Natwest Advantage Gold result, kind of...

Gfunk

I am currently experiencing some financial difficulties due to the closure of a failed business venture so around 12 months ago with a personal overdraft of £5K with natwest that was incurring charges everyday I set up a new account with another provider and agreed to pay them £1 a month until back on my feet.

I then decided to print off some PPI forms from this site and was subsequently awarded around £5700 for 3 seperate loans :T Natwest deducted around £600 of this as my overdraft was at £5600 and paid me the remainder in checques.

I then read about reclaiming bank charges so again printed the form of this site and although I believed I opened the account in 2003, I closed this account in 2006 and then re-opened the account in 2008 in order to obtain a loan as this was what the salesperson in the branch said I should do.

I have been awarded a total of £1444.33 but Natwest have paid £1122.16 into my old now none accessible account and sent me a cheque for £322.17 which is the net interest.

Because they paid me the full PPI amount in cheques can I ask that they send me the £1122.16 in the form of a cheque also or is PPI viewed differently?

Should I even accept this offer as when looking into these type of complaints I came across a site called legalbeagles where the person was also awarded a compensation figure from Natwest. (I can't post the link as a new member)

These are their figures below:

£1200 – Paid Account Fees from Nov 2001 until July 2011
£4600 – Compensation for the total amount of lending charges that had been debited from my account Nov 2001 and Aug 2011
£29 – Deducted for overdraft savings
£2900 – Compensation for the lack of access I have had to above funds as well as the stress and inconvenience I suffered in the form of 8% on the above sum.

I am also not happy about the fact I was given a £5K overdraft and also having to pay the £600+ charges to get my PPI compensation as I feel Natwest are a big contributing factor to my current financial difficulties and must've paid £100 a month in overdraft fees for 10 years to them!

I haven't cashed the cheque yet as I thought I'd see if anyone can help on here first so apologies for the long post and I have also scanned the letter Natwest sent me but not sure if I can upload it here?

KInd regards

Gavin

Nasqueron

The banks won the "unfair charges" court case in 2009. You will not get anywhere with trying to get those back, to be blunt, the bank did not cost you £100 a month in fees, you did through your behaviour.

If your old, closed, account had outstanding / unpaid debt of any kind, NatWest are allowed to offset the refund against that, some will pay you the interest element

Gfunk

Thanks for replying Nasqueron.

Ok, forget the overdraft question lets focus on whether I am due any additional compensation or not and whether I can get them to pay the money paid into my old account re-paid to me in cheque format.

I was worried they would do this with my PPI award so I found an ombudsman case similar to my own (if you google Decision Reference DRN4076511) whereby the bank tried to use the PPI award to clear debts and the ombudsman forced the bank to pay the PPI direct to the mis-sold customers.

I can't find a similar case for bank charges being used but do you think this case can be quoted in this instance also?

[Deleted User]

Gfunk wrote: »

Ok, forget the overdraft question lets focus on whether I am due any additional compensation

You're not due anything more. The "compensation" is defined by the regulator at 8% simple interest. This is not somehow negotiable .
As for getting the Bank to pay by cheque, only the Bank can answer that.

Banks are allowed to offset amounts owing which have defaulted or are (in your case) unauthorised. The £600 is an additional sum above your agreed overdraft.

The Ombudsman is very unlikely to overturn this decision.

In the Ombudsman case you reference http://www.ombudsman-decisions.org.uk/viewPDF.aspx?FileID=5623
the Bank attempted to offset unrelated accounts.

dunstonh

Setting off of redress can only be done against the debt the PPI was related to. Not unrelated debts from the same group.