Natwest withdrawn all facilities due to misused joint account

[hippychick33]

Hi there,

 

This is my first posting so excuse me if I go on a bit.

 

I have a personal account with Natwest which I have had for 19 years, back in 2005 I opened a joint account with my now ex partner. He abused this account by cashing cheques at some sort of cashing service and now the Account is £3100 overdrawn, it did have a £1000 pound overdraft facility on it, but now they are after me for the money. Although I have had nothing to do with this account since October 2006 and I did not write the cheques they are still sending and calling me every other day. I and my ex partner have told them that he takes full responsibiltiy of the debt and they said that I had arranged with them to pay back £161 a month which I did not agree and this was agreed between them and my ex partner. They have now retained my switch card and withdrawn the £500 overdraft on my personal account without any notice. They have not sent me even a cashcard, so each time I need to draw out any money I have to go in with my passport. My local branch said that my account had been transferred to Birmingham lending Centre. Is there anything I can do to clear my name of this account? Would seeking advice from a solicitor help? As I have a personal account are they entitled not to even send me a cashcard to withdraw money? Please help I'm desperate!!

[Guest wino]

As long as your name is on the account whether you have used it or not you are jointly liable. That is what my friend has been told by the bank and CAB. He has split from his wife and she has run up a large overdraft which he is going to pay as he doesn't want a bad credit rating.

 

I hope someone who has more experience on this matter will advise you on where to go from here:)

[hippychick33]

Thanks wino, I hope I get some advice soon too. Went to the bank today and they have now stopped all my direct debits and standing orders so everything that was supposed to go today hasn't , they've done this without any notification to me. I'm concerned now that they will just close my account. They are totally unreasonable to deal with and I can't seem to get a bank account anywhere else. All because my selfish ex has run up all this debt, just wish I hadn't been so naive and had the account frozen, but my priorities have been looking after my disabled daughter and just trying to make ends meet and I didn't think for a minute that he would have done this to me and made no effort to pay this debt back.

[gh2008]

Sorry to hear about your troubles

 

You can open a basic account, most of the High St banks do them now. Some have a SOLO debit card others a Visa Electron (the former is more widely accepted), they all (I think) do standing orders and direct debits. No borrowing is allowed and most will not charge for bouncing anything.

 

open a new account up and make sure your pay, benefits any other income gets paid into that account. Get a list of DDs & SOs from NatWest, you can setup the SOs yourself from the new account, contact the DD originators with your new details.

 

You other move must be to get urgent legal advice CAB or National Debtline or free 30mins with a solicitor.

 

hope that helps as a start anyway

Good Luck

gh

[gizmo111]

As the bank are being unreasonable then do as suggested above and open a basc account with another bank and transfer all your income and expenditure asap. Have they taken any money from your personal account to pay off this overdraft?

You must put some pressure on your ex to get the banks agreement to turn this into a sole account, in th meantime make sure the account is frozen.

 

Let us know how you gt on.