DRO with Nationwide Basic Flex account

Shelbee65

Hi
currently I am with NatWest silver account, solely my account with a £250 overdraft that I can use. I like my bank but have had issues. Basically because of my disabilities I cannot work. So, I have debts with credit cards, shopping catalogues, a small loan. I have only just stopped paying these companies, because I was using my overdraft. I cancelled all my direct debits until I decided what is best for me. Credit card company well one of them was accepting a fiver on each a month. That will end some if my circumstances don’t change, and they won’t change.

So, this month a credit card went out as in payment, I thought it was a direct debit payment and asked NatWest to cancel it. They tried to, however they cannot cancel a debit money payment, this is different to a direct debit payment. Basically any company can have dibs on my account.. NatWest have told me several times this cannot be cancelled and to get in touch with the CC company. I did as instructed. CC company said no they are not stopping lifting payments from my account, however I could lower the payments to them. Honestly….. I cannot do this being on Universal Credit and disability.

All my household bills are intact, rent, water, gas and electric have meters.

so bearing all that in mind…. I manually rang all my household bill company’s up and manually set up direct debits for UC, etc, and did the same for my bills.

CurrentlyI am so stretched I have used food banks.

i have now a joint bank account, a basic flex with Nationwide, with my husband.

my husband is my carer.

CAB and debt-line, plus my Council have suggested a DRO, I set up an account, joint last week with Nationwide.

i cannot afford the debts on UC, so looks like I may do this, but what happens to my joint bank account? There is no overdraft facility, and no check book, as basic as it can be. 

So after all this…. Do Nationwide support people who have an DRO in place?

NatWests account still open until all UC goes into the basic flex account

Thank you in advance. 

fatbelly

It would be Nationwide's decision but as there is no debt to Nationwide they would not even know about the DRO unless they trawled the insolvency register.

I can't see any reason why they would do that or why they would close your account.

JonVarnas

So, this month a credit card went out as in payment, I thought it was a direct debit payment and asked NatWest to cancel it. They tried to, however they cannot cancel a debit money payment, this is different to a direct debit payment. Basically any company can have dibs on my account.. NatWest have told me several times this cannot be cancelled and to get in touch with the CC company. I did as instructed. CC company said no they are not stopping lifting payments from my account, however I could lower the payments to them. Honestly….. I cannot do this being on Universal Credit and disability.

Can anyone explain what this is because I've never heard of it before? Did they take the money from the debit card?

Brie

JonVarnas said:

So, this month a credit card went out as in payment, I thought it was a direct debit payment and asked NatWest to cancel it. They tried to, however they cannot cancel a debit money payment, this is different to a direct debit payment. Basically any company can have dibs on my account.. NatWest have told me several times this cannot be cancelled and to get in touch with the CC company. I did as instructed. CC company said no they are not stopping lifting payments from my account, however I could lower the payments to them. Honestly….. I cannot do this being on Universal Credit and disability.

Can anyone explain what this is because I've never heard of it before? Did they take the money from the debit card?

It sounds to me that this is a continuous payment authority.  It's the sort of sneaky thing that gets setup some times with online shopping where the customer unknowingly agrees to ongoing payments for £X every month for some supposed service.  Very often offered free for the 1st 3 months or something so that it is forgotten because many of us don't check our bank statements often enough or in enough details.

As I understand it the solution is to notify the company in writing that you are cancelling their service.  And then notify the bank that you have done so.  Further payments will be taken but because the authority has officially been cancelled by the customer the CPA no longer should function and the banks should be able to respond by reclaiming the payments.  Yes the CPA will say no to the customer but as I understand it all contracts have to have an end point.

sourcrates

Yes, cancel the CPA with your bank and the company concerned.

Continuous payment authority: manage recurring payments - MSE (moneysavingexpert.com)