I joined the National Westminster Bank when I was a teenager. Why? Because my parents banked there. And so it has been throughout my entire life. Mainly I’ve used friendly semi-rural branches and I have to say that at personal level the NatWest (as it became many moons ago) has been very reliable.
It’s at the business level that I have to gripe. Practically every contact I have ever had with NatWest business managers about my business account (now nearly 12 years’ old) have been unsatisfactory. What amazes me is that my experience can be so bad when I ask for so little. I do not go overdrawn, I don’t borrow from them – tried that, see below. No I pay a minimal (but still painful to my mind) sum to them to keep my money safe and to offer me a pitiful interest rate on my reserve account.
Over those twelve years I have discovered that, though I usually keep my current account obscenely buoyant, on two occasions when I’ve needed a quick loan/overdraft it’s been (a) impossible to contact “my” manager immediately because sometime they haven’t even had one assigned to me (b) to enter into any arrangement at short notice, and (c) to do so without putting a charge on my house! I ended up lending my company a couple of grand from my own personal finances the last time. It was far easier.
The Nat West in its catalogue of dealings with me dropped a direct debit arrangement without telling me because they said I’d gone too long without using it and misled me about whether or not other banks would do the same.
The then business manager made an appointment with me to talk about a complaint and failed not only to keep the appointment, but even to contact me to apologise after the event. When I complained about that, NatWest sent me flowers which made me incandescent with rage. I want good service from my bank, not flowers.
They failed to set up a direct debit correctly which made it impossible for me to cancel it when I needed to, despite the fact that two years running they allowed the payee to draw on it. I spent hours and hours over weeks trying to sort that one out. Eventually a very nice lady in a call centre admitted they’d made a complete mess of it. It was so refreshing to hear her admit their error and apologise.
A couple of years back my bank statements stopped arriving. Apparently the Post Office had sent them back marked undelivered despite me being at the same address that I have been for twelve years. When the Post Office takes the letters back, instead of the NatWest contacting me to check if I’m still here, they just stop sending statements. Believe it or not, I had to fill in a form to reinstate the statements.
I received a letter from head office a couple of months ago. It told me of two new accounts. Interested I went onto the web site. Only the details of one of the accounts were there. Never mind, though I, I would ring my business manager. Good news – I had a business manager. Bad news – he’d never heard of these accounts, didn’t know of the letter either
Talking of head office, it always writes to the right company name – ie. my trading name – whereas the bank statements come to the registered company name, which is different. Why can’t they use the right address every time I wonder? That’s presumably why the postage service gets it so wrong. And yes, the statements stopped coming about a month ago. Again same problem, Post Officer returns them, NatWest does not tell me.
The new bank manager did pop up and see me today – that’s a first - and he says he’ll reinstate the statements without me needing to sign anything – which is why my mind has turned to NatWest today. I was thinking of changing banks to one that doesn’t charge me for everyday transactions. However the trauma I envisage puts me right off. I remember when my husband and I just changed branches of NatWest many years ago. All our money disappeared into a black hole for a couple of days because someone had forgotten to set up the new account at the new branch. You remember things like that.
