Just reading about the Graduate Overdraft Repayment Plan they mention on the website - nothing found in a search of Natwest site... and only a few comments on it on varied other sites... Interesting how she arranged repayment without being told about the repayment plan... And as BCOBS provides a general duty to look consider the best interests of the customer, Natwest seem to have missed a few key elements out. Will write up a BCOBS letter and mention all the things they've neglected to mention as well. Any contributions appreciated guys

ssett, you're a star. Checking that link says the first year was interest free, year 2 was under 1 k - also interest free, year 3 was under 500 - also interest free, or SHOULD have been until they ran it through the mangle... It's a dormant account that's gone from sub 500 to 2.5k in under six months due solely to charges, with no communication from the bank at all. Definitely BCOBS, wouldn't you say?

Hi Klandestine, thanks for responding Neglected to mention - it was a graduate account when the arrangement was made. The arrangement was made on a phone call, when informing them the main account would now be with another bank... of course the arrangement went on for three years, but for some reason interest did accrue, and at an extortionate rate for the last few months... Any thoughts?

FYI see if you can remove those attachments from the first post... definitely edit those out if you can mate.

Just posted a very similar thread myself... Noticed in your letter the bank state 'there is no other legal challenge'... Two things for you to think on: The first is BCOBS The second is the new FCA investigation: http://www.consumeractiongroup.c o.uk/forum/showthread.php?422802-What-the-FCA’s-latest-investigation-means-for-free-banking(1-Viewing)-nbsp

Hi all, thanks for reading. Girlfriend is having trouble with Natwest. We would greatly appreciate some guidance on this, as it seems a pretty serious mickey take by the bank. Brief outline: Opened account as a child. Used as main account through to uni. Became student account, eventually entered student overdraft. Usual student account kept in good standing with working as well. When leaving uni had overdraft. Got a graduate job. New employer requires employees to bank with another firm. Girlfriend does this as a term of the work contract. She calls Natwest, outlines this and says the new account will be her main one as it is where the money goes. She checks the outstanding o/d balance of about £1400 and makes an agreement with the Customer Service Assistant on the call - to make a payment of £35 every month to pay off the overdraft. She made this payment every month for 3 years. It is her only account with Natwest. Other than the monthly payment – that has never been missed - there has been no activity on the account at all. The account has not been used in any way for the last three years. Yesterday we got a letter from Natwest saying things 'were now serious - but we can still help'... she called to ask what was going on. Turns out they 'changed the terms and conditions' a few months ago (4 or 5 I think), but they didn't send us a letter; she was told they emailed her (to an old email that is still checked occasionally) and we knew nothing about it. We cannot find this email. They also say she's had two other letters (all in the last 3 weeks) but we haven't received them. As I say, we’ve had this address for 5 years, and we got a letter yesterday, so this seems odd to say the least. Today we received a letter from a DCA regarding the same account. Seems they were trying to trace her... at her home address (to be fair that's a good place to start). The account has snowballed. They introduced daily charges, increased interest well beyond the regular payment amount and breezed past the overdraft limit last month. This then drew unarranged overdraft fees and charges for not paying enough in... you get the picture. She now owes nearly double what she owed 3 years ago despite making monthly payments for 3 years... During the call yesterday the she clearly voiced her outrage at the situation – but they offered no goodwill at all and she was told ‘the charges are fair’ and ‘all in line with the T&C’s’... They were told to expect a formal complaint. Surely they can’t do this???? Could really use a hand with this to make sure we get it right: From what I can see there are a few clear breaches of BCOBS. 1/ They have to notify changes by post – email isn’t enough. 2/ They can’t default an account unless there have been no payments for 3 months. 3/ A payment agreement (though informal) was made with them 3 years ago – and stuck to. 4/ It is a snowballed account. 5/ They have clearly acted against her interests. FCA investigation also seems interesting: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?422802-What-the-FCA’s-latest-investigation-means-for-free-banking(1-Viewing)-nbsp Now I’m sure there’s something else or something I’ve just missed, so any help or advice is gratefully received. There are some pro's on here who could definitely help out with the letter

