I have just been fined 30 from NatWest for not having enough cash in my account to cover a 20 standing order. Does it really cost NW 30 as they claim to do this? Isn't it all automatically done now? Incidentally the s/o was to myself at another bank - I know that makes no difference, but the point is they are not spending aeons dealing with some obscure company.
If it's a one off and you have been with them a while they will probably let you off - it's their way of penalising people who a persistently poor at managing their account which I can only agree with.
No, the charge has gone through and been deducted. Should I appeal against this do you think?
What do other readers think about this?
If you've NEVER done it before and will NEVER do it again write them a letter saying so and that you think its veyr unfair - they might well refund it. My ex-h managed this at Barclays anyway.
Why not change the date of standing orders to make it so it never happens again?
In theory, the charge might be void under the Unfair Contract Terms legislation - or as unenforceable penalty. Before computers, there could be an argument that 30 reflected the cost to the bank, but less so now, IMHO.
Of course, NatWest could refund you and tell you to go elsewhere.
Incidentally
The fun thing is that today I got a letter also fining me 20 for going over the overdraft limit. 30 for the s/o and 20 for this!
So whose fault is that then? [ Clue, its not the banks ]
Could you please explain to the OP (i.e myself) exactly when I claimed that the bank was to blame for my errors?
It was my fault, I just felt they were being slightly harsh and was wondering if a letter might suffice, in having them negate the fine.
Thank you for the stunning and highly useful contribution to intelligent and informed debate.
How much less so?
The bank could argue that it still needs to pay someone to write the software, engineers to keep the system running, people to improve on it, people to do random checks. the costs are still there, just not as direct as paying someone to deal with it directly
It could have been argued just as strongly before that the real cost of doing it wasn't as much as £30 as well.
I would lke to see the court case though :)
I agree that it might be more difficult to quantify. Unfortunately, 30, IMHO, is not totally unreasonable, but still on the high side for this type of "transgression".
We'll be getting penalised for paying with notes for things that cost pence in shops next for wasting the cashier's time counting out the change...
I personally hate dealing in cash and look forward to the day that something along the lines of mondex replaces cash.
It may take a long time and a lot of letters before getting any satisfactory conclusion, and may be more stress than it's worth.
Having been through this before (with Natwest also *spit*) you should check your accounts thoroughly in the next couple of days - on top of the £30 SO reversal and £20 overdraft 'fee', you may also find their £3.50 daily 'fee' for continuing to be over the OD limit as well as a
29% or so interest charge on all of the above.It took us close to eight months and a file to the Banking Ombudsman before our complaints to NatWest went higher than the drone and something was actually done.
Shano
I'm sure I read in one of the newsgroups that some people have had success in writing to the bank invoicing them for the time taken in reading the bank's correspondence re the charges! A Google groups search should dig this up.
Unfortunately the banks subsequently tend to tell you to take your business elsewhere :)
A relative had a similar myriad of charges from natwest when she went into the branch to transfer 150 money from a charity deposit account to the current account to cover some cheques they had just issued in a meeting, only problem was they typed the account numbers in the wrong way round and transferred the money from the current account to the deposit account instead. This put them into the red, natwest charged a account referal charge (why??? my understanding is that that is for someone looking at it and deciding whether to allow you over the limit and surely common sense dictates it is unlikely to want to transfer money to a deposit account that you don't have) for the transfer and then serveral more referal fees and unauthorised overdraft fees for each cheque that they let through.
The first that was known was 3 weeks later when the statement turned up, she eventually managed to (after several more weeks) get the charges refunded and the transfer corrected. Then the interest notification turned up which led to another battle to get the interest refunded.
What really got me was everytime you spoke to anyone it genrated a customer satisfaction survey a few day later in the post!!!!
Chris
"Chris" wrote
Did she let them know how "satisfied" she was with their service?! ;-)
Oh yes, most certainly... by mistake she ended up with 30 "compensation" as they managed to c*ck up the refund and payback to many charges!
BeanSmart website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.