MSE News: RBS/Natwest fined £2.8m over poor complaint handling

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Former_MSE_Guy
Former_MSE_Guy Posts: 1,650 Forumite
I've been Money Tipped! Newshound! Chutzpah Haggler
in Budgeting & bank accounts
This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"An FSA investigation found the sister banks responded inadequately to over half of complaints it reviewed ..."
Read the full story:
RBS/Natwest fined £2.8m over poor complaint handling



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  • Alpine_Star
    Alpine_Star Posts: 1,354 Forumite
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    opinions4u wrote: »
    Wonder what they've got lined up for Santander?

    Nothing but Lloyds are still in the frame.
  • Oldbiggles
    Oldbiggles Posts: 499 Forumite
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    The hefty fine is probably not so hefty because the stock market price of RBS has gone up by 2.33% today. So it looks like Nat West got off lightly.

    :cool:
    Trying to learn something new every day.

    ;)
  • chambta
    chambta Posts: 2,770 Forumite
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    A government department effectively then fining a state owned bank. Not sure how that helps.
  • smhg67
    smhg67 Posts: 1 Newbie
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    Our quality manager today (subsidiary of a high st bank) was saying if a customer takes their complaint to the FOS, the company recieve an automatic 'charge' of £500. 'Great' you might think - after all they've probably messed you around to cause you to complain anyway, but.... who eventually ends up paying those charges - the customer I guess? The FOS must be raking in a serious fortune if 10% of complaints are taken to the FOS? Another Govt dept. making money from 'state owned' banks then....
  • saintscouple
    saintscouple Posts: 4,319 Forumite
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    I'm not surprised at this, as i phoned NatWest a few weeks ago - they were meant to change the address of our joint account, but only did my part and not my wifes, this was despite them telling us it had been done.
    My wife only found out when an order she had placed on play.com got refused.
    I spoke to supervisor at the contact centre who apologised and said she would look in to it.
    I asked if i would recieve something in writing as it was a complaint i was making, and she replied no it would be kept internal as it was a training issue.
    I stipulated i wanted to make an official complaint, for which she said i had done by talking to her on the phone, but she would credit our account with £20 for any inconvinance.
    This is the 2nd time they had credited our account with compensation, the 1st time was when they asked if we could go through an application on the phone to upgrade our step account, which we did, and was told we had been successful. After waiting 2 weeks we phone them and was told the application had been declined.
    Again we wanted to make a complaint, they called us back after listening to the phone call of the application and credited our account with £50.....again nothing recieved in writing.

    Well yesterday we opened up an account with Lloyds TSB as amongst other things, they still haven't managed to change the address on my wifes card.
  • stclair
    stclair Posts: 6,844 Forumite
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    saintscouple wrote: »
    I'm not surprised at this, as i phoned NatWest a few weeks ago - they were meant to change the address of our joint account, but only did my part and not my wifes, this was despite them telling us it had been done.
    My wife only found out when an order she had placed on play.com got refused.
    I spoke to supervisor at the contact centre who apologised and said she would look in to it.
    I asked if i would recieve something in writing as it was a complaint i was making, and she replied no it would be kept internal as it was a training issue.
    I stipulated i wanted to make an official complaint, for which she said i had done by talking to her on the phone, but she would credit our account with £20 for any inconvinance.
    This is the 2nd time they had credited our account with compensation, the 1st time was when they asked if we could go through an application on the phone to upgrade our step account, which we did, and was told we had been successful. After waiting 2 weeks we phone them and was told the application had been declined.
    Again we wanted to make a complaint, they called us back after listening to the phone call of the application and credited our account with £50.....again nothing recieved in writing.

    Well yesterday we opened up an account with Lloyds TSB as amongst other things, they still haven't managed to change the address on my wifes card.

    If you have a joint account both of the account holders have to notify the change of address separately.

    If you make an application and told your accepted that may the case at the time thats more of a system issue. However if AVU dig deeper into your application then it could then be subsequently declined.
    Im an ex employee RBS Group
    However Any Opinion Given On MSE Is Strictly My Own
  • saintscouple
    saintscouple Posts: 4,319 Forumite
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    stclair wrote: »
    If you have a joint account both of the account holders have to notify the change of address separately.

    Yes, but we were not told this. I phoned up to change our address stressing it was a joint account and was told all was done, takes 24 hours to update. Then called 2 days later to ensure all went through and again was told all was ok, they even confirmed my wifes details had changed.
    It was only we phoned to complain that my wife's card had been declined, and being put through to a supervisor, where we told that my wife's details hadn't changed, and we had to go in to any branch to get it changed.

    stclair wrote: »
    If you make an application and told your accepted that may the case at the time thats more of a system issue. However if AVU dig deeper into your application then it could then be subsequently declined.

    The call was listened to by a supervisor, who called us back and was unable to explain why the person we spoke to said it was accepted. At the time even i was a little shocked with the decision, and asked if it was final, and was told yes we had definatly been accepted.
  • stclair
    stclair Posts: 6,844 Forumite
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    saintscouple wrote: »
    Yes, but we were not told this. I phoned up to change our address stressing it was a joint account and was told all was done, takes 24 hours to update. Then called 2 days later to ensure all went through and again was told all was ok, they even confirmed my wifes details had changed.
    It was only we phoned to complain that my wife's card had been declined, and being put through to a supervisor, where we told that my wife's details hadn't changed, and we had to go in to any branch to get it changed.




    The call was listened to by a supervisor, who called us back and was unable to explain why the person we spoke to said it was accepted. At the time even i was a little shocked with the decision, and asked if it was final, and was told yes we had definatly been accepted.

    This happens alot you wont be the last person itll happen too. Do a search for natwest AVU and youll see what I mean :D
    Im an ex employee RBS Group
    However Any Opinion Given On MSE Is Strictly My Own
  • zppp
    zppp Posts: 2,476 Forumite
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    smhg67 wrote: »
    Our quality manager today (subsidiary of a high st bank) was saying if a customer takes their complaint to the FOS, the company recieve an automatic 'charge' of £500. 'Great' you might think - after all they've probably messed you around to cause you to complain anyway, but.... who eventually ends up paying those charges - the customer I guess? The FOS must be raking in a serious fortune if 10% of complaints are taken to the FOS? Another Govt dept. making money from 'state owned' banks then....

    This is not technically correct, as the charge only applies if the complaint is 'dismissed without consideration of it's merits'. This is where someone looks at the case at FOS, with the evidence and decides if there are merits that have not been considered satisfactorily by the firm.

    http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/QG1.pdf (See page 2)
    Best Regards

    zppp :)
  • saintscouple
    saintscouple Posts: 4,319 Forumite
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    stclair wrote: »
    This happens alot you wont be the last person itll happen too. Do a search for natwest AVU and youll see what I mean :D

    Oh my! Fortunatley we didn't get as far as recieving anything about the new account. It was only our hopes that were dashed.

    TBH, In the 7 years we have held our Step account we have only had the 2 problems mentioned, thus in the grander scheme of things we haven't been treated that bad. It's just disappointing that after all this time of running the account in credit with no charges, we haven't been given the opportunity to prove ourselves with a full current account. We have applied 3 times, each by telephone, and don't imagine the decision would change if we applied in branch.

    BTW The in-branch experience that we have recieved has been excellent.

    Even though we now have a Lloyds TSB Cash Account, we will keep the step account going, just incase the Lloyds TSB account doesn't run so well.
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