Hiya, just getting to stage of sending initial letter to Natwest re ~£2K charges over last six years. Account concerned was opened by me in 1981, then made a joint account with my wife in 1996-ish. Two questions: Does anybody know if action needs to be launched by both of us as named parties, or can I do it singly? Secondly, wife still has her own personal account ( hmmmmm....) at a different branch of Natwest. If Natwest get arsey and close joint account, would they have any legal basis to do same to my wife's account if she were a signatory to the action on the joint account? If anybody has any knowledge of either of these issues, I would appreciate it! Cheers LC

Hi all, just starting the process against Natwest. Have got all my statements for the last six years, in fact I think I have them all for the last twenty-five years Have totalled up the charges, they amount to £2008 since 1/1/01, including £620 in three days last year when a CHAPS payment into my current account failed, and all my DDs bounced. Surprisingly, this was the catalyst, albeit quite a slow-acting one, which finally prompted me into action. Found natweststaffmember’s most excellent advisory on charges, which I was chuffed to see tallied exactly with what I had calculated. As a basic rule of thumb, apart from interest, anything which charges more than the monthly admin charge is pretty much a cert for being able to be deemed unfair? Also, have spotted numerous references to parachute accounts etc “in case of retaliatory action”. What is the likelihood of this? Is there some sort of threshold over which Natwest (in particular) will lash out, or does it just depend how bl**dy-minded the relevant staff member is on a particular day? Many thanks LC