Natwest Credit card Customer service

Zach78

:mad:
Last nite my girlfriend tried to book a hotel in Vegas via lasvegas.com now the website wouldnt accept the credit card details, so we called the customer support who tried to take payment from the card but it was declined. Anyway we called Natwest this morning to find out what was happening as there should plenty credit avail. Firstly Natwest tell us that the transaction had gone through 4times!!! you can imagine we were pretty horrified! Anyway the Natwest cust service person didnt seem to be bothered and told us that we had to chase this up with lasvegas.com and that we have to get a fax showing that transaction was declined! Also that natwest cant do anything about it and they dont tend to get involved in these situations :mad:
Is this normal practice???

gingercordial

I've had this problem with Mint (which like Natwest is under the RBS umbrella) so I think unfortunately what they say is correct. We booked a couple of hotels in Canada online and got charged four times for each. Mint refused to get involved unless we could get written confirmation from the website that the transactions should only have gone through once. Luckily the website refunded the amounts themselves (and we even made money on the exchange rate difference!) but I wasn't too impressed with Mint at the time.

Good luck with getting it sorted!

Alfie_E

Zach78 wrote:

Is this normal practice???

It might be normal practice for NatWest, but it's not the way the system is supposed to work. In a dispute, it's up to the company that took the money to prove that they had authority to take it, not for you to show that they didn't.

It would certainly be courteous to allow LasVegas.com the chance to reverse the transactions. Tell them that payment has been taken four times, and they need to reverse all of them. Give it about a week for the money to reappear on your credit card account; LasVegas.com will probably have to track down what went wrong, and information doesn't always pass speedily through the credit card networks.

If LasVegas.com aren't interested in helping from the outset, or the money isn't returned promptly, you can call back NatWest and state that you want to formally dispute each of the transactions. The card networks call the process of disputing a transaction a "chargeback". You'll either have to fax or post a statement explaining why you dispute the transactions, or NatWest may want to post you out a form to complete. If LasVegas.com can't show to NatWest that they took the money legitimately, NatWest will re-credit your account with the disputed amount. NatWest, in turn, will claw back the money from LasVegas.com, through the card system.

NatWest have to provide you with the opportunity to dispute the transactions as part of the standard international Card Scheme Rules they signed up to. As you've found, it's not something some of the UK banks like to shout about.

The chargeback procedure takes some time to complete, and may cross a payment deadline. If you don't make payment for the disputed transactions, interest will be added to their amount (if you don't have a 0% rate offer on your account). If you are successful in a chargeback, you should have your account credited such that this interest is wiped off.

Zach78

Thanks guys for your help!!

this is the response we got from lasvegas.com who are being very helpful, its Natwest who seem like they couldnt careless!

You've reached LasVegas.com. Thank you for writing.

Our apologies for any inconvenience this has caused. If you are showing
an additional charge on your statement from LASVEGAS.com, could you
please fax a copy of your credit card statement to 702-992-7923
attention Christopher, or send as an attachment via e-mail to
customerservice@lasvegas.com so that our Accounting Department may
research. This is due to the fact that we do not keep your credit card
information on file.

We receive approval from several sources, your credit card company being
only one of many. Several times the card may have a pending
authorization if the card was still declined. These usually fall off
your account within a few business days.

Again our apologies and if you have any other questions or concerns
regarding your reservation, please feel free to reply to this e-mail or
call our Customer Support Department at 1-702-997-2222.

Chadsman

If they dont keep records of card payments what comeback would they have if someone contacted the CC company disputing a transaction, the hotel would not be able to prove it was a legit transaction and since the burden of proof lies with the payee they would be obliged to refund the transaction.
Me thinks they are telling porkies and/or are incompetent!