Natwest

BurningHorizons · 18 Mar 2007 at 11:45

Can't say a bad thing about Natwest. Banked with them for 12 years and never had a problem.
What you've got remember is that they're part of the RBS Group who are the 6th largest company in the UK, and seem to have aspirations to take over the world at the moment.

If you're into shares, I'd advise buy at the moment. Many analysts are forecasting £24.00 this year. (Currently £19.78)

Jez · 18 Mar 2007 at 11:48

Slackworth said:
Never had any problems with Natwest whatsoever. If I have ever had a problem, the UK call centres have managed to sort it out in a flash and the branches generally seem quite good

Echo this, never ever had an issue with them and been with them for years. I dont understand this card blockage thing either, ive bought ~£2000 items etc quite often on my debit card and the card has never been blocked.

tebanski · 18 Mar 2007 at 11:52

I am with Nat West, I have had problems with them in the past over ridiculous bank charges (of which were halved or quoshed) but generally ok, i guess.

Think its a case of better the devil you know - most banks are ripping us off. :mad:

Jez · 18 Mar 2007 at 11:54

tebanski said:
I am with Nat West, I have had problems with them in the past over ridiculous bank charges (of which were halved or quoshed) but generally ok, i guess.

Think its a case of better the devil you know - most banks are ripping us off.

Funny how i have never ever ever incurred a single charge from natwest, with quite a bit of money flowing in and out every month.

May i suggest you dont spend money you havent got, and pay your credit card when asked to?

jezsoup · 18 Mar 2007 at 12:34

Vixen said:
Yes, it's a bad thing that they block your card and contact you to inform you as a fraud prevention method.

It's really your own fault if your address is set to home when your parents won't tell you if there's a letter from the bank. If you couldn't use the card again, it's not necessarily because of the amount of the transaction, but because it is outwith your normal spending patterns and they want to speak to you before any further unusual transactions go through. It could also be that a lot of fraudulent transactions have been made with RBS group cards at OcUk, and therefore they are treating anything that goes through as suspicious.

I would recommend contacting your branch or customer services to check if your phone number is on file. When the fraud department go through flagged transactions, if they put a stop on the card they will try to call the customer first. A letter will only be sent if either they can't contact the customer by phone, or if there is an incident like with Shell last year, where there are too many cards at once cancelled to be able to call everyone.
If they don't have an up to date number, I'd recommend giving one to prevent this happening again.

Fair enough if they contacted me but ive had no contact fromt hem ive had to spend ages on the phone trying to sort out why they blocked my card, the spending ahbits were not anything unusual, just a few pounds here and there. Unfortunately for me I seem to be at the recieving end of a lot fo crap from natwest. As soon as i can clear whats left of my overdraft(£600) im changing.

Minto · 18 Mar 2007 at 13:14

I've had a few problems with Natwest, namely that they refused to honour the direct debit guarantee, though I spent more in that managers time than my claim against them was worth, and eventually got the money back directly from the company concerned with no help from natwest.

Vixen · 18 Mar 2007 at 13:57

jezsoup said:
Fair enough if they contacted me but ive had no contact fromt hem ive had to spend ages on the phone trying to sort out why they blocked my card, the spending ahbits were not anything unusual, just a few pounds here and there. Unfortunately for me I seem to be at the recieving end of a lot fo crap from natwest. As soon as i can clear whats left of my overdraft(£600) im changing.

EDIT: sorry, I thought you were the OP.

My original advice regarding phone numbers still stands. If they can't contact you by phone, they will have to send out a letter which can obviously take a couple of days to arrive. I worked with the debit card fraud department for 3 years and never once heard of a case where they would put a block on a card without at least sending a letter.

If you're still struggling to get any information, send me an email and I'll give you a number for debit card fraud, who should be able to tell you exactly why the card has been stopped.

joshlane · 19 Mar 2007 at 12:48

Vixen said:
EDIT: sorry, I thought you were the OP.

