Natwest stole my Rewards

phil7445

I decided that I wanted to close my Rewards current account as the benefits weren't as good as they used to be, plus I want to "tidy up" (close) some extra accounts that I have a couple of years ahead of re-fixing my mortgage to improve my credit rating. As the rewards are "pending" for a month before you can withdraw them, I got NatWest to downgrade my account to a standard account. Well they have now removed my Rewards bit of the account so I have lost what was there (only around £5 but it's still money).
Has anyone else had this happen to them? Did they get the money back if they contacted NatWest directly about it? 
I feel this is a really bad way to treat a customer.

blue.peter

I can understand why you did what you did, but I don't think that that's the right way to deal with it. The Rewards account will only pay out to a Reward current account. If you downgraded your current account, there's no longer a Reward current account into which the Rewards can be paid.

I believe that the thing to do is simply to close the Reward current account rather than downgrade it. This leaves your outstanding rewards pending for the remainder of the 35-day waiting period. You then need to go into a NatWest branch and get them to pay the outstanding rewards to your new current account. Obviously, it's too late for you to do this now.

It might be worth talking to NatWest about it. You've nothing to lose by doing so. I suspect that you might do better with branch staff than with their call centre. Let us know how you get on.

(I think that the whole way that the Rewards are set up is pretty poor. I'm in much the same position with the identical RBS account, and am planning to dump it as soon as I've got the £50 promised for staying a year. The whole RBS customer experience is pretty awful, and I guess that NatWest is much the same.)

phil7445

I disagree with you, if I closed the account and had no NatWest account then once the rewards were no longer pending, there wouldn't be a NatWest account to pay them into, and both your method and mine would mean not having a Reward account. 
I did go into the branch, they couldn't help me and they advised downgrading the account. They advised speaking to the Rewards department. As the Rewards part of the account was still there I threw away the number they gave me. I think I'll try an online chat later if no one else has any experience of this.

blue.peter

OK, fair enough. Yes, I agree that both methods leave you without a NatWest Reward account to receive the Rewards. I haven't got as far along with the process as you, and was repeating what I'd read somewhere - possibly on this forum.

I suspect that your branch staff might have misadvised you. If so, you have cause for complaint if you followed their advice and didn't get the intended result.

blue.peter

PS - I've just looked at the RBS MyRewards Ts & Cs. I assume that the NatWest ones are the same.

If you or we close your current account in accordance with Your Current Account Terms or your credit card in accordance with your Royal Bank of Scotland credit card agreement then your MyRewards will also close.

After your MyRewards is closed, you’ll have 90 days to use your Rewards balance. You can only exchange your Rewards balance for money and transfer it into a bank account (the account doesn’t need to be held with the Royal Bank of Scotland) by contacting the Customer Service Team on 0345 030 3104 (Minicom 0800 027 1396).

If you close a Reward current account or Reward credit card, your MyRewards will remain open if you have another Reward current account or Reward credit card (for example, if you have a Reward Platinum and a Reward Credit Card and you close your Reward Credit Card, your MyRewards will remain open and you’ll continue to earn Rewards on your Reward Platinum).

See the third paragraph above. Since you don't have another Reward Current account, the bank acted in accordance with its Ts & Cs in closing the MyRewards account.

The second paragraph quoted bears out my understanding. The situation does appear to be recoverable if you phone the number quoted.

phil7445

Thank you for providing the Ts&Cs. It was closed after about 30 days not 90 days. So I should get my money if I phone them, but I hate phoning high rate numbers!! Maybe there is an online chat. I'll look later. 

blue.peter

The NatWest Ts & Cs can be downloaded as .pdf from https://personal.natwest.com/personal/current-accounts/reward_account.html#product-features (you'll need to scroll down quite a bit). They are pretty much the same as RBS's, but their phone number is different. It's 0370 901 6790. Is that really a high rate number for you? All 03 numbers are included in the bundled minutes on my mobile contract.

phil7445

Thanks again for your help. I just checked my mobile phone account and I think you're right.
"These inclusive minutes can be used for calls from the UK to standard UK landlines (starting 01, 02, or 03) and all UK network mobiles. They can also be used when you’re in our Europe zone for making calls to landlines and network mobiles also included in our Europe Zone and calls back to the UK.

They cannot be used for calls to Service numbers (starting 05 or 08, 07744 and 07755 numbers and premium rate (09) numbers."

blue.peter

I'm glad that you seem to be sorted and that I was able to help!

db2016

sorry but this title just made me think of "freddie starr ate my hamster!"