NatWest - what on earth has happened to their customer service?

GustyGardenGalaxy

My credit card has just been declined (I think due to me trying to top up my phone's Sim card) but, at the time of typing this, I've not been able to get through to their fraud helpline to get the card 'working' again.

I've been holding for over an hour now, my phone charge going slowly ever upwards. Can't even get the automated system to accept my landline number to call me back.

Not so long ago if this happened I was able to get through to somebody within a matter of minutes.

Is there even a direct line for their fraud department if a credit card has been declined?

What on earth has happened to NatWest? Shortage of staff? Declining customer care in general? It's farcical.

ForumUser7

GustyGardenGalaxy said:

My credit card has just been declined (I think due to me trying to top up my phone's Sim card) but, at the time of typing this, I've not been able to get through to their fraud helpline to get the card 'working' again.

I've been holding for over an hour now, my phone charge going slowly ever upwards. Can't even get the automated system to accept my landline number to call me back.

Not so long ago if this happened I was able to get through to somebody within a matter of minutes.

Is there even a direct line for their fraud department if a credit card has been declined?

What on earth has happened to NatWest? Shortage of staff? Declining customer care in general? It's farcical.

When you get your phone bill, make a complaint to NatWest regarding costs incurred by the hold time, and provide evidence. An hour long hold is not fair or reasonable, and they may refund the costs you incurred through call charges. Unfortunately bank CS seems to be on the decline.

ZeroSum

Its always been poor

pridehappy

Had a horrendous experience a few months ago with Lloyds Banking Group after decades of no issues. Similar situation really.

My Lloyds Bank debit card, Halifax credit card and son’s Lloyds Bank debit card started to randomly decline so decided one day to call them. After the situation was explained, Halifax said they couldn't do anything and said it was as I’d spent over £100 on Apple Pay, which apparently is past their limit (although never stated anywhere). My son pointed out his Nationwide debit card worked after Halifax tried to tell us it was an Apple issue, and the attitude from the advisor, literally his words were: “Well that was a different bank so I don’t really care. Nothing to do with us, so why bring it up”. Honestly sounded like a 18 year old was answering the call and didn’t want to help.

Both my Halifax and Lloyds Bank branches couldn’t help either. Halifax refused to even check the account, Lloyds however did. After 3 hours in-branch and being left alone by a staff member on a phone in an office and being passed around 8 or so agents, my son (quite rightly) got frustrated and said “For gods sake, how long is this going to take?”. Advisor then started to explain how he had discriminated to religion and thus they could close his account. To be honest, he wasn’t bothered at this point as his Lloyds was only a secondary account. During this branch visit, his PayM stopped working and Lloyds didn’t know about that either. Went straight over to Nationwide to deposit the money from his Lloyds which he decided to withdraw and they answered the Lloyds PayM issue straight away. Why should another bank have to deal with another’s problems?

4 more phone calls and 2 complaints later, enough was enough and I switched to Nationwide too. Funnily enough, no more hassle. 

In summary, I think the big banks customer service now is probably poor. Although rated lower down, never once had an issue with Virgin.

TheBanker

This is not good enough, but to avoid waiting....
1) For debit cards, their Chatbot in the app can tell you why it was declined. I don't know if it does the same for credit cards.
2) Your card might not be blocked. Perhaps just try another transaction for something else?

GustyGardenGalaxy

Thanks for all of the suggestions. A bit of hunting revealed some more direct lines to their fraud teams, as follows:

Credit Card Fraud Team - 0800 161 5153

Debit Card Fraud Team - 0131 339 7609

And of course the Credit Card phone number is an 0800 which helps a lot too. Calling either of those numbers got me through within a matter of minutes.

Turns out that the problem with my card payment being declined was a technical fault of theirs related to the confirmation code SMS that they send to your named phoned number. This also explains why their generic helpline numbers had such long waiting times. I've not tried again today (no need any more) but I would hope that the issue has been rectified by now.

surreysaver

NatWest customer service has always been !!!!!! in my experience