The Sale of Goods Act (SOGA) provides a statutory right that products should be free from fault. for the first six months after purchase it is assumed any fault was there from the start, and so your dad's laptop, if faulty now (especially after repairs) would be viable for refund, replacement or repair. If it is still faulty. Have you asked him if it's faultless? Ignore their 7 day period for returns, that only applies if you change your mind. If a product is faulty, they have a legal obligation to make reparations. Also ignore the fact their reciepts say they will forward such concerns to the product manufacturer - they do not have that right. If there is anything still wrong with it then you have grounds to request a refund or replacement. Doesn't matter if you've had it for four months, or even five months and three weeks. Further, you do not have to prove a fault exists; they have to prove it does not (if they wish to challenge you). After six months though, this changes. The question is have you checked the laptop is fault free? The posts below seem to assume it is. If it is, then yes, there isn't much you can do, but if there actually is a fault with it then I for one would not accept a repair after it had already been repaired by them, and clearly to an unsatisfactory level... Check the laptop bud, you never know.

Just drafted a short but sweet hardball letter that covers all of the above, plus some other stuff for good measure. Should make them think twice, and only the header needs altering for new DCA's. Lots of big bold lines. Which is nice.

Many thanks. I'll have to write some more letters. I know they aren't the most catious or thorough of businesses, but you'd think a certain amount of due diligence was to be expected...

Letters were sent to both OC and their in-house DCA.

Interesting - so they aren't informed that a debt is not enforceable, nor that it is disputed? Thanks

Sent a number of letters to OC several months ago: many repayment offers, CCA request, Account in Dispute, In Writing Only and anti-Doorstep letters. Account has since been passed to the DCA merry-go-round. None of the DCA's are taking any notice. Question: How many (if any) of these letters sent to OC have any bearing on later DCA activity?

Mr Hague just figured out who you are lol

Good to know. Thanks for clearing that one up, Erika.

Cameron is stopping tax credits. No more 'better off in work' for you, my friend. Cannot comment on prescriptions or eye tests, but imho you'll have those bills too soon enough. SueP, the issue here is that successive governments have run the country into the ground. Doubt i'll ever own a home. Doubt i'll ever have a pension. Doubt i'll ever earn a living wage. And this is despite being a graduate. I don't claim any benefits, but I do pay off my 'student loans' and eat one meal a day because i cannot afford anything more. Student loans = sizeable pension payments. So i pay off a pension before i can save for a pension. i could do both but then i would not eat. What is wrong with the country? Simple answer is your generation destroyed it utterly. We're a puppet of the un-elected EU dictatorship (the ONLY parliament in the world that cannot alter laws - they are set by the overseers we cannot even elect). We are lorded over by a bunch of toffs who DID NOT WIN AN ELECTION. And we cannot make ends meet while we watch [problem] artists take home millions for failing at their jobs and usurpers like Cameron telling us we now have to do with less because he really wants to give £180 billion per year (more than our ENTIRE deficit) to the EU to build, what, sewers in effing Poland? We've done more than enough for Poland imho. Sue, if you wish to suggest we need to take some responsibility then I would politely suggest you take some yourself, for your part in destroying our once great nation. It is your generation who did it: From Empire to Puppet; on your watch, love. And we're left to pick up the pieces. So please, please do not complain about us being unhappy with our lot. Anyone under 30 is blameless. They didn't get a vote when Blair won. And more than that, these politicians are all the same. So thanks to your entire generation for sorting that out and giving us all a viable alternative. The truth is simple: our inheritance has been blown by our parents. Back to the Victorian era within ten years. Except now without an Empire. And our jewel - India - has taken all the work away. Kudos. FYi to be in the top ten percent of earners in the entire nation do wyou know what you need to earn? 43,000 per year. 5 x 43 = 215. UK House Prices. Average house price £232628. Even the top ten percent of earners in the country would struggle to get an average mortgage. I bet you did.

