Natwest are closing my account after 27 years......

System

kate_sim wrote: »

It more than smarts ,it goes against natural justice . we have been assumed guilty, of what i do not know with no chance of any recourse or defence because the bank can do what it wants and hide behind draconian laws.

It's not a public service - they can choose to do business with whomever they choose.

As regards the call recording, if they (NatWest) announce they might record the call then their isn't really an issue - there is an expectation of possible recording by either party.

eskbanker

Heng_Leng wrote: »

It's not a public service

[waits for someone to play the 'we own them' card....]

Don80

Shakin_Steve wrote: »

Maybe both of these cases are purely for business reasons. If an account is reviewed and found to have not been making the bank any profits for years, they just close them?
It's just me thinking out loud, before I get flamed.

Hi, one of my friends works for a bank. She said that the only reason to close accounts is where there is a breach of the terms and conditions. Not making profit wouldn't be one. The examples she cited included illegal activity, using a personal account as a business account etc.

What they can do on a review is decide you don't qualify for that specific account, and move you to an alternative (for example move you to a basic account). This would be more normal.

xylophone

HI dave , i feel your pain Nat west have just given my husband and i 60 days notice to close our account , we have been given no reason. We have banked with them for 36 yrs and have been model customers .
.

https://bankomb.org.nz/news-and-publications/quick-guides/item/closure-of-accounts

Annoying and not good practice (see above) but how about a switch to your advantage?

keef-WhatStandards

Unfortunately banks and building societies seem to be following most other companies in that they are no longer offering any form of customer service these days.

Just take you custom elsewhere (you usually are paid to do that nowadays).

I have multiple accounts and just start using a different one as/when/if I get any problems.

Thrugelmir

kate_sim wrote: »

HI dave , i feel your pain Nat west have just given my husband and i 60 days notice to close our account , we have been given no reason. We have banked with them for 36 yrs and have been model customers .
.

Something has caught the banks attention though.

keef-WhatStandards

I went into my local Natwest the other day as I hadn't had the promised follow up to opening an account. The manager was very helpful, but it appears the head office policies are somewhat daft.

1) You can't reply to emails they send.
2) Applications are deleted after (I think she said) 28 days.
3) You need to take a passport or driving licence into the branch (both Barclays and TSB did ID checks online)

So they don't seem to be too bothered about gaining new customs on top of getting rid of existing ones as you outline.

stclair

I suspect the account was closed due to the call being recorded.

As it might be deemed that there's a potential the Advisor could be indentified and I think the Advisor has a right to a copy of the call if they wanted to request it.

If the call was made public then you would require the advisors consent to share it.

Might be worth checking the ICO website for clarification could be wrong.

Also if you ask for a transcript of a call for example they never put the advisors name in it.

Shakin_Steve

xylophone wrote: »

https://bankomb.org.nz/news-and-publications/quick-guides/item/closure-of-accounts

Annoying and not good practice (see above) but how about a switch to your advantage?

New Zealand?

nyermen

Natwest/RBS has been under pressure to split etc due to being considered too big. It may be they're profiling less profitable customers?

I can't believe it's suspicion of fraud (which for those amounts seems ridiculous - i do have some experience as I work for a financial software company, my area is risk management as in credit scoring etc, rather than "compliance" which handles fraud etc). For starters, they would have frozen your account, been legally unable to tell you why its frozen, and referred it to their compliance team.

If you are worried it could be the fraud side, keep an eye on your CIFAS records (https://www.cifas.org.uk/) - you can put in a request for your information. The codes on your file quickly make it clear if there is anything. Probably overkill though.

I only bank with one bank (yup, stupid I know), these stories keep nudging me to get round to opening a second account for safety.