AvaPoet vs NatWest

[avapoet]

I'm sure I've had my fair share of unfair banking charges in the past, although I'm not sure how many of them will qualify as recent enough. I currently bank with NatWest, and, once I've gotten the ball rolling, I'm considering going back to Barclays (who forcibly closed my account with them about five years ago and took me to court to reclaim the money I owed them on my extended overdraft) and seeing how fair their claims were, too. I'll keep my progress updated here.

[avapoet]

Progress report:

• 01/09/2006 - applied to open a secondary bank account, "just in case"
  
• 02/09/2006 - went into my local NatWest branch and explained that I needed a copy of my complete transaction history (almost five years: since I 'left' Barclays). Was told that I couldn't get more than six months "over the counter", so asked what I needed to do to get the rest. They put in a request for it to be posted to me and charged me £5, and I left with a copy of the last six months worth. I'll apparently receive the rest within about 10 days.
  
• 03/09/2006 - have been through the last six months of statements and it seems my memory has failed me, because I apparently haven't been charged any fines in that period: nonetheless, I remember being immensely frustrated with the likes of £20-£35 fines for petty little things (like going less than a pound over my overdraft limit) on several occassions, so I'll await the rest of my statements.

[Guest NATTIE]

the branch can go back 1 year but a lot of staff are only aware of two ways of looking at transactions that go back 6 months. Good Luck

[avapoet]

• 04/09/2006 - my alternate bank account application (just in case) has been accepted; not really newsworthy. I hope I don't have to change banks: apart from their horrible fines (but what bank doesn't do that?) NatWest have always seemed quite pleasant to me.

[avapoet]

• 14/09/2006 - 12 days after my request, I've received my complete history in the form of a fat envelope with a hand-written address on it, containing a duplicate of all of my statements.
  
• I've gone through the statements and I've been unfairly charged £593, which is slightly more than what I'd expected (my original estimate had been £500, based on simple mathematics and guesswork, but this hadn't taken into account the increase in NatWest's charges for rejected D/Ds and cheques from £30 to £35 and then to an even more ludicrous £38 during my time with them).
  
• I've put together my schedule of charges and a letter to my local branch of NatWest, which I'll be sending first-class recorded delivery this lunchtime.

[avapoet]

A belated update:

• 23/09/2006 - received a letter from NatWest acknowledging my claim, from my local branch manager. He states that he is looking into the issue but that it will take him a few days to get hold of my back statements, and so he's not sure if he can meet my original deadline (28/09/2006).
  
• I'm not going to push too hard on the deadline, because I'm having to fix a few other things first: my application for a "backup" bank account has been rejected because there's a problem on my credit record: a £1450 default that doesn't belong to me! I've traced the problem and I'm having it corrected, but I've been advised that it's likely to be a few days before my prospective bank can confirm this change and open my account.

[avapoet]

• 03/10/2006 - NatWest have gotten back to me with a semi-templated letter, offering me £300 (my claim is £593) as a "full and final settlement", asking me to check a box, sign, and return the letter to accept it. I'll be sending my template letter accepting their £300 only as a partial payment and demanding the rest soon.

[avapoet]

• 10/10/2006 - the Service Quality Adviser for my local NatWest branch sends me a compliments slip handwritten with a message expressing concern that I may not have received his letter dated 28th September.
  
• 11/10/2006 - my "backup" bank account finally gets opened. Now I'm ready to respond to NatWest and reject their offer of £300.

[avapoet]

• 13/10/2006 - sent letter to NatWest rejecting their settlement offer, but accepting the £300 settlement on the condition that it is a partial settlement with the understanding that I'll be persuing them for the remainder. In the light of my delay to the process (waiting for my "backup" bank account to open) I've extended their deadline to 23/10/2006, at which point, I've advised them, I'll be taking court action if we haven't reached a satisfactory outcome.

[avapoet]

• 23/10/2006 - in accordance with my threat, I filled in my N1 form today: I'll be visiting my local court to drop it and my schedule of charges (now with interest) to them tomorrow; total claim is £593 charges, £50.90 interest @ 8%, £80 court fees = £723.90.

[avapoet]

Since my last message:

• I filed my N1 form, as I indicated.
  
• NatWest wrote to me, concerned that I had not responded to their offer of settlement and saying that if I didn't respond within 10 days they would assume I was satisfied and close the matter.
  
• I responded to NatWest, including a copy of the recorded delivery slip, signed by a member of their branch staff three days earlier than they wrote their letter. For their clarification, I also re-included my letter and a note to explain that as the deadline had now passed I had filed a court claim.

So; those of you who've dealt with NatWest before: I'm curious -

• How far have people had to go with NatWest before they got their money back? I'm willing, of course, to go as far as it takes, but I'd be interested to hear about other people's expiences.
  
• More relevant: how common is it for NatWest to get arsey and close people's accounts after this? Even after they've returned the money they took from me, I'll still have an overdraft of over £1000 that I'd rather not have to negotiate for elsewhere, and so a little bit of warning would be desirable.

Thanks to everybody for their support so far.

[avapoet]

• 03/11/06 - Received a letter from the infamous Stuart Higley reasserting NatWest's position and telling me that if I really want to sue, where to direct the letter (of course, by this time, my claim has already been accepted by the court, and to the right address already).
  
• 11/11/06 - Less than 24 hours before I file a request for judgment, NatWest finally accept my suggested settlement: the full sum of my claim, plus the court costs (I offered to waive the interest if they had a cheque IN MY HAND before I was able to file for a judgment).

So: I've won!!! The bank claims that the reason it didn't defend in court was that it was "not commercially viable or cost effective" for them to do so. Yeah right.

 

I'm going to celebrate with a nice big pub lunch, and, when the cheque clears, make a donation to the forums. A huge thank you to everybody on here: at long last I've gotten back at them for every time they stung me for money I didn't have as a penalty for not having the money in the first place.