Bank account closure - RBS

lauramalarky

***URGENT***

I have been an RBS customer since September 2016. Since then I’ve had salary paid in every month, no issues at all with the service. In fact, I was a very happy customer.

I’ve recently just had a baby. Maternity leave started in August but due to the issues with maternity allowance meant my claim has been severely delayed! So since August I have had no income. Fortunately, my claim has been processed and due to be paid all the backdated funds from August tomorrow (January 28th) which is £3,400 so it’s not a small amount.

Today (January 27th), I’ve went to use my bank card at the cash machine and it swallows my card!! I was given a receipt from the machine to say that my card has been reported lost/stolen which was news to me so I phoned RBS customer services who advised that my account has been closed due to “commercial” reasons! They were unable to advise further apart from to wait for a letter that was only sent out today! They gave me a number to phone the dedicated team who can advise further 03453009631 but I’ve spent all day literally waiting on hold to be put through to an advisor to no avail.

There is no suspicious activity on my account, just purely commercial which is probably because my maternity pay hasn’t been paid in for the last 5 months.

I haven’t been given 60 days notice as per the terms although the financial ombudsman have advised that this letter sent out today will be my notice however they have disabled my access to my money so my online banking and app aren’t working.

When my card was swallowed, I was on my way to get electricity and wasn’t able to achieve that. I had my 4 month old baby with me in tears. Luckily and very kindly, a member of the public could see the distress it had caused me and helped with getting electricity.

I am not wasting anymore time trying to call the dedicated team so tomorrow I will be visiting my branch to withdraw my own money and won’t be leaving until I do.

My account is a basic foundation account so no overdraft facility and no bank charges can incur. Although I haven’t had a salary going in for the last 5 months, I have had transfers received on numerous occasions and still been using my card. I am just completely flabbergasted at how this can happen and why it’s allowed??!

I have read that this is quite common for RBS/NatWest to do this. Can anyone give me help/tips/support for my trip to the branch as I need all the help I can get as the advisors on the phone were pretty useless and didn’t seem to care at all at the domino effect this has caused.

Thanks in advance!

deadendwaterfall

I'm not sure what to suggest here, but get ready for the comments defending or otherwise siding with RBS, making out you are the villain in all of this!

Thrugelmir

What "commercial" activity are you running through your personal bank account?

boo_star

Thrugelmir wrote: »

What "commercial" activity are you running through your personal bank account?

"Commercial reasons" (i.e. we don't want you as a customer) not them running a business.

SnowTiger

boo_star wrote: »

"Commercial reasons" (i.e. we don't want you as a customer) not them running a business.

OP's account seems to have been closed with immediate effect.

Reasons for closing an account are in RBS' T&C, here: section 12.2.

If they are closing the account because 'we don't want you as a customer' they should have given 60 days' notice.

This may have something to do with the closure:

lauramalarky wrote: »

Although I haven’t had a salary going in for the last 5 months, I have had transfers received on numerous occasions and still been using my card.

Transfers from family members? Perhaps one of the accounts the transfers came from has been used for dodgy purposes and spooked RBS.

OP: you'll more than likely get no where chasing RBS to find out why they've closed your account. They will probably simply refer you to their T&Cs. If I were you I'd open an account elsewhere and forget about it.

colsten

lauramalarky wrote: »

***URGENT***

I have been an RBS customer since September 2016. Since then I’ve had salary paid in every month, no issues at all with the service. In fact, I was a very happy customer.

I’ve recently just had a baby. Maternity leave started in August but due to the issues with maternity allowance meant my claim has been severely delayed! So since August I have had no income. Fortunately, my claim has been processed and due to be paid all the backdated funds from August tomorrow (January 28th) which is £3,400 so it’s not a small amount.

Today (January 27th), I’ve went to use my bank card at the cash machine and it swallows my card!! I was given a receipt from the machine to say that my card has been reported lost/stolen which was news to me so I phoned RBS customer services who advised that my account has been closed due to “commercial” reasons! They were unable to advise further apart from to wait for a letter that was only sent out today! They gave me a number to phone the dedicated team who can advise further 03453009631 but I’ve spent all day literally waiting on hold to be put through to an advisor to no avail.

There is no suspicious activity on my account, just purely commercial which is probably because my maternity pay hasn’t been paid in for the last 5 months.

I haven’t been given 60 days notice as per the terms although the financial ombudsman have advised that this letter sent out today will be my notice however they have disabled my access to my money so my online banking and app aren’t working.

When my card was swallowed, I was on my way to get electricity and wasn’t able to achieve that. I had my 4 month old baby with me in tears. Luckily and very kindly, a member of the public could see the distress it had caused me and helped with getting electricity.

