access:

"mail or email" - I've just looked through the Banking Code and can't find it. Could you give me a reference for it? Also do you happen to know if this also applies to the Broadband Industry and if so a reference please.

Clause 14.2 of the Subscriber's Guidance Notes. Quoted that in a post a few days ago. You missed it!

Can't answer your second question.

Dear Jalexa

"mail or email" - I've just looked through the Banking Code and can't find it. Could you give me a reference for it? Also do you happen to know if this also applies to the Broadband Industry and if so a reference please.

Thanks

rhianonm:No, he had a letter asking us to call the Natwest Birmingham Collections Centre, which he did. That's I guess why he assumed he has spoken to Natwest themselves.

OK, Natwest sent a letter, that's reasonable but possibly precipitate, however it was a student account and perhaps NatWest saw no evidence of the account being sufficiently funded.

Sorry I digress, they sent a letter asking you to phone, you phoned and they made some crude suggestions. Do you have a record of that call? You do not need to subject yourself to phone contact if you don't want to. Up to you but you are entitled to insist on mail or email if you want and you cooperate (Banking Codes say so)

I suggest you take urgent steps to obtain the recordings of the calls you made. You need to make a £10 Subject Access Request of Natwest. Request all your data but specifically the call recordings. If no recording it never took place, rewind and start the process again, although if your phone bill shows a call was made you can have some fun with NatWest data protection.

You can do the SAR in parallel to the complaint, though personally I like to have the SAR data to inform the complaint and assess any response.

rhianonm:No, he had a letter asking us to call the Natwest Birmingham Collections Centre, which he did. That's I guess why he assumed he has spoken to Natwest themselves.

If I were in your position I would get your husband to write a complaint letter (recorded delivery) to the CEO of RBS Group in Edinburgh. The complaint would be about lack of correspondence regarding the account and the collections process. To me the bank needs to act more prefessionally by sending a letter stating the options. You can then take advice from Citizens advice, look for other loans etc.

Stephen Hester, RBS Group Chief Executie 36 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, EH2 2YB.

This is the best way to get their attention and perhaps they may start to deal with this properly.

Huckster

rhianonm:

Your husbands branch will know who is dealing with this. Branches don't normally make such calls, as the bank has a department that deals with this. He will probably get a letter from them shortly, so maybe it would be worth waiting for the letter and then looking at the options. At the moment you have just had a phone call with no note of who it was from, name , department, reference etc.

huckster

Hi, thanks for your reply.

All we have had in the past are bank statements, this is the first letter. The call wasn't with Triton as far as I am aware, my husband is under the impression that he spoke with the bank themselves!

We have no problem with the fact that they want him to repay the debt, I'm just worried that they are saying our only options are a default or to take out a loan with them to repay the debt in full. We really can only afford to pay them £20 per week and they want more than that in loan repayments!

Unfortunately they can do this.

They can ask you to repay the overdraft on demand (in the Terms and Conditions)

Can you give more details about your situation?

Have you checked your credit status / report?

You / he could apply for another current account if your record is good and basically transfer the OD to that account, but you would probably have to build up to the 2000.

Worth looking at.

Also worth doing a comparison of the loans available on this site. Best rates are at 7.8/7.9% at the moment.

Credit is hard to come by, so make sure you do your best to keep up your repayments and not damage your credit record.

HTH

Sparky.

To clarify, are you saying this request came out of the blue? No previous letters about the issue and about coming to an arrangement?

I don't think NatWest would suddenly make a request such as this. Your husband should speak to the manager of the branch holding the overdraft account and see if he can sort the matter out. What interest rate were they quoting ? I have read that some people have cleared overdrafts by transferring to credit cards with % introductory balance transfer rates, as any fees are cheaper than any loan interest. I don't know whether this is still the case and whether you are in position to apply for one of the cards that would help.

Your husband should speak to the bank manager about this if this has not gone too far. If is with Triton (part of RBS group) who collect debts, then perhaps matters are now out the managers hands. If so your husband could visit your local Citizens Advice debt advisor, who will discuss your options.

Huckster

Hi, I hope that I am posting this in the right place. I could really do with some advice regarding my husband's overdraft.

My husband has an account with Natwest when he was a student, basically a £2000 overdraft. He received a letter from them today saying that it needs to be repaid. He rang them to make the arrangements and was told that if he didn't pay them £500 now they would put a default on the account! He was then told that as he can't pay them £500 that they will give him a 'stupidly high interest' loan to repay the overdraft!

I made him phone them again and offer them £20 per week (which is all we can pay at the moment) and they still maintained that the only options were as above!

Surely this can't be right.

Can anyone please give me some advice as to what to do next??

THANK YOU.