NatWest OD facility letters

[pj2017]

Well, apparently it is day 25 and Natwest are still going to deal with my SAR request - so that is a positive.

[Ford]

they'll prob either send in bits and pieces up to deadline, or send their lot just before the 40 days are up. of course if what they have sent after 40 seems incomplete, then complain further.

Edited October 13, 2012 by Ford

[Mike_hawk]

they'll prob either send in bits and pieces up to deadline, or send the lot just before the 40 days are up.

 

Or not at all

 

Natwest is a bit of a shocker when it comes to DPA compliance

[Ford]

thought that with the personal 'intervention', they would at least send something within the 40. though prob not complete!

[pj2017]

Well, I received a reply from RBS (for NaWest) today. They told me an account with an outstanding unrepaid overdraft cannot be "effectively dormant", as all it means is that there is no money in the account, and so that is the reason why I'm not using it.

 

One positive thing is that they have refunded £18 in charges. I have until now mainly carried on paying the interest, and so have incurred few extraordinary charges, other than interest - and so there is only £18 to refund. Also they have cancelled their decision to add £6 a day in overdraft charges.This is another positive, as that would have rapidly added a three-figure sum onto the outstanding balance.They said that as their Collections Team have been managing my account since February, and as their policy is that no charges should be added to an account after an account has been with Collections for 32 days, I should have been exempt from account charges in March - and so it was a "technical glitch" that I have recently been informed I would get £6 a day added onto the account. I think this alone makes my emailing Gary Stewart as Mike Hawk suggested worthwhile - thanks Mike.

 

They won't stop adding on interest - and have not explained how, whereas if I tried to pay another bill from the account the transaction woudl bounce, their own interest additions never bounce. I think this is an odd feature of overdrafts, that banks can go in and just add on interest even though the limit has already been reached. They said they will only stop adding on interest when the account goes to the Recoveries Team and a default notice and formal demand are issued. Curiously enough, they said that at that point I would be asked to make alternative banking arrangements - which shows that it is indeed possible to close an account with an outstanding balance!

 

They confirmed the SAR request is being dealt with - but did not respond specifically as to whether, as I suggested, any failure to supply me with the original terms and conditions and all overdraft facility letters will in itself constitute unfair banking practice, as it would make it difficult for me to legally defend myself. I may drop them a note pointing this out.

 

They say I applied for an overdraft of £900 in March 2003 - this is too far back for me to recall myself - and there have been no further scored applications since, and yet the limit was more than trebled by them to £3150 and has been at its current level since March 2006. This is also too far back for me to recall what happened, but their explanation means that I did not ask for this limit to be trebled - they have no record that I asked for that to happen - and they, between 2003 and 2006, increased it without my applying for it. They said that I have had over 6 years to ask for this increased limit to be removed should I have wished to do so.

 

My next step is really waiting for the SAR response by 27th.

[robcag]

 

.... They said they will only stop adding on interest when the account goes to the Recoveries Team and a default notice and formal demand are issued. ...

 

 

Strange how they secretly kept adding it in my case, and AFAIK could still be under the same delusion as the amount being chased by RobbingScum Way has increased somewhat over the amount of their discontinued court claim. (Although that could be caused by something else they've conjured up - I haven't been inclined to ask).

 

Persevere with forcing their hand regarding the 'Facility Letters' - either they can provide them or they can't! I suspect the latter, and if so it's a case of 'when' they admit that.

 

Rob

[Mike_hawk]

Hi pj

 

Could you post a copy of the letter [less identifiers], may be useful to pick a few holes in their response.

[pj2017]

I haven't got a scanner but I will type it up later today.

[Mike_hawk]

Ok, I'll take a look over the weekend

 

At least the immediate issue of it's slightly contentious £6.00 daily charge has been resolved for now

[pj2017]

Their letter said:

 

Thank you for your email addressed to Gary Stewart, Group Secretariat, and your continued patience while I investigated the points you raised. I have been asked to respond as I am a case manager within our Executive Office.

 

In order for clarity I will address the issues you have raised in your email to Gary Stewart, the letter to NatWest Collections Centre and your email to Mrs Acton, Group Customer Relations.

 

In your email to Gary you mention that you are concerned as you were unable to close your current account. Unfortunately this account is not 'effectively dormant' as you say, as it has an outstanding balance of £3164, which has been run up through general use. I appreciate that now you have exceeded the overdraft limit you are unable to use it as there are no funds available but that does not render the account dormant and we will be seeking repayment of this money before you close it. Alternatively you could reduce the balance to within the agreed borrowing limit and start using it for your day to day banking as you have done previously.

