Nationwide closing my accounts with no explanation

CYPER

So I received a letter from Nationwide informing me that both my accounts with them will be closed: one is a free FlexAccount and the other is a FlexPlus account for which I pay £10 a month.



Interestingly my surname was printed with one letter wrong, which I found odd, considering that these types of letters are usually automated.

I called the bank and the guy on the phone could not find any reference about this. He spoke with his supervisor, who also spoke with the Fraud team and they could not see this at their end.

Then I decided to send them a secure online message through my online banking attaching the above letter to which I got a responce today:

Our findings

I have spoken with a member of our Special Investigations Department who has confirmed that your accounts with us are due to be closed on 18 January 2016. I can confirm that this is due to adverse information within the public domain. Whilst I am unable to discuss this further, you can contact our Special Investigations Department on 08457 77 88 33. They are available Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm and Saturday 9am to 3pm. Alternatively, you can call our free phone number 0800 30 20 11 and they can transfer you to our Special Investigations Department.

You can probably guess that this comes as quite a shock to me.
Does anyone have the slightest idea as to why Nationwide would decide to just close my accounts all of a sudden. Obviously I will go to the branch when I find time to check, but want to be prepared and fight back as I think this is unfair.

The online massage from them says that:

I have received confirmation that you will need to visit your local branch with identification in order to remove the funds from your account.

but I just successfully moved money online to another account. Well at least it said "Payment acknowledged by receiving bank and will be credited, subject to acceptance." which is the usual message.
Thank you.

grumbler

Don't waste time on visiting the branch. They won't be able to help with anything.
Check your credit files and CIFAS.
"adverse information within the public domain" sounds like CIFAS, but there are other fraud prevention blacklists.

meer53

It will be a standard letter with variables which need to be typed in manually. Someone has just misspelled your name. Check your credit files before opening a new account as soon as possible. I wouldn't bother arguing with them, they're not going to change their decision.

CYPER

Just checked my credit file through Experian's CreditExpert and I get this with everything looking perfect:





Does this mean CIFAS hold no information for me or do I need to check with them too?

CYPER

Just had a 30 minute conversation with the Special Investigations Department, who would not tell me why my accounts are being closed. Nothing, not even the name of the person or the department that carried the review.

He repeated the same line over and over again: After a review of your account and based on information available in the public domain we decided to close your account as you no longer meet our criteria. No word of what the criteria is as it is a business sensitive information.

This sounds like some serious conspiracy s**t. For all I know I might be on some anti-terrorist list because of someone's error.

My credit rating is perfect, I've lived at the same address for 11 years, I am registered at the Electoral roll. It is beyond my wildest imagination as to why they have decided to close my accounts and I really want to find out why.

Now it is quite apparent they will not tell me, so do you think complaining to the Financial Ombudsman and sending a Subject access request would reveal anything?

I have other bank accounts and closing these 2 would not affect me really, but I just to know why.

Bond,James_Bond

I'm curious to know what the "HRC Team " at Nationwide do.

nidO

Complaining to the Ombudsman is going to be a waste of time, as Nationwide have mentioned their T&Cs allow them to withdraw their service at any time for basically any reason, so them giving you an actual reason at all is a courtesy rather than a requirement, and the Ombudsman won't be able to change this.

Sending a SAR to Nationwide may or may not reveal information on why they're closing your account.

If the CRA's show you're clear for CIFAS it might be worth also sending a SAR to National Hunter, to see if you've got yourself on there somehow. They have a SAR form at:

http://www.nhunter.co.uk/SAR.pdf

jaihind1975

i have had the same in the last week but they have said it is a fraud and wont even listen to my side. How can someone send you money on one day and then claim it is fraud the very next day and this is my fault

CYPER

nidO wrote: »

Complaining to the Ombudsman is going to be a waste of time, as Nationwide have mentioned their T&Cs allow them to withdraw their service at any time for basically any reason, so them giving you an actual reason at all is a courtesy rather than a requirement, and the Ombudsman won't be able to change this.

Sending a SAR to Nationwide may or may not reveal information on why they're closing your account.

If the CRA's show you're clear for CIFAS it might be worth also sending a SAR to National Hunter, to see if you've got yourself on there somehow. They have a SAR form at:

http://www.nhunter.co.uk/SAR.pdf

Isn't the Ombudsman supposed to protect and upheld people's rights?
I feel that I've been mistreated as they have caused me distress by making me believe there is information in the public domain that is affecting me negatively. And they will not tell me what that information is.
This is like branding someone as a bad person, without explaining why.

JuicyJesus

CYPER wrote: »

Isn't the Ombudsman supposed to protect and upheld people's rights?
I feel that I've been mistreated as they have caused me distress by making me believe there is information in the public domain that is affecting me negatively. And they will not tell me what that information is.
This is like branding someone as a bad person, without explaining why.

The Ombudsman is not specifically to uphold peoples' rights, they are an independent mediation service for complaints where a customer and company can't reach an agreeable settlement between them. They review complaints independently and in accordance with guidelines they publish freely, and reject almost as many complaints as they uphold.

In this case, all their published complaints against firms for closing customers' accounts have not been upheld on the actual account closure aspect, as the bank is entitled to not deal with any customer it does not wish to for any reason, including no reason at all - similarly to how you have the right at any time to leave Nationwide for any reason or no reason at all. The only responsibility they have is to provide you with appropriate notice.

They have not "branded you as a bad person", the only person they've told about any of this is you. You will certainly not be on any "anti-terrorist list".

takman

CYPER wrote: »

Isn't the Ombudsman supposed to protect and upheld people's rights?
I feel that I've been mistreated as they have caused me distress by making me believe there is information in the public domain that is affecting me negatively. And they will not tell me what that information is.
This is like branding someone as a bad person, without explaining why.

They won't ever tell you why they closed their account. The reason they won't tell you is because if you are committting fraudulent activity they you will know how to cover your tracks next time. So this information has to be kept secret. But it's all probably very subjective evidence and they would rather close the account than take the risk.

The best thing you can do is look at copies of all your credit reports and also the Hunter database. Ignore any credit scores as you need to look at the actual report.