orfoster vs Natwest

[orfoster]

Hey all,

 

Well I have just started with Natwest, I have a joint account with them and a personal account of which I have had from 2001 and Joint Account since 2005. On my personal account I did have a student overdraft which I paid off in full in Dec 05 of £2,000.

 

My joint account was used for billing by my flat mates at my flat. This went wrong when I left the flat and caused Direct Debits to fail. I was also made redundant over Xmas 05/06 so was unable to clear this amount until March time.

 

I have since been pumping in monthly £120 to the joint account, Natwest have been charging me around £85 monthly for this although i have advised them I will be paying the amount back in full and am currently in contact with Debt Management companies.

 

I find this very annoying, every month I try my best to pay off these debts and they charge me despite my letters asking them to freeze my charges which they don't. I have sent in my Data Protection letter asking if I could have all information on the two accounts, would you think they will do this, I understand the data act to be to the persons name not to individual accounts????

 

I will be claiming my charges back from my personal account back to six years and joint account which over 8 months is about £570. I need the statements for my personal account to claim.

 

Fingers crossed with all this, have just sent a claim into Barclays.

 

Oliver

[Angry_Princess]

Hiya.

 

I was in a similar situation with natwest, i had become ill during my pregnancy and lost my job whilst on the sick, i then lost the baby so was unfit to work for a while, Sympethetic Natwest continued to add fees onto fees.

I had told them i was unable to pay and asked if i could have them waived to which you know their reply.

They removed my overdraft facility which caused me to be about 2,000. OD which they demanded and said the only way i could set up a payment plan was to wait to default!

 

Natwest are awfull! Id love to see their faces right now as the letters of our demand keep pouring in!

 

Good luck with everything hun, dont give up and keep pushing for the full amount.. You will get it!

[orfoster]

Thanks, yes they have no regard for our personal situations which I find so unfair. Isn't it funny how they click their fingers on some things mostly when money goes to them but then when you have a problem they can't help!

 

Reading the forum is helping me a great deal. With these charges has made me go into a downward spiral of debt so im hoping to get these charges back. Pitty i can't get them for all the problems they are now causing me even though aren't directly linked.

 

Oliver

[orfoster]

I have recieved my barclays statements within 5days! really good service and haven't charged me anything for it.

Might complain to Natwest trying to get the speed up.

[orfoster]

I need some help.

 

I have been reading up on this site and have read somewhere here to say that if you are under 16 you can't get charged?? Around that age the bank let me have a cheque book, now they fined me alot when i used it as i wasn't very good with my money then, the gave me a consolidation loan for this for about £900. Is that illegal to give me a loan under 18???

[orfoster]

I need some help.

 

I have been reading up on this site and have read somewhere here to say that if you are under 16 you can't get charged?? Around that age the bank let me have a cheque book, now they fined me alot when i used it as i wasn't very good with my money then, the gave me a consolidation loan for this for about £900. Is that illegal to give me a loan under 18???

 

I am currently waiting for my copy statments to come so will update but just want to find out is it illegal to a) charge me under 18. b) offer me a loan to sort out these charges?? I dont really understand all of this, this all happened four years ago.

 

Any advise?

Cheers guys.

[Ihatebanks]

TAKEN FROM OFT WEBSITE

But if you are under the age of 18 you will not normally be offered credit without a guarantor. This is because lenders cannot seek payments from under 18s or their parents, unless the parent has acted as a guarantor

Did your parents stand as gaurantor?

 

Credit contracts are not normally enforceable against under 18s, so companies cannot legally chase any debts

 

Maybe one of the mods can answer this?

[Michael Browne]

Post 4 on this thread seems to confirm this:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/welcome-our-forum/16874-natwest-help-please.html

[orfoster]

Thank you ever so much for your help. NO my parents didn't act as anything to me. I accpepted this when i was younger as i was worried about the debt but they didn't write to my parents at all. I would remember as i didn't want them knowing about it so was happy that they didn't write to them! I thought this was the case! Hmmmmm a few choice words come to mind about how i feel about these banks!!

[orfoster]

Many thanks, yes this does help. They do have to refund all bank charges below this age. It is really annoying me that these banks can get away with all this. I have contacted them again asking (as i did in my letter) for all information they hold on my including all loans and accounts i have had with them.