 

I am sorry to learn that you are experiencing financial difficulties and struggling to repay the overdraft. It is our policy that once an account has been with our Collections Team for over 32 days customers are exempt from account charges. Your charges should therefore have ceased in March 2012 but due to technical glitch this was not the case. The only charge that has been applied to your account since that date is £18 which was applied in September 2012; this has been refunded to you. Please accept my apologies for this error. As the charges have now stopped please disregard the letter you received in early October advising you will be charged £6 a day for being over your overdraft limit.

 

Interest will continue to be applied to the account in accordance with our published tariff. Please refer to http://www.natwest.co.uk for further information on this. The application of interest will stop when your account falls under the control of our Recoveries Team; an account is only moved to this team once a Default Notice and Formal Demand have been issued and is the final stage in the banks debt recovery process. It is my hope that a repayment arrangement can be agreed before your account reaches this stage as you will be asked to make alternative banking arrangements and any adverse data will be reported to the Credit Reference Agency and there may be credit implications for you for up to 6 years.

 

I can confirm that your Subject Access Request (SAR) has been received and is being dealt with at present. I am sorry that you received a letter from us saying that they can't process your request as they can't find a mortgage for you. When a SAR request is received asking the bank to supply copies of all data, in any form, over any period of time the SAR Team approach all areas of the bank to check their historic records. The Mortgage Team were one area that was contacted and they should have sent a letter explaining this and not one that suggested that nothing was being done as you have never held a mortgage with us. I am very sorry for the confusion this letter caused you. I have taken this forward with the team involved to avoid this happening to any other customers in future.

 

When a customer cancels a direct debit they need to do this not only with their banks but also with the originating company so they are aware this has been done. When HBOS requested the direct debit in October we returned it unpaid in line with your wishes and no charge was applied. The last payment you made to HBOS Card services was £41 in August.

 

Our records show that you applied for an overdraft limit of £900 and it was agreed in March 2003. There are no further scored applications since then and you have had the present limit of £3150 in place since March 2006. If you were unhappy with this limit, it is reasonable to expect that in the last six years you would have had the opportunity to ask the bank to reduce it or remove it completely.

 

I am pleased to read that you are interested in maintaining a dialogue to try and reach a way forward. Please contact our Collections Team on 0845 303 9015 and discuss with them the next steps and any repayment proposals you may have.

 

You do have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, although I hope that won't be necessary. I believe I have fully addressed your concerns but if you feel this is not the case or you have information that I have not considered, please let me know and I will take it into account. The best way to do this is to call or write to me and my contact details are noted above.

 

If you do not have further information for me to take into account then you may consider this to be the Bank's final response. If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome of my investigation you have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service and can do so for six months of the date of this letter. I enclose a copy of their leaflet for your information.

 

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to bring your concerns to our attention.

 

My thoughts:

1. The account is effectively dormant as it is not being used, and the only transactions on the account are interest being added. They claim that the account can't be closed - but clearly the letter says I will have to find alternative banking arrangements when the account goes to Recoveries Team - and so they are merely keeping the account open to add more interest on for a few months before sending it to the Recoveries Team. So their claim the account can't be closed seems nonsense.

 

2. They say I have exceeded the overdraft limit - but this is only because of the interest they are applying, and I asked them before the interest was applied to freeze the interest for a while and leave me within the correct limit, and they chose not to do so.

 

3. They suggest I reduce the balance to within the agreed limit, but this would require me constantly putting funds in to keep the balance within the limit, while they are constantly adding interest on. So what they are asking me to do is pay in £50 a month for ever to keep the balance just within £3150, allowing them to derive a constant income stream from this. This is just usury. Usury is very different from a proper credit agreement and is a form of peonage where the balance is never paid off.

 

4. There is no discussion of the legal basis for constantly adding interest onto a dormant account or any attempt to connect this to the original Terms and Conditions.

 

5. They ask for me to discuss payment arrangements with the Collections Team by phone, although they are aware I don't want phone contact with the bank. So they are just saying: phone and agree to pay, but I don't agree that they should be applying interest to a dormant account, so why would I phone to suggest that I pay this?

