Dear Users, I would like to ask you for an advice on the following case. I would like to stress that I am determined to take this case to court should this be necessary. This is what happened. My father is a holder of the NatWest Advantage Gold Account. He was living and working in the UK for 4 years. Last December he decided to go back to his native country for good. Before he left the UK, he had purchased a phone in the Carphone Warehouse, and the after approximately 8 days after the purchase he withdrew all his funds from the account with the intention to go to his branch and close the account (as he was leaving for good). On the 9th day after the purchase in Carphone Warehouse, he went to his branch and tried to request the closure fo the account in vain - the assitant exploited his incompetence in English (my father is communicative but not proficient) and was determined to talk him into applying for a loan rather than closing the account. Being incompetent in English, my father decided to go to a different branch with the hope of meeting more helpful person, who would not cause so much trouble with closing an account - the second attempt also failed. What happened next, only after 10 days after the phone purchase the transaction was concluded, and NatWest deducted the cost of the phone from the account without any funds on. - Please note that when withdrawing money from the account my father was not informed of any pending transaction nor the funds were frozen - he was let to take the money out when there were still pending transactions of which he couldn't have been aware (the Carphone Warehouse took 10 days to finalize). NatWest paid the costs of the phone making an account overdraft -50pounds, and charged addtional 30pounds of referral fee. Then my father receiced a letter in which NatWest informed him that since there was that transaction and no funds on the account, they treated it as "an informal request for an overdraft". This left the account with 80 pounds of bad balance (the arranged overdraft was 0). Since my father had lready left, I decided to go to the bank, pay all the overdraft off and close the account. In order to be authorized to do it on his behalf, I wrote a letter expresssing my fathers will and authorizing my to conclude the closure - the letter was signed by my father and sent back to me. Unfortunatel a branch manager of one of the NatWest banks refused to accept the letter as it was not written by hand!!!!!!! (the letter was printed out and signed by hand by my father). They also refused to call him when I was there talking to an assistant. As the account was still not closed and timed was passing, the charges for the account kept coming - always together with another and another referral fees (as there were no funds to cover the charges). Next, I decided to call NatWest and ask for the account to be degraded to a basic free account - so as to avoid more charges coming. I passed the security check as my father was assisting my and asked to degrade the account. The assistant agreed to do this but said that it will take 3 months to do this!!!!! So that charges together with referral fees will be coming for another 3 months. As a result the account has a heavy overdraft with interest kicking in. In my opinion NatWest commited the following contraventions: 1. They should have informed my father fo pending transaction or freeze the funds so taht he was not able to withdraw all funds from the account, 2. The branch manager shoould have accepted the letter and close the account as I was prepered to pay the overdraft - or at least call my father to confirmed - which she refused to do, 3. They should have closed the account when my father went to the branch and asked for it, 4. The degradation of the account shouldn't be taking 3 months to conclude, 5. The referral fee of 30pounds is unlawful. Plz give me your opinions. Lucas