[Guest NATTIE]

For loans you have to be 18 years old. To have a cheque book and card at 18 is not illegal or unlawful, in point of fact I have heard of kids being givena cheque book at 13 which, in my opinion is wrong

[orfoster]

Heya, i was hoping you would respond. I value your advise here. I was under 18 when all this happened i was 16-17 when the consolidation loan was issued and 16 when the cheque book was issued and i recieved alot of charges on my account at that age from my cheque book and i was charged interest on the consol loan.

[Guest NATTIE]

Maybe worth looking at the paperwork for the loan especially as it should state about the loan because it should say about you having to be 18

[Guest NATTIE]

REFUND REFUND REFUND REFUND REFUND, hopeyou got the message that you HAVE to have a......because you are under 18

[orfoster]

Im hoping because i have sent off my Data Protection Act forms which were recieved at my local branch 7th July. I would imagine they would send me all these contracts wouldn't they in the disclosure???

[orfoster]

Thank you for the help, yes i did see that. I was under 18 at the time as im now 19. I shall be getting onto them for it. Well i shall be waiting for my statements to come and i will be adding it all up.

[Guest NATTIE]

The charges prior to being 18 should require a simple letter stating that you were under 18 years of age and that you are now aware that theses charges cannot be levied to you. IF they say that these charges were fair then they would already be on unstable ground. Regardless of receipt of statements write a quick letter and deliver it to the branch politely explaining this. Try not to be angry because you know you are right and so do I.

[orfoster]

:)

I will get writing then. I shall write this letter before getting my statements. The charges were for returned cheques unpaid and also Direct Debits from what i remember and then they offered me a consolidation loan to get me out of debt so i dropped out of college for abit to pay this (silly fool). I will type up a letter and put a copy on here for people to comment on.

[lookinforinfo]

Not sure that Natweststaffmember is correct on the refund part. It is my

understanding that debts incurred by the under aged are unenforceable at law.

And while this does mean that Courts cannot order you to repay a debt, it does

not follow that they would demand the bank to repay you when you had paid, nor

that the bank is under any compunction to refund you either.

 

That being said, you can still reclaim that part of the debt that was made up of

unlawful charges, exactly the same as the rest of us.

[Guest NATTIE]

I work for NW and if I see charges for someone under 18, i make sure that they are refunded because I know that you cannot be charged. If cases date 6 months or 6 years, I would still look to refund the charge because of the age criteria. If you are under 18, you CANNOT be charged even if you are complicit in incurring the charge.

[orfoster]

It is a ticky one, I need to look into this further, im sure any court looking into this would say that any loan or debt agreement signed into under the age of 18 wouldn't be allowed in court as you can't sign into one of those agreements under 18 surely.

 

Just to update you. I have called the bank to check my Date of Birth which is shown correctly on their system. They are sending me copy statements so I will try and get all this back below the age of 18 and let you all know. So is it a Natwest rule to refund under 18's???

[Guest NATTIE]

I'm not sure about the word rule but anytime I have seen a charge on an under 18 account, I have no problem refunding it even ifit is time and time again. As you cannot be given credit until you are 18, if you are charged and it takes you into an unauthorised overdraft(you cannot have an overdraft until you are 18). Do you see my point? NW can ask for your card back and it does effect the way the bank would see you for future loans etc, but you should not be charged and if you are then it should be refunded

[orfoster]

As you can tell i have alot of time to go looking around on this site in work hence the fast response.

 

Yeh i see what you mean. I wouldn't expect any less. After all this i managed to get a £2,000 overdraft, think maybe its because i worked very hard and fast to pay the outstanding back. I am expecting my statements next week after speaking to someone yesterday who helped me out. How fast would Natwest refund these payments to me in your experiance?? Only the ones below 18.

[Guest NATTIE]

My guess is that the amount is higher than the manager's authorised amount of £50 so it would need to be authorised by a regional refunds team and that could take at best 48 hours and at worst possibly 7 days(it all depends on the volumes of refund requests they are dealing with at any one time). The argument could be raised as to why you haven't asked about these for some time. Now not realising that the charges had to be refunded is one argument. If they decline the refund then it is business as usual for your whole claim

[gizmo111]

As far as I know credit for the under 18's can only be ebforced if it was used for essential items - so if you spent the money on food etc then it is essential and can be reclaimed if it was on CD's then it cannot - not sure which law this is, but I will try to find out. So in essence as charges are not essentail items then they can be enforced by bank, although obviosuly they can be claimed back from bank same as the rest of our charges.