Natwest - do I have a case for complaint?

nickm1987

I recently had contact from Natwest who I hold a credit card with and a balance of around £2000.  I never miss payments although I usually do tend to stick around the minimum requested which around the time of this instance was in the region of £60-70 per month.  Around 2 years ago I received a statement from Natwest requesting an increased minimum payment of £130 - something I had not been previously informed of and subsequently struggled to find the extra money to cover.  

Their recent contact was to acknowledge that they had made an error in their systems in increasing the minimum payment and asked if I struggled in meeting them, after confirming they said I may be entitled to compensation for the error.  After a week or so they contacted again to say that after looking into this further I was not eligible to any compensation, but they would make a goodwill payment of £50 for the inconvenience.  I was going to take this to the ombudsman as I find it weird that they would contact me only to conclude that I had no case with them but was wondering if anybody else has had similar contact or any opinion of whether this would be worthwhile.

[Deleted User]

£50 is a good result. They're decided just to close out the issue with the path of least resistance.

No reason to go to FOS unless you've evidenced your loss at more than that.

K_S

@nickm1987 Depends on what you mean by worthwhile. By making a formal complaint and letting them know that you will take it to the FOS, they may up the £50 by a nominal amount. Only you can tell if it's worth the effort for you.

davidexmachina

They may have made an error but it's one that has ultimately resulted in you paying less interest as you were paying off your debt faster. And they are now giving you a further £50. I'd say you've done ok out of this...

eskbanker

nickm1987 said:

Around 2 years ago I received a statement from Natwest requesting an increased minimum payment of £130 - something I had not been previously informed of and subsequently struggled to find the extra money to cover.  

Their recent contact was to acknowledge that they had made an error in their systems in increasing the minimum payment and asked if I struggled in meeting them, after confirming they said I may be entitled to compensation for the error.

Have they disclosed the scale of their error?  Their request for an increased monthly payment will have been in response to their regulatory requirement to address those in persistent debt, so they were probably right to ask for more, but whether it was a serious error will depend on the difference between what they should have asked for and what they did ask for, which could just be buttons.

Sandtree

What are your financial losses as a result of their error? Did you become overdrawn and have to pay interest or fees?  Did you not pay some other bill and get charge a late payment fee by them?

Assuming you have no actual losses then its a matter of inconvenience and £50 is a fairly acceptable number for a minor inconvenience

pbartlett

As @Sandtree says - you can't just go to the regulator and demand a number out of thin air - you need to be able to say because of Natwest's error I have lost this amount of money and this is how. 

If, on the other hand, you are saying I haven't actually lost any money but it's been very inconvenient and I've had to struggle to work things out then that is what the £50 is for.

By the way, to anyone coming across this thread a credit card company can suggest as much as they want that you pay more than the minimum amount but they cannot insist on it. The most they can do is prevent further use of the card.

born_again

eskbanker said:

Have they disclosed the scale of their error?  

Which if it is a big one, they will have already been in discussion with the regulator and been advised of a fair amount to pay.