Please help me natwest are doing me over

sneak

Hi everyone i really hope someone can help me here i feel i am being beaten down by natwest by a constant battering of letters etc.

My account is now something like £378 overdrawn with no overdraft. i signed up for the natwest gold account costing me £12 a month for what i thought would be an entitlement to an overdraft but as it didnt in the end i didnt use the account or anything related to the gold account. i was charged £12 a month which i forgot about for sometime, my account was £0 at first then when the first charge went out they slapped me with a paid refferal fee of like £28 i think.

this has been going on for sometime and they now have been bombarding me with letter and demands for money i havent got and i havent spent. its getting totally out of hand and i dont feel i can get it back in order its causing me so much stress its unbeliveable. they are now sending me letters from the TDM (Tamarisk debt management) telling me to sort out payment plans etc etc.

I have phone natwest and spoke with someone, i told them the charges where illegal and that i wasnt paying them, in the end after arguing it out i said right if i pay the £12 a month iv owed for a while get rid of the charges, and he came back to me saying yes ok, you now owe us £120 for so many months worth of the gold account.

Ok i thought il pay this off, and he said right you set up a payment for £28 a month for a couple of month and when its payed off the charges will be forgotten.

After the telephone conversation i remembered natwest have charged me long before this all happend for going overdrawn a few time by a couple of pence, at the time i would have been around 15 years old and still in school, im now 19 so i think i can still claim these back??

if this is the case could i ask natwest to refund these charges which could then be put towards paying off the £120 worth of natwest gold acount charges?


please help im really in a bad situation here and i dont know what i am going to say to natwest to sort it out!!!!!!!:mad:

millow

Send the £10 cheque in along with the first letter and ask for your statements for the last 6 years and then start going through the letter on this web site in the order they are on here. Make sure you read all of the website (reclaim bank charge section) to get familiar with what you have to do. But these forums are very good for help.Good Luck - Im just going through with Natwest now

k1mmie

I agree with Millow. Read through the threads and start by asking for your statements. Then when you know how much you have been charged, I would write to them asking for them back. I think, if you read the threads you will see that even the £12 you have agreed to pay is still far too high. They will send you a letter in reply saying 6-7 weeks. But hey its better in your pocket than theirs. If you cannot afford the repayment, I would send them a letter informing them that you are in the process of reclaiming and what the amount is - so that they can see it will be far more than any overdraft figure. Good luck!

Edinburghlass_2

However, if you put in a claim for bank charges you can't claim back the Gold Account Charges within this claim as these are a fee for a service that you agreed to.

In effect they have repaid your charges by saying they will accept only the £120 for the Gold Account fees.

natweststaffmember

Sneak, the story you have told me is of misselling advantage gold. It could be argued that you signed for the account for the overdraft which you did not get. Did you use the account at all? If NO then you should be complaining that the account was missold to you and that you have never used the benefits at all. It would be difficult to argue that you used the account at all in this instance and a FULL refund to close the account should be forthcoming and not just UBF charges.
The other issue with regards to charges when you were 15 years old, is something the bank do not have a leg to stand on in court. The bank have breached their own Banking Code by giving credit to someone under the age of 18(if the charges took you overdrawn). Moot point as well, charges are Unlawful NOT illegal.

sneak

wow thanks people i didnt expect any replies really!! thanks for all this great advice. i do know a little about the reclaiming bank charges as i have now claimed back 2 charges from barclays totalling around £250 quid i was just unsure of what i should do about this one.

