Natwest, Natworst more likely (Natwest Bank)

Member Name: kasgaroth

Product:	Natwest Bank
Date:	14/11/01 (414 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: they at least try to be polit when they make you totally angry

Disadvantages: they do not seem to know what they are doing

We all use accounts daily and little do we expect that they can go wrong for absolutely no fault of our own. This is my experience of Natworst as they currently seem to me. Well the story starts a few months ago when I got myself a lovely new Nokia 8210 on contract. What a lovely neat beautiful looking phone and how small and compact. So desirable by everyone. My phone was that desirable that only after 6 weeks the bloody thing got stolen. Well this was where the nightmare started. I had insurance for my phone and as was told by the operator I contacted the relevant departments to get my simcard and phone turned off to prevent massive amounts of abuse to get billed to me. No problems everything got turned off ok, but then when I tried to get my phones insurance company to replace the handset like promised. I just got the run-around so I then said well stuff this because I was not going have this and just cancelled my direct debit for the phone and the insurance. Well it was about eight or ten weeks after this that I got broken into at home but they did not take much only the smaller things and credit cards bank cards etc.

The first thing I done was cancel the credit cards before they were abused too much and infact only about £130.00 worth of fraud had been committed. Now needless to say that the cards were replaced and I had some excellent customer service to help me with it. They dealt with everything themselves getting the slips as evidence etc camera footage to try and capture the culprit?s etc. Anyway it took me all day to sort out the cards and I couldn?t be bothered to go through all that again with the bank yet. So I waited till the next day. Well I phoned their emergency number and informed them that my card was missing. Everything seemed to go really smooth as they told me that they would put a stop on my account from being able to be used by anyone with the card and I requested that my account be frozen till I could get in to see them. Well appa
rently this was no problem with them as with it being a current plus account including cheque books etc it was all to easy to commit fraud from this account with the correct details and info.

Everything seemed fine so far and with work commitments the days drifted by. It was a few weeks later and I still did not get the chance to get into the bank but I sent them a further letter apologising for this. Plus I just wanted to confirm that my account was sealed tight till I got in to sort it out and with the risks I asked for all my direct debits to be cancelled from this account. Well I decided that with what happened and for some personal reasons to move home. So it was after about two more weeks I wrote to them to tell them that I had moved. Well it took nearly four weeks for me to hear from the bank asking me to come in, as I had to sign a form to sort my account out. No problem as I now had a week?s holiday, so I went in. The staff was very friendly, as they wanted a specimen of my signature for their records. Well then I thought fine and asked the staff about whether I will be getting issued my new card soon and they said that I should have something in the post soon.

Something nagged at me though and I never really thought of it again, infact it was about two weeks later that I decided to apply for online banking so I can keep an eye on my account. It took nearly a further two weeks to get my letters from the bank to do this. There is something that I have to add before I go further and that is that with me thinking the bank had sorted out my account, I had started using my account again. Though I was very cautious and only started using this account for paying small bills etc and I had a direct debit for my tv licence out on this account. I have been using this account for just over a month now and I got my second letter with my registration code so I could activate my online banking. I had to download a small program and logged into my accou
nt.

What a shock greeted me then as even though I had been paying money into this account to pay bills and save a bit. My balance was still -£78.00. What I thought how the hell is this and what has happened to my bit savings that ive been putting in and the cash for the bills etc. I looked over the account and that is when I saw they were still paying a direct debit from the account when it was meant to have been stopped. As I had not been using this account for a while I had not been paying money in to cover anything. Well I got straight onto the phone. I was totally P***** off with them and asked them after I finally got through ? how the hell do I have a minus balance when I requested that my accounts direct debits be cancelled and my account be frozen till it was sorted out.

Well they were charging me about £20.00 every couple of days for charges that they were at fault for in the first place. The thing that struck me when they were trying to work out my account and what went wrong was several points. The first I told them that when I had reported my card stolen that I also told them I wanted my account stopped for security reasons and was told it had been. Here was the thing the cheeky so and so?s said they had no record of me contacting them, as there was no record of my reporting the card missing.

I thought eye eye what are they trying to pull here. I said that I have a crime number that I even gave over the phone to their emergency line number and then I was told that they do not keep call logs to verify this. Simply enough as I was wound up I said so do your staff sit there and just hit a keyboard to make it sound like they are working or do they just not have a clue or something because they told me my card was stopped etc. I was not taken this and said well how have you got my new address when on the same letter I had confirmed in writing what I had earlier said on the phone as I was concerned with not having my bank card repl
aced yet. They were a bit stuck on that one as how could they argue it they had to have received the letter or they would not have had my new address. I then said and another thing then how come the woman in my local branch never mentioned anything about this or mentioned anything about a replacement cashcard, in fact they gave me the impression that my account was fine. I then raised a bigger point, how come if I owe you money I have not had a statement off you in nearly 3 months. Or how can you claim a charge when you have not even sent me so much as one letter. We all know that?s what they do charge you for 1 letter telling you, you owe them money. But the thing was I should not have owed them so much as 1p and I then asked so what about the cash I have been paying in to cover my bills, you have been claiming that and my bills have not been paid so currently I am behind now and I asked so are you going to sort this out and and what happens if I was to end up neck deep in it with another company through them claiming my money.

Now we were at arguing point I had two of their so-called assistants trying to sort my account out, assistants more like hopeless pillocks. Well they said that it could take a few days to track things down but no matter what they do I am no longer staying with them. They knew an error was made on their behalf but they are too concerned to get the exact amounts sorted and to contact various people, who cares. Not me anymore I will wait and keep arguing as long as it takes to get all my cash back and then I will take great pleasure to go tell them exactly what to do with their accounts. There is no way that I am going to have anything to do with them again as they are just getting worse. Their staff seemed very poorly trained and they must just not have a clue at my local branch. Even though it is the only one in a large town centre they only ever have a maximum of three staff on in any one day.

In my eyes Natwest are defini
tely the Natworst of the banks available to you and one of the worst that I have ever had to deal with. I will probably keep updating this as things progress to let you know if they get their thumbs out of their ?? and sort things out or not.

p.s nearly forgot to tell you that the reason I mentioned the phone was because the fools were still paying for insurance etc for my phone that I had asked to be cancelled ages ago. This was even before my card was stolen or anything so they could not put the blame for their error onto this. What idiots.

UPDATE

well well after a bit more time spent on the phone to the customer service centre they finally agreed to repay all the charges that they made to my account. The person who handled my call today was polite and pleasent to deal with which leaves me to wonder why they do not train all their staff like this. Especially at my local branch who screwed everything up in the first place.

Summary: