@natwest_help Their 12p!! 'Banking Errors' consitently break loan a repayment agreement -they deactivate my debit cards too!

[karlmo]

Hi,

 

I took out a personal loan with Natwest about four years ago.

 

About eighteen months ago I became unemployed and the bank put me onto a financial hardship agreement

whereby after disclosing my ingoings and outgoings I was able to offer a token amount each month.

 

After finallly finding work I learned that there where arrears on the repayment account of £650 in interest alone.

 

Another arrangement was made in October 2011 to make two payments every month - one for the actual loan reapayment and one to cover the interest arrears.

 

In November 2011

I received a letter saying the repayment had defaulted and the agreement broken, this even though I had obtained statements showing these repayments.

 

When I queried the letter the Natwest I was eventually told that a banking error had caused a deficit of 7p on my repayment, thus causung the arrangement to break.

I was reassured that the error was not on my part and the agreement was reset.

 

That was Nov 2011.

Since then the same thing has happened every month, with the agreement being reset.

I was compensated £50 by the bank in June or July 2012

(Incidentally a letter which was generated and read out to me by a member of their Collections Dept informing me of the compensation was never recieved by m e,

nor have several other communications).

 

When the agreement is broken, they deactivate my debit cards, and i've found myself in the situation where i've been in resteraunts having my card refused because of this.

The most recent inconvenience was on Christmas Day when I learned that yet again the agreement had broken (12p this time) and my card was unuseable.

 

Christmas Day...I then found out that their collections dept - who where the only people who could unblock the card - would not be available until Dec 27th.

 

A member of their customer services team actually said to me that he had spoken to another lady that same morning with the same complaint

and he'd turned around and said there was nothing he could do. To say I was curt is an understatement.

 

The matter is yet again in the hands of the Complaints Dept. who have assured me a letter will be sent detailing the situation, and the banks actions to prevent it from happenning again.

 

I've gone beyond monthly rages to a wierd state of blissfull acceptance, but will certainly be closing all my accounts with Natwest once my loan is paid in full.

 

Is there any further action I can take though?

 

I'm livid at the thought of a company with Billion pound profits can operate such shoddy procedures (although considering what happened in the Summer it barely surprises).

 

All the best!

[dx100uk]

Hi karlmo

 

BCOBS!!

 

that disgusting.

 

their error and they block your account debit cards.!!

 

have a read of the BCOBS stuff

 

dx

[karlmo]

Hi there, many thanks for your reply and the link. I'll pour over the BCOBS stuff and hopefully absorb it with enough understanding to not be further allowed to be inconvenienced by the bank's ineptitude. Cheers!

[karlmo]

So would Natwest's actions as I described them be interpreted as, 'Reneging on an instalments agreement by, for instance, by beginning recovery measures directly or through an agent while the agreement is in place.' ? (Taken from the 'Examples of Unfair Practice' forum).

 

You'll have to forgive my apparent naivety....I've never been very good a dechiphering legal/financial jargon!