Natwest Charges

StuartReeve

Hi,

I'm at my wits end as i'm stuck in a cycle which I don't seem to be able to get out of at the minute and i'm hoping someone has a valuable nugget of advice.

Now I don't earn a lot of money, i'm sure you hear that daily, and after bills I normally have about £20 or so left over per week.

About 6 months ago something went out which sent me overdrawn. I have no overdraft with my bank at all. I didn't have money to cover it and have accrued charges.

Now this keeps occurring because the money that they charge for being overdrawn and the returned DD took the extra money that i had spare which in turn made something else bounce and increased the charges for the following month.

This has gone on and this months charges were £120 (honestly).

Now i have written to the bank asking for them to be reimbursed based on something i saw on another website and they said no chance basically.

I was just wondering if anyone on here had any bright ideas. I really don't want to have to beg anyone for money as that doesn't solve the issue. Does the bank have a duty of care if its affecting my ability to live?

Thanks in advance.
Stuart

jonesMUFCforever

In a word no.
Brutally - it is your fault.

Practical advise - sell something you don't need/want and pay the overdraft off.
If you are eligible then apply for an authorised overdraft to reduce some of the costs or switch your account to someone that will pay you to do so - Halifax £100 is still being advertised on the telly is one.

-taff

If you can show them you're in financial hardship, and stuck in a cycle of ever oncreasing overdraft charges they may freeze interest or refund charges or something to help you.
Write to them, outlining that you are in financial hardhsip [which means no sky tv subscriptions, no excessive mobile phonebills etc] and ask them to hep you again. Do not demand, do not tell them the charges are unfair, just do as above.
If you teuly are in financial hardship then opening a basic bank account somewhere else and arranging to pay the debt will help, but you will have a default on your file then.
Go to the debt free wannabe board for more help cutting costs.

If you do have sky tv or anything similar now is the time to cancel it, and anything else.

dunstonh

Now i have written to the bank asking for them to be reimbursed based on something i saw on another website and they said no chance basically.

I wouldnt say no chance. It depends on your situation. If you put your situation to them and explain the hardship the charges are creating and if this was your first time it happened, you usually find the bank is willing to give a goodwill gesture.

However, if you have heavy consumer spending and your debt is mostly down to that rather than genuine hardship, that is when you have no chance.

Mersey_2

From memory, NatWest introduced a buffer zone (although it may only be £10 - £100 depending on the account). The former does not attract a penalty charge at all and upto the latter does not accrue interest the followng month.


So it's worth asking whether this was applied to yourself (and if not, why not), plus whether they sent you a text alert notifying you that you were due to go overdrawn on the day it happened.


Other than that, I agree with taff & dunstonh - worth asking as you are in financial hardship exacerbated by the charges. They may clear or reduce the charges or change the type of account you have. It's unusual for NatWest to respond in the way they have - unless the person who read the email merely thought you wanted to reclaim historic fees.


[EMAIL="customer.relations@natwest.com"]customer.relations@natwest.com[/EMAIL] usually results in an out of hours acknowledgment and reference number the following working day and then a written response within 30 days. Good Luck.

societys_child

Now i have written to the bank asking for them to be reimbursed based on something i saw on another website

I hope this didn't involve the word 'unfair' or similar.
If you're not spending on luxuries, take the wise advice offered in the posts above, contact them and explain how you're sinking into a cycle of debt.

Nasqueron

Mersey wrote: »

From memory, NatWest introduced a buffer zone (although it may only be £10 - £100 depending on the account). The former does not attract a penalty charge at all and upto the latter does not accrue interest the followng month.


So it's worth asking whether this was applied to yourself (and if not, why not), plus whether they sent you a text alert notifying you that you were due to go overdrawn on the day it happened.


Other than that, I agree with taff & dunstonh - worth asking as you are in financial hardship exacerbated by the charges. They may clear or reduce the charges or change the type of account you have. It's unusual for NatWest to respond in the way they have - unless the person who read the email merely thought you wanted to reclaim historic fees.


[EMAIL="customer.relations@natwest.com"]customer.relations@natwest.com[/EMAIL] usually results in an out of hours acknowledgment and reference number the following working day and then a written response within 30 days. Good Luck.

