NatWest Negative Interest

dcs34

Hi all,

Woke up this morning to some unusual transactions on my NatWest account. A number of 'Interest' payments (they were categorised by NatWest as that) of random negative amounts being deducted from my balance. Small amounts, like £1.76 or £2.94 for example, and with random dates typed into the transaction entries. Having raised it to someone via Cora they have now refunded the payments, but they could not come up with a reason why these random payments were taken (that was almost verbatim the response).

I've never used the overdraft or paid in alternative currencies which would be the only things I can think of that might create a reason for NatWest to charge interest. Also not had any correspondence from them about fees or debts either. I can only think that it's an accidental fault from some NatWest operative making manual adjustments to interest (and took them from the wrong account), or possibly some very strange IT glitch.

Just interested to see if anyone else has ever experienced something similar? The mystery / uncertainty factor is definitely playing on my mind - feels almost like someone was helping themselves to my money!

ForumUser7

dcs34 said:

Hi all,

Woke up this morning to some unusual transactions on my NatWest account. A number of 'Interest' payments (they were categorised by NatWest as that) of random negative amounts being deducted from my balance. Small amounts, like £1.76 or £2.94 for example, and with random dates typed into the transaction entries. Having raised it to someone via Cora they have now refunded the payments, but they could not come up with a reason why these random payments were taken (that was almost verbatim the response).

I've never used the overdraft or paid in alternative currencies which would be the only things I can think of that might create a reason for NatWest to charge interest. Also not had any correspondence from them about fees or debts either. I can only think that it's an accidental fault from some NatWest operative making manual adjustments to interest (and took them from the wrong account), or possibly some very strange IT glitch.

Just interested to see if anyone else has ever experienced something similar? The mystery / uncertainty factor is definitely playing on my mind - feels almost like someone was helping themselves to my money!

This is very weird - probably requires investigation from a complaint handler to figure out what happened. If you ever get a useful answer from them, please do let us know!

Ballard

It could be that dates of past entries were adjusted for some reason, and this is as a result of either less credit interest or new debit interest that has now accrued. Seems unlikely, but I think that you’ve covered the other options already. 

UKX69

Yes, very strange. I’ve banked with NatWest for 49 years and never seen anything like that on my accounts - as the previous poster said, raise a complaint.

TheBanker

Why waste time on a complaint? It might be nice to know what had happened, but Natwest have refunded the payments so there is no financial loss to be redressed. 

One possibility is that the outcome of a thorough investigation is that the charges were legitimate and the live chat advisor was wrong to refund them...

35har1old

dcs34 said:

Hi all,

Woke up this morning to some unusual transactions on my NatWest account. A number of 'Interest' payments (they were categorised by NatWest as that) of random negative amounts being deducted from my balance. Small amounts, like £1.76 or £2.94 for example, and with random dates typed into the transaction entries. Having raised it to someone via Cora they have now refunded the payments, but they could not come up with a reason why these random payments were taken (that was almost verbatim the response).

I've never used the overdraft or paid in alternative currencies which would be the only things I can think of that might create a reason for NatWest to charge interest. Also not had any correspondence from them about fees or debts either. I can only think that it's an accidental fault from some NatWest operative making manual adjustments to interest (and took them from the wrong account), or possibly some very strange IT glitch.

Just interested to see if anyone else has ever experienced something similar? The mystery / uncertainty factor is definitely playing on my mind - feels almost like someone was helping themselves to my money!

Do you have double round activated?

Section62

TheBanker said:

Why waste time on a complaint? It might be nice to know what had happened, but Natwest have refunded the payments so there is no financial loss to be redressed.

Because the OP has had their time wasted trying to work out what these payments were, and NatWest haven't come up with a sensible explanation of what they are and why they were taken.

There doesn't have to be a financial loss for redress to be considered, the time taken and inconvenience caused are enough on their own.

If people don't complain the rubbish systems some banks use will never be improved.

TheBanker said:

One possibility is that the outcome of a thorough investigation is that the charges were legitimate and the live chat advisor was wrong to refund them...

Are you hinting that these charges might be reapplied to the OP's account as some kind of 'punishment' for complaining?

If so, I think that would be incredibly unlikely - much cheaper to write off these small amounts than risk ending up with another FOS complaint to deal with.

And in the unlikely event the charges were reapplied, the OP could complain that the live chat advisor misadvised them and incorrectly cancelled the charges without properly investigating what they were for.