My original advice regarding phone numbers still stands. If they can't contact you by phone, they will have to send out a letter which can obviously take a couple of days to arrive. I worked with the debit card fraud department for 3 years and never once heard of a case where they would put a block on a card without at least sending a letter.

If you're still struggling to get any information, send me an email and I'll give you a number for debit card fraud, who should be able to tell you exactly why the card has been stopped.

its safer to have my banking sent to my home address (which is about 20 mins away from uni) natwest have my phone number, the letter arrived the next day after my transaction with ocuk. i got the fraud number and rang it and they told it is due to fraudulent card use through ocuk and ocuk are a flagged company to monitor high purchase transactions.
natwest were incredibly helpful and had everything sorted in minutes (well couldn't use my card till the next day but hey i rang at 11pm)

i just found it strange that there reasoning was linked to OCUK, even as a student i have about £1000 coming in and out every month with online poker and spare of the moment spends so its not like £314.76 is out of the way.

i'm glad my original post has sparked a bit of discussion, i think the general consensus is that natwest have a lot of happy customers. i know they have been transparent with all their reasoning and advice in the past. my bank manager even said 'hi' the other day in a shop! lol

Vixen · 19 Mar 2007 at 12:57

joshlane said:
its safer to have my banking sent to my home address (which is about 20 mins away from uni) natwest have my phone number, the letter arrived the next day after my transaction with ocuk. i got the fraud number and rang it and they told it is due to fraudulent card use through ocuk and ocuk are a flagged company to monitor high purchase transactions.
natwest were incredibly helpful and had everything sorted in minutes (well couldn't use my card till the next day but hey i rang at 11pm)

i just found it strange that there reasoning was linked to OCUK, even as a student i have about £1000 coming in and out every month with online poker and spare of the moment spends so its not like £314.76 is out of the way.

For that department to stop your card, it is almost never about the amount of the transaction but rather where it was made. The time you called has nothing to do with when you could use the card again - the stop they place on the card takes 24 hours to come off unless they remove it on the day it was placed

.

Hellsmk2 · 19 Mar 2007 at 13:00

Nat West are *** worst bank I've ever had to deal with. They blocked my credit card and both bank accounts without any explanation for three months - try living for three months with no bank access.

I never did get an explanation as to why they decided to block them other than they were being investigated. After all the arguing to get them reinstated so I could actually live again, that was the best reason they could give.

It's all good and well having UK call centres, but if the queue times in are epic - I'll be just as angry speaking to Mr Manc as Mr Bombay.

Vixen · 19 Mar 2007 at 13:05

Hellsmk2 said:
Nat West are *** worst bank I've ever had to deal with. They blocked my credit card and both bank accounts without any explanation for three months - try living for three months with no bank access.

I never did get an explanation as to why they decided to block them other than they were being investigated. After all the arguing to get them reinstated so I could actually live again, that was the best reason they could give.

It's all good and well having UK call centres, but if the queue times in are epic - I'll be just as angry speaking to Mr Manc as Mr Bombay.

That sounds like the sort of thing they'd do if they suspected you of money laundering, or you owed them money. If it was the former, they would never tell you why they were doing it.

VeNT · 19 Mar 2007 at 13:36

Vixen said:
That sounds like the sort of thing they'd do if they suspected you of money laundering, or you owed them money. If it was the former, they would never tell you why they were doing it.

sounds about right.

joshlane · 19 Mar 2007 at 17:06

Vixen said:
For that department to stop your card, it is almost never about the amount of the transaction but rather where it was made. The time you called has nothing to do with when you could use the card again - the stop they place on the card takes 24 hours to come off unless they remove it on the day it was placed .

cheers vixen that clears that up. i as gonna ring natwest before i renewed my car insurance as that is gonna be £370 on the same card and didn't want there to be payment issues as you buy online but confirm over the phone and i would need the transaction to take place.

thanks for your insiders insight! :thumbup: