NatWest contactless payments.

Foyboy79

I have recently been having issues with NatWest regarding contactless payments. Whilst I understand they are offline and take time to affect your balance I have noticed dubious practice from NatWest which I believe is designed to generate unauthorised overdraft charges.

Let me explain.

NatWest do most of their automated transactions around 2am and if you check your balance anytime from then until a similar time the following day nothing changes save any transactions you make with a debit card which become ring fenced from any available balance or faster payments you make. You would expect that if your balance was for example £0 at 10pm and you made no new transactions, that no automated activity should happen until the next days update. However NatWest are consistently applying the contactless payments from previous day's between 12 am and 2 am taking me overdrawn and classing me as such for the day's business. This practice I find to be unfair by design and I don't understand why the contactless payments are not grouped with all the other changes to the account in the daily update. This would make more sense and seem fairer.

Has anyone else had experiences similar to this or know if the situation I am explaining is indeed standard and fair?

I have since stopped using contactless payments as because of a low income I was finding them to be costing me anything from £6 to £60 in bank charges per month.

For clarity when I am overdrawn in a morning I get a text alerts and opportunity to rectify the balance before 2:30pm. The contactless payments are hitting the account at between 12am and 2am. Coincidentally this is also when they place the bank charges. I can't help but feel this is designed to generate revenue for the bank by taking me overdrawn.

I have complained to the bank but they refuse to give me the exact times the transactions are applied to my account and say they can only give the date. If I had this information I would be able to prove the practice. Very convenient for them I felt.


Sincerely

Matt

agrinnall

Have you considered not spending money that you don't have as a way to avoid charges?

PeacefulWaters

Stop trying to be smart with transaction timing and only spend money you have.

molerat

Manage your money properly and ensure there are funds in the account to cover what you spend. Running a spending account so close to the edge is foolhardy. The bank are free to deduct the funds whenever they wish once they have been spent by you, no doubt their T&Cs will state this and state that you have a duty to ensure that funds are in the account to cover those transactions.

Foyboy79

Well I just got 6 months worth of refunded bank charges from NatWest after they accepted the contactless payments where being applied to the account outside of normal business hours ( up to 6pm).
I would still argue that NatWest are doing this by design and whilst I appreciate the replies I am sure many other people have and will fall foul of this practice. With all the technology available today to expect people to keep a separate record of contactless payments that may or may not debit from your account in anything from 1-4 days and at any time of day(often outside of business hours) is both unrealistic and unfair.

Shakin_Steve

So....instead of informing us that you'd received a refund of charges in your first post, you span a yarn to illicit the kind of response you knew you'd get on this forum. When you got what you were looking for, and in a fit of smugness, you stuck your tongue out.
Juvenile.

PeacefulWaters

With all the technology available today to expect people to keep a separate record of contactless payments that may or may not debit from your account in anything from 1-4 days and at any time of day(often outside of business hours) is both unrealistic and unfair.

Sureky technology makes it easier for "people" to keep track.

It's little different to balancing a cheque book in the dim and distant past.

stclair

I didn't think the bank had any control when Card payments are debited it's down to the retailer/merchant.

I've used my card 3 times in the same shop over a few days the. All the payments have debited my account on the same day in the past.

Foyboy79

That's not the case. My first post was in response to the letter I received in response to my complaint to NatWest earlier today. I have just got off the phone with them prior to my reply.

My first post was to try to get some information about other experiences. The reality is that if you are on a low income and have fallen into bank charges that you find hard to explain then I would hope my experience may be of some insight. This practice of allowing the contactless payments to hit the account outside of business hours therefore affording you no chance to be reactive and the resulting bank charges are unfair. I can't see how anyone would disagree with that? Unless maybe the point has been missed. I am sure there will be other NatWest customers out there who have experienced this and I hope they are wiser to it now.

Shakin_Steve

Foyboy79 wrote: »

That's not the case. My first post was in response to the letter I received in response to my complaint to NatWest earlier today. I have just got off the phone with them prior to my reply.

My first post was to try to get some information about other experiences. The reality is that if you are on a low income and have fallen into bank charges that you find hard to explain then I would hope my experience may be of some insight. This practice of allowing the contactless payments to hit the account outside of business hours therefore affording you no chance to be reactive and the resulting bank charges are unfair. I can't see how anyone would disagree with that? Unless maybe the point has been missed. I am sure there will be other NatWest customers out there who have experienced this and I hope they are wiser to it now.

Then I apologise. There was less than two hours between your two posts, so I lumped you in with some who come on act like they know more than others. Sorry.

Nasqueron

You got lucky with a goodwill gesture, it's normally a one off and you probably won't get any more.

Stop spending money you don't have and budget properly