my current account taking me further into the red, these 5 occasions I was charged a fee of £15. I had plenty of money elsewhere but did not notice this happening until it was too late. Does this make sense?

Yes, that kind of makes sense.

Except, you should be aware that you will also be charged the £20 unarranged overdraft fee.
Also Nationwide gives you 28 notice before taking charges so make sure you have sufficient cleared funds available when the fees are actually applied.

As others say, you may get the first fee back if you ask nicely, but this is entirely upto the Nationwide and will only be done so as a goodwill gesture, hence why not to go in all guns blazing

And as you say, it really is not worth trying to squeeze the last 0.00001p of interest out of the Nationwide by moving funds around if it takes your current account below zero, thereby incurring a minimum £15 charge per transaction (or minimum £35 charges if they honour the transaction you authorise)

Chris123643

UPDATE:

Ok, to just to help anyone else out who may read this, I'll tell you what happened.

So i went into the branch at lunch, asked to speak with someone about the charges. I thought i would get to sit down with someone but she took the statements off me and dealt with me at the help counter. I explained it was my first "offence" and how and why it happened. She sucked her teeth and said the best she can do is knock of one of the charges, (so -£15). I went onto say about the £20 fee at the end of the month, she said yes that's right. "and that's the best you can do?" "yes".

So that was that, i left feeling more angry then ever, i would be charged £80 and there was nothing i could do. So angry that the first thing i did was to try again on the phone as soon as i was back. I got though straight away, and as soon as i told him about the charges he said "I can get rid of all of these for you, no problem, as i can see this is your first offence"... I asked him about the £20 and he said there is nothing he could do about that. He went onto say there were £90 of charges, not £75, there must have been another after the statement i have, but he cleared them all.

It must be that he had access to all my pass information instantly on his computer, the woman at the counter didn't even use the computer, so had to take my word about my account history. (maybe she could have checked, but she didnt)

If i had a letter in the post this morning saying i had to pay £20, id be pritty miffed, but as its down from £110 I'm in the mood to celebrate! :beer:

Thanks for the info guys, helped me understand the process and probably wouldn't have tried as hard without that information. Have to be sure not to slip up again, he said on the phone he wouldn't be able to do that again.