Overdrawn Graduate Account, Advice Needed

drewcorp

Hi, I have a graduate account with Natwest. Upon graduating from Uni last year I took up their option to extend my interest free overdraft limit to £2000. This limit reduces to £1000 and subsequently £500 in the third year after you've graduated.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to save up enough money to pay off my overdraft. I recently recieved this letter:

"We not from our records that no credits have been made to your account(s) for some time. Please arrange to make a payment within 14 days of the date of this letter" (June 18th)

I'm currently unemployed and searching hard for a job but with no luck at the moment. I'm £1914 overdrawn but I believe my limit is being reduced to £1000. I have no savings and no way of repaying this £914 until I get a job and some money coming in.

How should I go about confronting this problem as I've pretended it would go away if I ignored it for long enough and I want to deal with it but have no idea where to start. I want to avoid being dragged into further debt with various charge's. What happens if I make no payment before the 18th June?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope someone can help me with my situation.

melancholly

what they are likely to do is keep you overall overdraft limit the same, but only have a limited amount of it as interest free (so you'll pay interest on the £916 but not the first £1000). i would encourage you to contact Natwest and speak to them. if you have some money saved (confused by you referring to savings and then saying you have none), then you may find that transferring in £50/£100 is enough to keep them off your back for now.

drewcorp

Sorry for the confusion. Over the last year, I've tried to save money to pay off the debt but I've had to keep digging into the overdraft to get by which is why I'm in this situation a year on after graduating. I have no savings. I'll contact Natwest and see what they say, hopefully I can borrow money off family to try and put in £50-£100 to keep them happy while I continue my job search.

melancholly

the bank will just want to be confirming that this is your main account - so you're not just running up an overdraft but doing all your main banking somewhere else in a different graduate account. you will have to pay sizeable chunks of interest on the 'extra' money over the interest free limit though.

no chance you can get bar work/temping/supermarket job just to keep your head above water?

drewcorp

I've applied for numerous jobs in the last couple of weeks, including temp jobs. I've made mistakes in letting this situation drag on but I'm trying to sort myself out. Hopefully I can get some interviews for next week and start to move forward.

melancholly

well good luck with it. sometimes it needs a swift kick up the backside or a threat from a bank to get things moving, and you're definitely heading in the right direction now!

flutterbyuk25

Hey

When I graduated I was the same as you, and I paid in just £10 a month and this kept the bank happy as it was by standing order from another bank account so it was coming in monthly.

So if you can only afford the bare minimum, then try and do the same.

For now, go and pay in what you can afford (even if it's just a fiver) cos that will still be classed as a deposit.

Hope you get it sorted and good luck on the job front

x

drewcorp

Just thought I'd update what happened for anyone else who is in a similar situation. I like many was scared of calling the bank but in the end it was probably the best thing I ever done. It was an automated system for those who don't like talking to someone in person and in the end I had built up this scenario of me owing hundreds of pounds and not being able to pay it and being sucked into debt. In reality, my account had not had any payments paid into it recently (as I had no money to pay in) and they were informing me that if I didn't make a payment into the account then my overdraft priveledges would be withdrawn. They then informed me that I needed to make a minimum payment of £97.09 but I had already been to the bank earlier in the day to pay in £100. I may still be elegible for charges or interest, I'm unsure its still a very grey area but at least it has bought me some time to get a job and bring some money. Thanks for all the help and advice from everyone.