New charges on unused account

[sparky001]

Hi everyone, can anybody advise me please?

 

My wife has a Nationwide flex account which she has not used since opening a new bank account 2 years ago.

I noticed last year that her statement from this account was £15 overdrawn, must have been this way for 2yrs

as all direct debits etc were cancelled when she opened her new account.

 

After getting a statement today we noticed that the account is now £75 overdrawn as for the past 3 months they have charged her £20 pm for an unarranged overdraft.

 

Firstly, can they do this?

and if they can why now and not anytime over the last 2 years?

How do we approach them to ask them to think again?

she does not need or use the account so can she close it to stop anymore charges or does she have to pay the overdrawn amount before she can close it?

 

Any help is greatly appretiated.

[BankFodder]

I think that this is a BCOBS issue.

 

Read up on BCOBS - then come back here - although as you have been around since 2006, I hope that you may be familiar with the issues already

[sparky001]

So whats the best form of action? ive reclaimed bank charges before but that was a long time ago and me thinks they are wise to that now...

[jo5ephedward5]

they've just changed all there accounts so I wouldn't be surprised if they've changed her account to a different one that has kicked the overdraft charges into action.

[sparky001]

Will have to check that. Im going to write to them and ask them to close the account and wipe all charges or im going to complain to FSA.

Fingers crossed they wipe it.