BLOODY NATWEST

[ailbhe]

OK, there's a reason we moved all our accounts away from them - though they are STILL REFUSING TO CLOSE THEM DAMMIT - and one part of that reason arrived in today's post.

I filled in an ISA transfer form in 2008 and moved my ISA from NatWest to the Cooperative Bank. But SURPRIZE they actually just transferred the funds over and didn't transfer the entitlement to an ISA itself, so I have TWO extant ISAs and although I only saved the limit of £3,000 that year it was in £1200 to NatWest, transferred to Co-op making another £1200, and £1800 to the Co-op direct.

Luckily it's small enough beer, my nonexistent £1200, that the tax people aren't going to do anything other than write me a warning note. But bloody hell, I am so DONE WITH THAT. I have no idea how to make NatWest close my accounts but I think it might involve waiting for my passport to arrive and going into the branch and refusing to leave until I see paperwork showing them all to be closed.

Comments

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

I more or less did that with some solicitors here. They're holding the deeds to our house in their safe. I'd tried for ages to get someone, in writing, to actually confirm this rather than just on the phone.

In the end I went down there and asked to see the person in question. "Oh, she's at lunch" I was told, at which I got a book out of my bag, sat down and said "that's OK, I can wait". She appeared 5 minutes later, I got the bit of paper I wanted and all was good.

[geekette8.livejournal.com]

You can have as many ISAs as you want, and a transfer does not count as a deposit. The only limit is that you can only deposit £3000 (or is it £3600 now) into an ISA from non-ISA funds in a year; you can have two and deposit half your entitlement into each and swap it back and forth as many times as you like.

[ailbhe]

Yeah, but that's not what NatWest did, apparently - they transferred the funds in some magic non-ISA way. And STILL didn't close my accounts. Any of them.

[geekette8.livejournal.com]

Ah :-(

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

Word of warning: I am having very similar problems, and worse ones that you are unlikely to encounter any time soon, gods be willing, with the Co-Op. So just you make sure you've got everything from *them* in writing and above board, and don't trust them an inch (especially for things like doing your funds transfers etc. for you, because they just don't, full stop - no matter how many times they "confirm" on the phone that their computer says they did).

[barakta]

I'll make a note to avoid NatWest for ISAs.

They're useless for anything other than "basic personal banking" and that's only once they finally get the accounts up. Sadly RBoS who I had (have, just need to close) are worse and the Cooperative branch nearest to us (not that near) have been very rude to me recently for something else so they're off my list.

Banks are like printers, all printers suck, some suck more than others. I have American friends who are appalled at how useless and rude banks are here. :(

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Whereas I'm always alarmed by stories of how useless and rude US banks are. You mean yours are worse? Lummee.

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

I'll just stick with my Barclays account. I have NEVER had a problem with it (baring the one with the card going missing twice but I suspect that was a comms error), and their phone staff are lovely. (But then again it might be because I have an international banking account and not an every day one...). BOO HISS to NatWest on your behalf. (Any way you could threaten them with the Ombudsman? Mum did that to the local Social Security office the other week, she suddenly got seen to VERY Quickly).

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

NatWest are rubbish, I had to do exactly that standing over them thing to make them close my accounts with them.

The Co-Op have been a bit rubbish too, but not as rude. Except on the phone, where we've told them about 20 times, including repeating our request in writing, that we do not take marketing calls.

[barakta]

I've been really unimpressed with the co op, we tried to set up a societies account and they were just rude and unhelpful and might have well have said "We don't want your business". the other small banks/building societies sucked too;

[(Anonymous)]

We had so many phone calls ofering us loans that eventually, after many many requests not to, we left them. Nationwide have been fine.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Nationwide send me more dead tree than anyone else (big fat envelopes full of loan and credit card dross), but they have been very good with our mortgage. I deal with different banks for different things, depending on my needs - less complicated than it used to be, thanks to online banking and Faster Payments.