Natwest's gross negligence

natweststaffmember

Sorry to correct you but there is the option of yearly fee or monthly fee on the Advantage Private account.

vdh

ShelfStacker wrote: »

I'm sorry, but that is what it sounds like. Lost card not ordered, fine, probably an apology but maybe a tenner or two to compensate. Staff member lying to you, more than that perhaps... but really, you stated yourself that you wanted "a full refund of my monthly charge for the last couple of years" (which is funny, because from what I can see NatWest Private Banking don't even charge a monthly fee) as well as a "goodwill gesture". That is an obscene amount of compensation for something that, while it may be aggrieving, has caused you no material loss.

While you may not be out to extract money like I suggested, by all accounts it appears you are expecting far too much from them.

They do charge a monthly fee, nothing comes for free. and to be honest the monthly fee is a good way to support the infrastructure that they have in place to almost guarantee peace of mind for consumers when you want to have that extra personal touch (and the guys have been pretty good - they do deserve credit).

With regard to the monthly charge refund - think of it like this, bank charges thou for a superior service and preferential treatment over non paying customers and if thou ends up in an agonising state like that, one cannot help but wonder what was the extra money paid for? Bank loses its moral right to retain that money for it has failed to provide the service it promised you.

MarkyMarkD

vdh wrote: »

That's what you would expect. However, different banks have a different take on this. Barclays for example does not absolve you of the responsibility if the fraud occurs at a retailer/online site where you have used your card before as it defines that as a risky behaviour that customer himself indulged in.

That's very interesting, but frankly not relevant to your case.

Fraud of that nature would not have anything to do with you losing your card; it would represent a merchant to whom you had willingly provided card details, abusing those details.

Whether or not your card had been stolen or lost, that could happen.

I'm not sure your view of Barclays' policy is correct either. Their website says

*Barclays provides an online fraud guarantee – if a customer is an innocent victim of fraud they will be not be out of pocket. This will still be applicable to all customers.

That seems pretty unequivocal to me. If you provide your card details to an apparently genuine merchant, and they go on to use those details fraudulently, you are innocent.

Riq

vdh wrote: »

They do charge a monthly fee, nothing comes for free. and to be honest the monthly fee is a good way to support the infrastructure that they have in place to almost guarantee peace of mind for consumers when you want to have that extra personal touch (and the guys have been pretty good - they do deserve credit).

With regard to the monthly charge refund - think of it like this, bank charges thou for a superior service and preferential treatment over non paying customers and if thou ends up in an agonising state like that, one cannot help but wonder what was the extra money paid for? Bank loses its moral right to retain that money for it has failed to provide the service it promised you.

Not for two years though.

Why not take a prorata rate refund of the weekend or however long this has gone on for.

I think you are taking this waaay too far.

ShelfStacker_3

I stand corrected on the monthly fee point, but again to ask for an entire refund of two years' worth of them is a total overreaction.

And... "agonising"? The bank screwed up, one of its staff members was an a*se. Fine, but it's hardly agonising, and you've not lost anything as a result. Just ring up, complain and see what they say/give you, but don't expect anything more than a goodwill gesture.

natweststaffmember

Not sure its trolling but I do think that you are expecting a lot more than out of pocket expenses and incovenience, £10 maybe £20 at a push, 2 years fees back I think is frankly not realistic.

vdh

Hello everyone,

Thanks everyone for sharing their opinions and advice about my situation - a few responses were very helpful but unfortunately I was ridiculed for being unrealistic and stretching my arguments too far.

I thought of sharing my experience with Natwest as to what finally happened - I wrote to customer services and they passed on my complaint to the private banking department. No reply at all for nearly two months and then I picked up the phone and told them that I was about to write to Financial Ombudsman as after 8 weeks of no response, I have a legal right to do so as per Financial Ombudsman's website. And before doing that I will prefer to write to Natwest's CEO.

After about 10 minutes of sweet talking, I got £120.00 in my bank account as a goodwill gesture and a ton load of apologies.

On the same note, one of my friends had a very unethical experience with Barclays insurance where he was lied to more than 3 times regarding excess on his policy. After writing to their CEO's office, he got matters sorted within a few hours along with a goodwill gesture of £200.00 and staff member told him that there is a team of 6 people in CEO's office dedicated to these kind of !!!!-ups (I am guessing that it is a common occurence.)

Thanks again to everyone for their time.

Moral of the story for me - Pick your battles and don't forget that every situation is unique, so someone else's opinion might be helpful but is not the final word.