Might be worth checking things like this "buffer zone" even exists before advising people to complain on the basis of something you think you remember.

A quick google shows that NatWest current accounts penalise any spend OVER £10 (not £10-£100) into an unauthorised overdraft with a £6 daily fee capped at £90 per charging period.

Moreover, the text alerts, which obviously need to be setup, do not prevent the charges if the OP does not have the funds to cover them, the alerts simply tell you you've broken the Ts & Cs and will be charged and you have X time period to put money in to minimise/avoid charges - if OP has £20 a month left, clearly paying out say £50 for an unexpected bill is going to leave them on -£30 so not going to have the cash to cover it anyway

Mersey_2

It seems my memory was in fact more accurate than your 'quick google search.'


(i) NatWest do indeed operate Buffer zones on 7 Accounts;
(ii) The same is £10 on some accounts and £100 on others.
(iii) Indeed to double check, I see that I have a £10 buffer on my NatWest account and my OH has a £100 one on hers.


Might be worth having a day off being randomly rude on here. Tis the season to be jolly soon and all that.


Or at least double check facts before being so indignant.


Although a quick google search would have shown you that the NatWest buffer zone was reduced from £100 to £10 on some of their accounts on 12.07.13 (with 3 months' notice):


www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-2310188/Millions-customers-charged-72-Natwest-going-10-overdraft-html


The £90 maximum monthly unarranged overdraft fees you refer to is also incorrect across the board. The same do not apply to 3 types of NatWest account at all, including the Basic and Student accounts (they are merely charged £6 per each unpaid transaction - up to a maximum of £60 pcm).


[As with student loans, the % interest charged and fees all differ for each and it depends on which type of loan/account you had and when it was opened, ie which cohort you fall into, as there are 3 regimes for each]

Nasqueron

Mersey wrote: »

It seems my memory was in fact more accurate than your 'quick google search.'


(i) NatWest do indeed operate Buffer zones on 7 Accounts;
(ii) The same is £10 on some accounts and £100 on others.
(iii) Indeed to double check, I see that I have a £10 buffer on my NatWest account and my OH has a £100 one on hers.

So as per my comment, telling the OP to complain because they should have had a £100 buffer was wrong unless they confirmed which account had what.

Mersey wrote: »

Might be worth having a day off being randomly rude on here. Tis the season to be jolly soon and all that.

Pointing out your bad advice is not "being rude", it's saving the OP from the embarrassment of writing a complaint letter saying they should have done xyz when it wasn't applicable.

It's predictable you have ignored all the other points in order to focus on one minor technicality - the Natwest website says the OD for the free current account (an educated guess, the OP doesn't want to pay for an account when they have so little money) has the £10 buffer as stated. As you have pointed out, it was changed in 2013, so a memory of it being higher is again a bad argument and not a complaint point.

Text alert - no comment?
Lack of money to deal with being OD to avoid charge - no comment?

The OP has been given the correct advice long before you posted - to make a financial hardship claim which the bank have to deal with. Telling them to complain about something which may not apply to them and something that is pointless gets them nowhere and is bad advice as it gets the bank on the defensive. A hardship case is reliant on goodwill from the bank, they may refund charges, freeze future charges or even arrange some sort of debt management issue so the OP needs to be approaching the issue correctly, not complaining about charges that were correctly applied which may even get the bog standard 2009 court case answer and get them nowhere.

Mersey_2

Nasqueron wrote: »

Might be worth checking things like this "buffer zone" even exists before advising people to complain on the basis of something you think you remember.

I was merely correcting your assertion that the "buffer zone" does not exist.


Yes, I in fact agreed with posts 3 and 4, as I stated.


I suggested asking rather than complaining, if you had actually bothered to read my post, rather than stating what you think I said.


It was your post which was incorrect - again - hence my reply. (Buffer zones exist on NatWest Accounts. It's £10 on some and £100 on some).


Indeed your post is the only one in this thread with an incorrect assertion within it. At least you'll know for future reference that they exist before you think you know that they don't and start posting that they don't.

-taff

I understood from Merseys post that the 10-100 depended on which account was held, not 10-100 for each account.

Anyway, all moot, the OP hasn't been back since the 3rd, so wouldn't have seen that anyway.