Could do better, could do worse (Natwest Bank)

Member Name: BumpyBump

Product:	Natwest Bank
Date:	18/09/09 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The staff are always very polite and responses tend to be quick

Disadvantages: Sometimes they're not interested in you as a customer.

I have held a NatWest account for 11 years. I went with NatWest purely because there's a family history and not because of reputation or similar. I have had both good and bad experiences with NatWest throughout this time and the service has ranged from excellent to poor. Here are some examples:

The good: my switch card was cloned and three amounts of £5 each were withdrawn from my account in one day to pay for mobile phone top-ups. Luckily I picked up on this within a day and called NatWest to tell them and, without a quibble, they cancelled my card and refunded the £15 to me.

The bad: a replacement card had to be sent to me three different times because the first two never arrived. Not necessarily NatWest's fault but why, after the first missing card, did they not send my card to me by recorded post? It took 9 weeks before I actually had a new card and in the interim I was having to keep going into a branch and withdrawing cash using a chequebook and passport which was incredibly inconvenient.

The good: a fraudulent Direct Debit was set up for my account and £12,500 was debited from my account before 'bouncing'. When I spoke to customer services about it they were very helpful, and when I wrote to them requesting a refund of the £38 bounced DD charge their written responses were always very thorough and speedy.

The bad: the responses I was getting was that it was not their responsibility to refund the charge even though I had looked into it legally and I was in the right, and they acknowledged the legality of it but still refused to refund the money. It took three letters of complaint before I had my money refunded.

The good: whenever I phone them about my overdraft the phone is always answered promptly and the staff are always very friendly.

The bad: you can never speak to the relevant person straight away and I am often told that I will be called back but then days go by and I hear nothing so have to call again. Also, when I called once to ask for a £100 extension on a £500 overdraft (as my wage hadn't come through when promised) I got a lecture about poor money-management from the member of staff which I felt was totally unnecessary.

Summary: NatWest are a bit hit-and-miss when it comes to customer service.