 

6. As it is a week until the 40 days for the SAR request are up, I may have to delay a response until then. If they don't send the SAR details through, I may argue that that is in itself unfair, as how can I defend myself legally against these overdraft claims unless I can see the legal basis on which they are making the claims. I specifically asked the Group Executive Team in an email last week if they agreed that if they failed to supply the SAR details this would in itself be a sign of unfair banking practices, but she has not responded on this point.

 

7. In sum, they have refused to suspend interest on an account they know is not being used for any purpose.

 

8. Their explanation of how the high limit to the overdraft came about seems lame - it is clear I never requested it.

[pj2017]

Another thing is the technical glitch that caused £6 a day charges to be added (now cancelled): I bet this technical glitch affects nearly everyone with an overdraft over the limit and that most people on CAG with NatWest overdraft problems could get these charges cancelled by simply emailing Gary Stewart as I did.

Edited October 20, 2012 by pj2

[Mike_hawk]

Has it previously demanded the return of cards, chequebooks and the cancellation of d/d's and s/o's on the account?

 

Can the account be serviced for anything but collection or are there [assuming funds credited] means to draw from the account?

[pj2017]

No - they did not demand return of the card, although I sent it back in bits to them. I have no recent chequebook although I do have an old one issued more than 10 years ago that has some remaining cheques in it. They did not ask for d/ds to be cancelled - I cancelled them myself. So no direct debits or standing order set up (I cancelled them), no debit card - and apart from a very old chequebook that I am not sure I can use there is no way for me to draw on the account. I have online banking set up, and so if funds were credited to the account, I could go into the online banking system and transfer the funds out, and to that extent, yes I could use it - but you see I asked in the branch to close the account down, so if there are remaining facilities that could be used in one way or another it is only because they won't close them.

[Mike_hawk]

I was considering whether it had done it's usual and recalled everything effectively presenting it as non capable of serving as a current account facility.

 

I'd be inclined to wait on the SAR... it will however still fail, it may be useful to sue when it does.

 

I'll have a think about it's letter, no rush in the short term to respond to it.

[Ford]

re letter, they acknowledge financial difficulties but won't stop interest until in recoveries and defaulted. seems contrary to the Lending Code that they subscribe to? or is that their given 'reason' for not being sympathetic/proactive ie not following their own Code? and yet they hope to come to a repayment arrangement before then? what with interest still being charged? seems a mockery of the Code and the 'contact us when in difficulties'?

Edited October 21, 2012 by Ford

[Mike_hawk]

Additionally appears to be a breach of BCOB 5.1.1 & 5.1.4

[Mike_hawk]

PJ

 

Have you read this link http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/content.php?829-Charges-successfuly-reclaimed-from-RBS-last-year

[pj2017]

Well Mike, that refers to a case where the bank conceded it shoudl not have paid a cheque that took the account into unauthorised OD. In my case, there are NO transactions on the account apart from interest (which alone has taken me into unauthorised OD) and no charges. I wil look at BCOB, but need to wait to see if I get any SAR request by this coming Saturday.

[Mike_hawk]

Hi PJ, the link is an example. It's the act of unfairness itself which is the issue, BCOB 5.1.1 & 5.1.4 would be effective. Wait on the SAR for now as it may give you 2 angles to attack this from. If I get time tonight I'll draft something for you [re BCOB] as it may help explain your position

[pj2017]

er... 39 in and still no SAR. Unless it arrives over the weekend, they're not going to hit the deadline. Do people agree that although the SAR deadline is not important to the banks, it does provide proof of unfair management of the account, as it fails to allow the customer to defend their interests in the account?

[Ford]

surprising that they haven't at least sent something within the 40 days given all the personal intervention!

in one case for eg, different bank, they sent something within 40 but it was wholly incomplete, took them around 3/4 mths to send all data in tranches following letters from consumer after each tranche. complaint upheld, compensation received.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Ford

[pj2017]

surprising that they haven't at least sent something within the 40 days given all the personal intervention!

in one case for eg, different bank, they sent something within 40 but it was wholly incomplete, took them around 3/4 mths to send all data in tranches following letters from consumer after each tranche. complaint upheld, compensation received.