I am not wasting anymore time trying to call the dedicated team so tomorrow I will be visiting my branch to withdraw my own money and won’t be leaving until I do.

My account is a basic foundation account so no overdraft facility and no bank charges can incur. Although I haven’t had a salary going in for the last 5 months, I have had transfers received on numerous occasions and still been using my card. I am just completely flabbergasted at how this can happen and why it’s allowed??!

I have read that this is quite common for RBS/NatWest to do this. Can anyone give me help/tips/support for my trip to the branch as I need all the help I can get as the advisors on the phone were pretty useless and didn’t seem to care at all at the domino effect this has caused.

lauramalarky wrote: »

I have had transfers received on numerous occasions

I reckon the reasons for the blockage/closure might lie here. It is possible that those who sent you the money are under investigation or have been found to be involved in matters they shouldn't be involved in.

lauramalarky wrote: »

I will be visiting my branch to withdraw my own money and won’t be leaving until I do

As you haven't had the letter from RBS yet, you don't know whether they will release the money. If your account is under investigation, you may have to wait several weeks to get your money.

You should in any case try to get an account at a different bank asap, and get your Maternity pay (and child benefit? are you not getting child benefit?) paid into the new account. Don't use that new account to receive money from anyone else.

EDIT: SnowTiger beat me to it, with basically the same conclusions. I would not give up on the £3,400 Maternity pay myself.

boo_star

SnowTiger wrote: »

OP's account seems to have been closed with immediate effect.

Reasons for closing an account are in RBS' T&C, here: section 12.2.

If they are closing the account because 'we don't want you as a customer' they should have given 60 days' notice.

This may have something to do with the closure:



Transfers from family members? Perhaps one of the accounts the transfers came from has been used for dodgy purposes and spooked RBS.

OP: you'll more than likely get no where chasing RBS to find out why they've closed your account. They will probably simply refer you to their T&Cs. If I were you I'd open an account elsewhere and forget about it.

OP only sas the account is closed. It may well be the case that most facilities have been withdrawn, an effective, but not actual, closure.

And "We're closing your account for commercial reasons." isn't even good English if they're closing it because the OP has been using it for a business. They'd just say "We're closing your account because you have been using it for business purposes."

Jonathan_Kelvin

boo_star wrote: »

OP only sas the account is closed. It may well be the case that most facilities have been withdrawn, an effective, but not actual, closure.

And "We're closing your account for commercial reasons." isn't even good English if they're closing it because the OP has been using it for a business. They'd just say "We're closing your account because you have been using it for business purposes."

It’s perfectly acceptable English, it says that it is a commercial decision, as in they don’t want the OP’s business any longer.

nicetomeetyou

The exact same thing happened to me with TSB. It was the time TSB was having problems with their computers and it inconvenienced me as I couldn't withdraw my money. I had my personal allowance payments from my appointee paid into my Nationwide account. I forgot about the TSA account for about 4 months and had no further payments paid into it. I didn't have money in the account as withdraw it soon after the banking problems ended..

Four months later I wanted to use TSB account for saving and went into bank to deposit money. They couldn't find my account. They gave me a number to ring. I didn't bother ringing them. I just assumed they closed my account as wasn't using it. They never gave me the courtesy to tell me they were closing the account, not even a letter. I wasn't the least bit bothered about them closing the account as I found TSA are rubbish.

I continued using my Nationwide account, I liked the fact they had a contactless card for the basic account. TSA didn't for their basic account.I managed to upgrade my NW account to the Flex-account some months later and a few months later was offered a overdraft. Incedently my nationwide was idle for some years and they never closed my account. I'm much happier with Nationwide.

lauramalarky

**UPDATE**

Went to my branch this morning. Branch staff contacted accounts closure team who gave no information at all apart from wait 14 working days and then phone a specific number. I wasn’t accepting this. Branch manager could see no OBS or investigations attached to my account and the closure was purely based on commercial reasons but that there was a breach of contract where I wasn’t given notice so the manager manually did a system override so I was able to empty my bank account as I had to take it all or nothing and in cash too.

They did confirm that RBS were wrong for doing this and even though I have the money which was the priority, I will be pursuing the complaint for breach of contract. Absolutely appalling service from RBS.

born_again

lauramalarky wrote: »

**UPDATE**

Branch manager could see no OBS or investigations attached to my account and the closure was purely based on commercial reasons but that there was a breach of contract where I wasn’t given notice so the manager manually did a system override so I was able to empty my bank account as I had to take it all or nothing and in cash too.

I can see a branch manager getting a serious reprimand here. Just because there are no notes on the system, does not mean that it's a breech of contract. You are already aware of a letter coming out to you.
Teams that deal with issues like this, will often have notes elsewhere. So no stupid staff member reads them and tells the customer.
Manager should have rung the number you were given.