Nationwide Start To Save Account

colsten

The deposit and withdrawal amounts without dates (as they appear of the statement) are meaningless.

wiseonesomeofthetime

Could it be that interest added is not deemed as a deposit by the system?

Hence, February your net deposit is £46.61.

Personally, I think you should be eligible, as your balance  from Feb > Mar increased by £50, but just a thought.

I assume you have withdrawn the interest before without detriment.

RG2015

@wiseonesomeofthetime, 

The interest is paid annually, so this is the first time @Moneybear will have received any interest, having opened the account in February 2020. 

colsten

Thanks for the details @Moneybear, it's much easier to see what has happened. I think @wiseonesomeofthetime is on the right sort of track - but I think it is the withdrawal of the interest that messed things up for you.

I am quite sure they exclude the addition of the interest when establishing the monthly increase but they appear to have treated the withdrawal of the interest as a withdrawal from the amount you deposited for February, not as a withdrawal from the balance.

As there is nothing in the T&Cs that prohibits the withdrawal of the interest, you were perfectly entitled to withdraw it. Looks like a programming error to me.

I would raise a formal complaint with Nationwide, and then accept an apology as well as compensation for depriving you from the chance to win £100, and for your time to investigate the error. May be you'll get £100, after all 😎. Please come back to tell us what you have settled with them.

colsten

They might argue, however, that their program does what the T&Cs say - - - - "Interest added to your account will not count towards your minimum £50 balance increase".  If they do, that's a huge bear trap and quite unfair, as they do not say anywhere that you are not allowed to withdraw your interest.

Given that addition of interest doesn't count, it's only fair to assume that withdrawal of interest also doesn't count. IMO, anyway.

colsten

Make sure you get a complaint reference number from Nationwide. Otherwise they won’t treat it as a complaint

YellowStarling

Interesting - does seem on the surface that the program is adding up deposits (excluding interest payments) and subtracting withdrawals from them to determine the net balance adjustment for the month. 

I agree that they should ignore withdrawal of interest but I would assume that the withdrawal looks the same as any other withdrawal (to the program). 

So, although the T&C of the account rely heavily on the phrase "your balance must increase by at least £50 per month", their own program might be ignoring the balance figure altogether (i.e. comparing end-Feb's with end-Jan's) and concluding you only added £46.61 in February (as it can see, when ignoring the interest addition of £3.39, one deposit of £50 and one withdrawal of £3.39).

Might be quite a few affected around interest anniversaries if this is the case.

eskbanker

YellowStarling said:

I agree that they should ignore withdrawal of interest but I would assume that the withdrawal looks the same as any other withdrawal (to the program).

Playing devil's advocate, why should they ignore 'withdrawal of interest'?  Withdrawing an amount that happens to equate to the interest may be considered by the saver to be different from any other withdrawal but as above Nationwide only specify that 'interest and any prize draw winnings added to the account' are excluded from the calculation, so there's no reason to believe that 'interest withdrawals' wouldn't affect it, or even that such withdrawals are recognised as a concept.

I don't necessarily see it as a programming error, but a business logic design one, i.e. "adding up deposits (excluding interest payments) and subtracting withdrawals from them to determine the net balance adjustment for the month" could well be the way they have consciously defined the algorithm, rather than a mistake.

They may still be prepared to offer some sort of goodwill gesture though, for anyone who misunderstood....

colsten

eskbanker said:

Playing devil's advocate, why should they ignore 'withdrawal of interest'?  

Because they ignore the addition of interest when establishing the monthly growth

eskbanker

colsten said:

eskbanker said:

Playing devil's advocate, why should they ignore 'withdrawal of interest'?  

Because they ignore the addition of interest when establishing the monthly growth

Yes, but they control interest being added, so it's clearly defined, but as explained above, withdrawing an amount that happens to equate to the interest added isn't necessarily the same thing as 'withdrawing the interest'.  I do get the point that the terms are a bit one-sided though....