 

well, I will give them two more days and send them a letter/email on Monday - clearly this is going to be a long issue with NatWest

[pj2017]

NatWest have started adding charges to my dormant overdraft again. I finally got round to emaiing them over their unsatisfactory reply to me, and this is what I wrote:

 

Thank you for your letter explaining your investigation into my account and for refunding the £18 fee on October 18th. Unfortunately, your explanation that it is just a “technical glitch” that a fee was applied to my acccount, seeing as you don’t apply fees to accounts that have been with your Collection Team for more than 32 days, seems a little awkward, given that on October 26th a further £48 in fees were applied to my account. You told me to disregard the letter I received on October 5th saying that I would be charged £6 a day for a supposed unarranged overdraft, but clearly NatWest is continuing to add these charges. I don’t think they are a technical glitch. The number of customers who contact the Group Executive Office must be a small proportion of the whole, and so NatWest must have guessed most people will not query the charges. You either know what you’re doing when you run a bank or you don’t. I presume that banks do know why they are putting charges on accounts, and there are no technical glitches—just a deliberate breach of the Banking: Conduct of Business Regulations and/or the Conduct of Business Sourcebook that banks are meant to abide by. Please remove these charges and ensure no supposed “technical glitches” recur.

 

I received another letter from NatWest on October 29th, claiming I was in an “unarranged overdraft”, although I have borrowed nothing from the account recently. In other words, you have put interest and charges (see above) on my account in order to artificially put me in “unarranged overdraft” despite my lack of new borrowing on the account.

 

I emailed Gary Stewart and then emailed Mrs Acton, Group Customer Relations, on October 4th, and then received a letter from you on October 18th. I am copying Mrs Acton into this reply of mine, as I don’t really understand why my correspondence is passed to so many people. Apart from the fact that you are continuing to add charges onto my account, after telling me I am exempt from them, I wish to raise these things:

 

1) My subject access request is now well overdue, and I don’t believe NatWest is dealing with it properly. I specifically asked Mrs Acton in my email to her whether she accepted that failure to provide the SAR details was evidence of unfair management of my account, because it leaves me without the details I need to see the legal basis (if any) for your demands for money from me, the constant application of interest to an account that I no longer use (I cut my debit card up and sent it back) and the only “transactions” on which are your interest and charges, and your refusal to freeze the balance and allow me to pay towards the actual debt, and not just make usurious interest payments to you that turn an old debt (part of which is made up of interest and charges) into a constant income stream for you. How can I legally defend the account if you won’t provide these details? And why does NatWest think the law regarding supply of these details in 40 days doesn’t apply to them? There is no point in replying and saying you are dealing with it: you are required to deal with it within 40 days, and you haven’t, and so you have already breached the law. Clearly your claim in your letter that you have fully addressed my concerns is untrue, as you have not managed to convince RBS/NatWest to provide me with the details I need—things that I may need to defend my case when your collection/recovery actions proceed to court.

2) I did mention in my email to Mrs Acton the need for banks to treat their customers fairly, but you have blithely ignored that. Banks are covered by the Banking: Conduct of Business Regulations (BCOBS) requiring them to “provide a service in relation to a retail banking service which is prompt, efficient and fair to a banking customer”. The BCOBS is part of the wider Conduct of Business Sourcebook (COBS), which applies to all firms regulated by the FSA, including the requirement that “a firm must pay due regard to the interests of its customers and treat them fairly” and that “a firm must manage conflicts of interest fairly, both between itself and its customers and between a customer and another client”. I am told COBS is now considered to be part of any contract, and failure to adhere to COBS may be actionable as breach of contract.

 

You did not refer once in your letter to the requirement to treat customers fairly and I am sure a request by a customer to suspend interest for six months allowing him to get on top of his finances is firmly within the area that is covered by these regulations that require banks to deal with customers fairly even where there is a conflict of interest between the customer and the bank. Paying due regard to the interests of its customers and treat them fairly also requires you to send me through the SAR details, as my interests are severely compromised by your failure to do so. I am suffering a very large cut in my income in my self-employed business and would not be asking for a suspension of usurious interest charges otherwise.

 

Can you reply to this letter? Or record it as an official complaint if you are unprepared to deal with this letter? Please reply on 1) your continued application of charges to my account; 2) how your failure to provide SAR details relates to your fairness obligations; and 3) how your refusal to suspend interest on my account while my income is facing a large fall-off relates to your fairness obligations.

[Ford]

seems ok. will be interesting to see what they say (am also about to use bcobs )

[pj2017]

OK, let me know what happens with your BCOBS and I'll let you know what NatWest say when I get another reply from them.