RIPP OFF !! Nationwide Flex Account

bristolleedsfan

Calchas wrote: »

Thank you for your post bridian. You wrote it in good faith, mainly to warn others of your mistakes and I am grateful for that.

In order for you to warn others of course, you had to endure the usual bores posting the bleeding obvious in order to show some sort of superiority.

This behaviour happens in many threads of this type, but hopefully it will not deter people such as yourself from alerting others when one recognises that there is a possibility someone else may learn from another's misfortune.

imo O/P should have been titled "be careful not to leave large sums of money in nationwide current account" :cool:

Calchas

bristolleedsfan wrote: »

imo O/P should have been titled "be careful not to leave large sums of money in nationwide current account" :cool:

That is food for thought bristolleedsfan.

Is there a direct correlation between the tone and nature of a title and the amount of hostility or empathy it subsequently attracts?

I will watch future threads with interest:D

dunstonh

I don't think the responses have been too negative. Any thread that starts with an aggressive title or posting style does tend to get aggressive or negative responses.

Is there a direct correlation between the tone and nature of a title and the amount of hostility or empathy it subsequently attracts?

Absolutely. Especially on threads where someone comes out accusing institutions or individuals of rip offs, fraud etc when in reality it was actually their own error or something they don't understand. The same subject asked by someone else who doesn't go in all guns blazing always appears to get much more pleasant responses.

What has happened here is not a rip off. It is either a miscommunication or a misunderstanding. The assumption is that Nationwide is at fault but being able to prove that is impossible (that side is already covered in the thread).

bridian

bristolleedsfan wrote: »

imo O/P should have been titled "be careful not to leave large sums of money in nationwide current account" :cool:

I would agree if the term current account would have been used.

bridian

dunstonh wrote: »

I dont think the responses have been too negative. Any thread that starts with an aggressive title or posting style does tend to get aggressive or negative responses.

What has happened here is not a rip off at all. It is either a miscommunication or a misunderstanding. The assumption is that Nationwide is at fault but being able to prove that is impossible (that side is already covered in the thread).

If I get 99% being negative that is ok. It truly does not bother me. If this thread has helped the 1% then I am pleased. An aggressive title will attract readers and if it attracts the readers that could make the same mistakes, then once again I am extremely pleased.

MattB_4

As I said bridian if you play it reasonably and don't go tearing into people I think you'll get much further. Personally I would give you the money back.

Swan_2

bridian wrote: »

I would agree if the term current account would have been used.

I sympathise with your predicament, & I'd be very unhappy about the loss of interest too
for whatever reason, you seem to have suffered a very bad communication breakdown with NW

I've opened two Flex accounts over the last 20-odd years & both times I had to actually opt out if I didn't want a chequebook
were you not alerted to the kind of account you'd signed up for when you were sent a chequebook?

mystic_trev

I'm not trying to add salt into the wound but thought of the OP when I read this article!

Nationwide, Britain's biggest building society, has accused rivals of using "introductory interest rates to lure customers" and then failing to warn savers when returns are due to fall.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/01/08/cnsavers108.xml

MarkyMarkD

I can't agree with the OP.

Investing £25,000 in any sort of account with any institution, without reading any literature about the account, is simply ridiculous.

And the rates on all accounts change over time. One would expect someone investing £25,000 to !!!! themselves (OP's words) to check whether the rate had changed - and at that point, to notice the fact that the account rates are capped at balances of £2,500.

Don't get me wrong OP - I expect everyone to do their job properly, the same way I expect myself to give my employer a good day's work for an honest wage. But I take account of the motivations for individual members of staff, and don't expect every sales person I speak to to give me a fair assessment of the entire market, and to recommend the right product if it won't get them a sale.

Frankly, I don't believe your original story. I don't accept that anyone in Nationwide would have actually said "stick £25,000 in this Flex account and you'll get x% on it". But if you want to believe that's what you were told, go ahead. And gripe about it. Even though what they said would have been proved wrong the millisecond you checked the product details, either in the product leaflet on the branch shelf, or online and readily accessible.

If they told you what you claim you were told, they were an idiot - anyone who wasn't sitting on their !!!! would have found them out straight away.

Maybe you just misunderstood, and the "RIP OFF" has been perpetrated by you on yourself?

Hang on - you were happy to invest £25,000 at a rate around 2% lower than the best market rates in any case. Let me rephrase that - the "RIP OFF" was perpetrated by you on yourself.

Why complain to us that Nationwide have ripped you off, when you were happily throwing away £500 a year of interest for no apparent reason?

Edit: I've just noticed that the OP opened this account in March 2006, and appears to have taken 22 months (January 2008) to notice this imaginary "RIP OFF". !!!!!!?

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statement of interest

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I have NO (material) financial interest in Nationwide's success. I don't work for Nationwide. I admit to being a member of Nationwide, but that's only in the forlorn hope that they'll grow out of their stupid addiction to mutuality and become the bank they blatantly want to become.

My comments in this thread are as impartial as anyone else's.

But I also don't accept as gospel the postings of anyone who entitles their thread "RIP OFF" (especially if they can't even spell "RIP") as they are almost universally wrong.

edda

FYI I raised a complaint to the Banking Ombudsman about 6 years ago - I know things may have changed since then.

My complaint was rejected on the grounds that I had not mentioned details raised in the original interview with the bank representative.

I hadn't raised these as I thought that verbal 'evidence' would be ignored. But the Ombudsman accepted the bank's version of a conversation - the bank presumably knew that this was the case.

If ever I raise any more complaints in the future, I would always mention conversations if I thought they were relevant. Lesson learnt!