Hello everyone,

A friend of mine is in a real mess,

she wants me to keep details vague,

she is a young woman who suffers from various disabilities.

She has had an account with the bank since she was a child (one of the banks in the RBS family).

She has a current account with an overdraft over £2,000, and a credit card.

Earlier this year she reached out to higher ups in the bank, to make sure her accounts were in good order , and offered to pay her overdraft down.

She explained she has had a difficult year and suffers various disabilities.

She just wanted to keep in touch with the bank to avoid any surprises.

(As she has been using her overdraft more than usual).

She had made it clear to them that if they did want to reduce her limit, then she was ready to work with them to agree to pay it down at an agreed level.

She received a letter back from a senior position in the bank,

who appeared sympathetic and assured her that there was no need for concern,

her account is fine and they don't wish to reduce her overdraft limit.

All appeared well.

Out of nowhere she received a letter, saying they were ending all of her accounts and all funds were repayable within 60 days. (including her credit card).

A few questions... ,

does she have any grounds to stand on or can banks just treat people without any care and respect?

1. Does the fact that the bank assured her everything was fine, and never gave her a chance mean anything? .

(She was in contact with the bank just months before,

explained her disabilities and recent troubles,

and, they told her there were no issues or concerns with her account,

and that they did not want her overdraft limit reduced.

The bank misled her and never offered to work with her or inform her of any problems with her account.

2. Do they have no responsibility to treat a vulnerable customer with care and caution?

to just do this to all her accounts after assuring her everything was fine is just reckless,

especially as they had just acknowledged her vulnerable position and sought to reassure her.

3. Should they have not discussed this with her, or worked with her to correct any issues?.

4. Is it acceptable to close all accounts including a credit card with just one letter

- they are still adding crazy high fees to both accounts!.

As far as I am aware they never issued a default notice on any set amount, and have continued to charge fees on the overdraft and profit from it.

So frustrated as I know the banks seem to do whatever they want, and it seems there is little or no protection for the customer, but this just seems so in your face wrong.

What route, if any , should she take to try to make them think twice? (any disability or vulnerable people avenue?, about them misleading her?

I hope I can give her some idea of a way forward,

they have also pushed her into a position where she will be forced into debt and hardship.

I know she can ask for some fees back

Thanks

might be best to fight from the outside

get a parachute account opened with say the co-op or the post office or any of the ones that do basic online account

and get any income redirect to that account as a matter of urgency.

I would suspect BCOBS comes into play here.

not had any large unaccountable sums going in or out has she?

might be an idea to get her credit file

and check the CIFAS entries.

dx

Yes. Follow all the advice above. It is important to get another account so that there is somewhere that she can put any money that she has coming in so that it isn't immediately swallowed up by the RBS leaving her with nothing to live on.

It certainly sounds enormously unfair and therefore as has been mentioned, you may be looking at getting help from the BCOBS rules which were introduced in 2009 by the FCA in order to replace the Banking Code. The BCOBS rules impose a duty to treat customers fairly. If she has had an account a very long time and has generally speaking run the account correctly. She has also received a letter of reassurance from the bank and they now appear to have acted completely contrary to their reassurance then I think that you have a very good basis for saying that the bank has acted unfairly and in breach of the rules.

In particular, it is most unlikely that the bank will be able to force repayment of the overdraft within 60 days and not only that, it is very unlikely that the bank will be able to take any kind of action including credit register entries in order to log the debt as a default.

However, all of this depends on the action that your friend is prepared to take. It will be much more helpful for us and also much better for her if she will come onto the forum and take control of her problem rather than be led around by you and by us. Taking control and assuming responsibility for the problem will be very therapeutic.

We need to know something about kind of income that she has – not in figures – but does she have a job or is she relying on benefits. I would like also to know about the letter reassurance including the date of it and also about the letter she has received closing the account and the date of that.

It would be extremely helpful if you could scan these letters and post them up on this forum in PDF format – but with the identifiers removed.