Has Natwest Outsourced it's Complaints Dept to RBS India?

Maddang

I had an email from a complaints handler in (Retail Banking complaints, India) with an email address ending rbs.co.uk. The person's email address ends in rbos.co.uk and it has a stretched dark blue RBS logo like the one in this link.

https://www.natwestgroup.com/who-we-are/about-natwest-group/worldwide-locations/natwest-group-india.html. They ask 

"if If you're happy to communicate via email there will be a couple of additional steps, we need to take to make sure our communication is safe and secure.  To allow us to continue via email we may need to encrypt our messages to you. To do this we will send you a password via SMS to open the encryption on any future emails. Please do not send any attachments via email until we have set this process up."

I'm very wary of this as they have just called me in the past if they have any questions then send an outcome via email in pdf format. I can't get hold of any one in complaints - despite NWB stating it's a 24 hrs service, it's only for fraud now after 6pm.

Any experience of this would be welcome.

DullGreyGuy

RBS bought Natwest in 2000 in what was considered a reverse takeover given they were on paper the smaller company but were profitable unlike Natwest. 

Until 2008 they were doing exceptionally well... introducing Sir Fred's idea of "manufacturing" in banking with central functions and branches reduced to sales teams. Then they did a deal that went sideways and required massive governmental bail outs. 

RBS Group decided to rename themselves Natwest Group to move away from the toxic name, they weren't the only ones, AIG became Chartis to move away from the US Government bail outs until the name recovered at which point they paid $3m to develop a new logo. 

RBS/NW used to be "UK only" until they bought out another firm that had a significant Indian offshoring arrangement and discovered it worked well. That said I worked with them back in the days that only IT was in India but had the misfortune of listening into a call in India where the racists customer refused to accept the 3rd generation British citizen of Indian decent was actually sitting in Leeds when he refused to speak to anyone not in England.

eskbanker

Maddang said:

I'm very wary of this as they have just called me in the past if they have any questions then send an outcome via email in pdf format.

It's not unusual for regulated businesses to be moving away from unencrypted emails, so just because they've used a less secure method previously that doesn't imply that it'll always be like that.

Maddang said:

I can't get hold of any one in complaints - despite NWB stating it's a 24 hrs service, it's only for fraud now after 6pm.

Where do they commit to complaints handling being a 24 hour operation?

p00hsticks

Maddang said:

I'm very wary of this as they have just called me in the past if they have any questions then send an outcome via email in pdf format. 

Personally, I'd be more wary of institutions that weren't using some form of password protection / encryption on their non-generic e-mail communications that contained personal information. 

Maddang

They offer phone call but no phone number. The email looked fake.

eskbanker

Maddang said:

They offer phone call but no phone number. The email looked fake.

If you need to make a complaint relating to a personal account you have with us, here’s how to contact us:

Phone

UK: 03457 888 444

https://www.natwest.com/support-centre/how-to-complain/complaints-contacts.html

Olenna

Have you logged a complaint with them? If so, then it suggests it's genuine on that basis alone but check directly with NatWest if you're unsure about the RBS/RBOS branding.