I live in a city and we seldom see nine pages of jobs. Three things to look out for: How many of these jobs are advertised 'on behalf of x who is operating as an employment agency'. These often prove very damaging as temporary work can end a claim and leave you with nothing. People generally should not apply for these, but often do due to sheer desperation. How many of these are bona fide? Often the jobcentre is used to post jobs that are not actual jobs, or are not what they purport to be. An example would be listing a job under a professional title only to find it is in fact for a general dogsbody. And businesses use this free, unchecked advertising to promote services and they simply want to pass on your information. Often NMW is not enough, no. If you work for 40 hours at £6 you can make 240pw, minus 25% tax = 180. 720 per month IS more, but you now have the liability for all of your bills - Council tax (£100), Rent (£350), leaving you with the same money you made on a giro and more things to pay for. How do you get to and from work? How do you eat at work? It will cost you say £5 a day more than it would looking for work, and this means you are now still earning £67 pw and spending £25 a week more. That remaining £42.50 still has to pay for the expenses of living - food, water, heating, replacement of clothing, etc, etc. This post started because there are no jobs that pay a living wage. And even more than this, as posted above by blue, you most probably will not get that shelf-stacking job anyway because there is someone out there who is a better fit - maybe they are a no-brainer who is likely to stay there forever, maybe they have that elusive NVQ in 'product placement and merchandising', maybe they know the boss... All we know for sure is we get rejected. Honestly. And it is easy to suspect that ageism is often a factor - why should they employ a 25 or 50 year old shelf stacker, waiter or cleaner when they can employ a 17 year old and pay over a pound an hour less? Blue: "Maybe they will make all the single people pair off into couples so they can save even more money on housing benefits and sickness benefits by placing sick people with fit and working partners! I hope Cameron doesn't look at this website - I think I may have just given him another loony policy idea!" He's already had that one: http://www.bromsgrove.gov.uk/cms/pdf/EOY%20Insert%20-%20Final%20Version.pdf The smallprint tells you this - the 'shared room rate' for under 25s now applies to under 35s. If you are under 35 you are only entitled to a bedsit and must live in close proximity to others... The intention may well be what you laid out above.

Or you could relocate anywhere you wanted to. This could be because you wanted to be near family or because you believe there is a better chance of finding work there. Move to London = more chance of finding work. The bigger the city the better the chance. Start with the property imho.

On the one had there is this disturbing info - with a stroke, which affects the blood flow to the brain - there can always be brain damage that cannot be readily detected. Therefore it would be ridiculous of anyone to presume you are perfectly fit and able to resume your usual duties after having one. Stroke or TIA. Once, not twice. I'm afraid I cannot offer more concrete information regarding your situation, but I can say this with certainty: You CANNOT be expected to exceed your previous capacity for work.

Agreed. And while they're at it they systematically defraud the public by issuing targets for DWP staff to 'lose' the entitlement of their claimants, set up the ATOS nonsense where every vulnerable claimant is dragged through a system of biased assessment that ensures they will have to work - even though it's highly unlikely they ever could find any - and all the while those of us who are truly able go from course to course to effin course only to find it was all a waste of our effing time because, what, we didn't get to go to Eton like almost everyone on our effing ballot papers every single time we have a chance to raise our effing voices? Well, I feel the same way. And don't worry too much. I went and figured out how to change the world. Really. I did. All I need is one hundred grand. So worry about this: 1/ Will I ever make 100 grand? 2/ Will I live long enough to spend it? And on that note feel free to scream and shout and rant and rage. Highly likely it'll never happen, because I'm just not toff enough. And who would effing want to be?

You must have a case or your claim would not have been accepted. If you leave a job voluntarily you have no entitlement to JSA. Never mind sanctions, you cannot claim at all. Same is true if you are dismissed for gross misconduct. In short, gettting sacked or leaving work means no benefit entitlement at all. If I'm wrong here, someone please correct me (flumps?).

Crisis Loan may help. One of the tickets that Cameron announced was simplifying the relocation of the unemployed to help them take up work elsewhere in the country. I don't have time to research this for you right now and I doubt you want to wait, so google it yourself - for now - and if you can find enough ammo write him a letter. Hell, if you're having that hard a time then who better to help than a PM who promised to? I'll see what I can dig up asap.

sage advice

Yes, they will.

On the DCA paying us note, has anyone thought of using an 0844 number for all correspondence and applications? You can redirect these numbers to any number just by typing it into the website... or even disconnect it the same way. It's free, too. http://www.heart-telecom.com/business-phone-numbers/0844-phone-numbers.html Make a penny per minute for all of those annoying calls. Due to their persistence, it may mean you actually do make a small profit... and even if you don't, it still costs them to hassle you... 110% discount anyone?

As an interesting aside around 1 in 100 Americans are in prison. With a population of around 300 million, this means near 3 million people are locked up. Many prisons are privately run. Many prisons have the inmates work. They are not paid. Many prisons operate as factories, producing goods such as military equipment. Are these fundamentally different schemes? I remember reading New Deal leaflets when it was first introduced, around the time the minimum wage was introduced. There was a scheme where people could opt into street cleaning duties. For a £15 increase in their JSA payments they could work as litter pickers for 35 hours a week.