Natwest bank charges (crisis)

[Amazinglyso]

Hi to everyone, I am new to the site so hope I have posted my queries in the right thread? - thanks in advance for reading my post.

 

Just recently, a cheque I paid out to a friend for £30.00, the money was taken that very same day from my account that did not have sufficient funds, therefore I incurred a bank charge of £35.00 that I would have to pay by the end of that same month. My wages went in the very next day as anticipated, so they redeemed the - £30.00 to cover the cheque amount they kindly paid to the recipient.

 

Because of the circumstances and not being aware that banks can clear a cheque from your account within a single day, I contested the £35.00 charge with a Natwest advisor over the telephone and explained that I simply could not afford to pay them due to living on state benefits. They then agreed that a £5.00 charge would suffice instead and perhaps because they were empathetic with my situation?

 

However, the bank had taken £35.00 from my current account, changing the agreed amount without consultation. My account went overdrawn again as a result and am now left with a further £20.00 charge I have to pay by the end of this calendar month. I am left feeling betrayed and very angry about their conduct and demanded to speak to the bank manager this morning, but the branch assistant made it clear that she would be the one dealing with the matter.

 

She argued the case that no note had been made on the system by the advisor who agreed that I should only pay £5.00, so the issue wasn't with the bank and that it was all my own fault. I said that I was going to seek legal advice because I wasn't at all in agreement with the charges and felt unfairly penalized.

 

I would be extremely grateful of any advice and if other people on here think that I am being unfairly charged?

[huggys boss]

Unfortunately, as far as I am aware, you must have the funds availalable to pay your cheques on the day you write them. I think that if you friend has a Natwest account too, it would clear much faster than to another bank.

 

I have had a few run-ins with Natwest re charges, and they are usually sympathetic, but not that fast

 

Ring the action line again. It has a computerised system and even if your call has not been recoreded, there should still be a note on your file of when you called and who dealt with you call.

 

Explain to action line what has happened. In my experience they are pretty good with things like this.

 

As for your bank manager not being available. If you get no joy from action line, ring your branch and tell them you need to see the manager, if they say he isn't available for appointments, tell them you will be in at lunch time on whatever day you chose to discuss this with him. You will soon get an appointment if they think you are going to make a fuss in front of a bank full of customers

[Amazinglyso]

Hi there,

 

Thanks for your prompt reply.

 

Clearly there are some communication issues between branches and remote advisors, so going back to the original source of inquiry will be the best course of action in my situation, though should really have taken the name of the advisor I spoke to and didn't, so this is one lesson learnt.

 

I did make a bit of a drama today in the bank and really pushed the patience of the female assistant who I spoke with, but she was so patronizing and informed me that at least bank charges have gone down within the last year so as if to make me feel that it is still okay for banks to have the kind of autonomy over customers they simply shouldn't boast.

 

I hadn't heard of the action line before, so will definitely give this a go asap and explain the dilemma. My greatest concern about all of this is how it is going to affect my credit rating score when I need to apply for credit to get some new furniture? - do you know if banks influence your rating based upon bank charges?