NatWest Advantage Gold - Help please

puglover_3

I lodged a complaint via telephone this morning to say that I downgraded from Advantage Gold at a review meeting in March 09 after I had recently been made redundant with my then relationship manager. It was established that I had no need for the account. I was advised that it had been open since 1999 and I thought the charge was in relation to my overdraft.
For the duration of when I had the AG account I had a company car and company mobile which were covered by the companies insurance and would not have agreed to purchasing this product. To reinforce the fact I was in financial hardship the relationship manager arranged for a loan I had to be extended therefore reducing monthly payments.
I gave all this information to the complaints team at 8.09am this morning and they came back at 3pm to say that they were not upholding my account due to the length of time I took to raise the complaint.
I informed them that I did not realise at the time I could complain and in fact there should have been some duty of care at the meeting and advice to do this give my financial situation (hardship).
Due to the media it struck a chord and I went through some paperwork to find I had had the AG account and that is why I was complaining.
I asked the complaint handler what investigative work they had done to come to the decision but she would only talk about the timescale as the reason for rejection.
I am aware that you can complain outside the 6 year timescale and feel that this is unfair as my account number is still the same and active and they have full records of the AG account which I downgraded from.
I really believe that no investigation has taken place today and they are trying to fob me off with the timing issue.
Can anyone give me any advice as I feel that I would like to complain about this to the CEO as no mitigating circumstances have been taken into account.

Nasqueron

The bank has 8 weeks to respond and you can then refer to the FOS - emailing the CEO will not result in any progress, their PA will just forward it to the team, a CEo has to run the business, not deal with customer complaints

Best to ring the complaints team and escalate the complaint to a manager

puglover_3

Thank you. Could I ask them to review my complaint again taking all information into consideration or would it be best to pass to FOS?

Nasqueron

puglover wrote: »

Thank you. Could I ask them to review my complaint again taking all information into consideration or would it be best to pass to FOS?

You can ask, the FOS option is an escalation so that if the bank do not respond in good time you can get the ombudsman involved - you may have to wait a lot longer though

puglover_3

Hi All - quick update and some further advice required. I escalated my complaint to senior management at NatWest and have just received a letter not upholding my complaint. However I am very confused with their time bar explanation:


The paragraph reads:


The reason for time bar from the advisor is correct as it is the customer's responsibility to raise a complaint within a reasonable period of time. Unfortunately as you did make a complaint within 3 years of downgrading your account we will not consider your complaint.


to clarify I held an AG account from 13/01/1999 to 10/03/2009 when it was downgraded at a review meeting. I recently made a complaint about this in May, however they are saying that I made a complaint previously (within 3 years of downgrading the account) although I have never had any resolution.