Natweststaffmemeber thanks alot for your advice! i dont believe i have used the account after the time of applying for the gold account i just left it. when i applied over the phone i was told that they would sort out an overdraft if i switched my wages and paid at least £500 into my account, then after a couple of months maybe they could sort something out...so i agreed but never switched my wages and never even used the acocunt after this point.
i have rang them saying that i have never used the benefits of the account but according to them the befefits are of the nature which they cannot really check upon...is this guna be correct?
like for example if you sign up to advantage gold you can save like a certain percentage when you show your card when applying for someting, etc, etc. so on this side they are saying that yes i may not have put money in the account but i still could have used the benefits so i have used the account and am entitled to pay the £12 a month charge for using the gold account.

is there any way i can get out of this then? they recon i have to pay £120 worth of this £12 a month for the gold account but i havent used it so can i get this confirmed and cleared??

i think i am best first asking for my previous bank charges back from well before i was 18 years old, then resolving the gold account issue. the thing is i keep getting letters from them and just today i got one from a credit recovery company saying natwest plc are requesting this amount of money, blah blah blah. what am i going to do about this, i dont wana pursue this claim then pure grippers come to my house taking my TVs an that!!

wow i cant even begin to explain how much god damn stress this is causing me!!!! everytime i try to think of how am guna sort it out my head goes to bits and i cant even think where the hell to start. im so glad i have had just the slightest bit of help from a few of you i am seriously greatfull

natweststaffmember

Yes. I have had cases exactly like yours where the issue is not that the account was open but that you never used the account. How can you justify charging someone who has not used one benefit? Yes you can tell if someone has used it. Tell them that you want the account closed and that you do not use it nor have you used it. If they fail to respond then take them to the Financial Ombudsman Service(it will cost them £400.00 so their choice).

You should know by now a problem shared about natwest will get me interested to sort it, IF i can. Enjoy your sunday and remember you have something to ask for. Proof that you have enjoyed any of the benefits.


Gold issue could be the first thing to sort out because they should be able to sort that out within 2 weeks, full refund charges and interest and account closed.

sneak

cheers for your reply once again natweststaffmember!

i have just rang a number on a letter i was sent by natwest and quoted a reference number. i explained to the woman on the other end that my account was £378 overdrawn all due to charges. i said that i have not used the account and i have used none of the benefits relating to the account, she went on to say that it doesnt matter if i havnt used the account or the benefits they were all there to use and i simply chose not to use them, i am still required to pay the £12 a month fee i have been charged for about 10 months. i also said about me being under 18 and being charged a while back and she just said oh i cant look back more than 12 months im sorry cant help you there.

she then says what we can do is set up a payment plan so you just pay the £120 and we forget the charges. i then said OHH thats funny that ul will forget about these allegerdly fully lawful charges that have been applied to my account, she then said is that sarcasm sir i am not here to deal with that good bye and she put down the phone! end of conversation lol so that got me nowhere except worrying more about what the hell am guna do.

so what do you recon? i think if i send a letter to them saying refund all the £12 a month charges i havent used the accout they will just reply saying what the woman on the phone said!! what happens if they let me take them to the financial ombudsman??? she didnt seem to bothered when i mentioned it over the phone...

natweststaffmember

THat is crap. If you believe you have not used the account then they should refund all charges and close the account. She is right about only going back 12 months. Ok, get them on the charges and write a letter of complaint with regards to the advantage gold asking them for a final response so you can take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Utter nonsense to compound debt on an account you have no benefitted from nor used. RIDICULOUS. If you had used it I would agree entirely with others views expressed here.

sneak

ok so should i get my statements for my account going back 12 months, then get the dates of the charges before i turned 18 years old, then write a letter saying please refund my previous charges? Also stating that: I have not used the advantage gold account at all since it was switched please close it immediatly and remove any charges resulting from the non-usage of the account? otherwise please forward to me a final verdict so i can submit a complaint to the finacial ombudsman?

lol im only 19 years old can you see where i stand, i aint got enough experiance in life to be handling stuff like this i swear i should get some compensation or summet for this..:mad:

natweststaffmember

You need statements for as long as the account was open for the charges. STEP 1. You need to complain about the advantage gold account and ask that it is shut and closed with all charges refunded because you did not use the account at all.
No i don't see where you stand, this is an internet forum so you need to describe it to me!!! When you were 16 your parents could have held your hand. NOW you are an adult so this is the learning experience.
Write the letter and then send it. Then come back to the forum when they respond and we will advise more, OK? 19 years old is still the time to learn but YOU have to do the work on this one.