Free Traffic Legal Advice

Last update.. They undid the interest charged, apologised for all the faf and sent me some compensation.

I don't have a UK bank account and Slovak banks no longer issue cheques so it's not a possibility. I suppose I could just wait and see what sort of solution NatWest come up with but I'm not holding my breath. The biggest problem is who to make anything payable to. They kept telling me to pay into the closed account but that doesn't work. It didn't inspire confidence when I had to explain to the customer services person on the other end of the phone what an Iban number and swift code were...

Hi All,

In a bit of a stuck situation. I had 2 bank accounts with NATWEST that were closed by them without letting me know. I live in Slovakia and the first I knew about it was when I tried to do a transfer into the account using wise to pay of the overdrafts on them and both the payments were returned.

I phoned the central banking helpline and was firstly told that

a) The accounts had been closed as I lived in the EU and Natwest were looking into closing EU accounts (found out later it was because they were marked as dormant)
b) That I would have to pay the overdrafts off straight away, but I would have to do it from a UK bank account

I explained that I could just simply do a transfer to the account if they gave me an iban number and a variable symbol to identify myself.

The operator said that I had to pay from a uk account and that if I did nothing it would be passed onto the collections department which would affect my credit score in the future (not particularly bothered as not planning to come back)

I got a slew of emails and texts from Natwest saying I had gone over my agreed limit, etc. Pay money into the account.

I phoned up the collections department, trying to be proactive and I was told that I could pay off the overdraft simply by paying money into the accounts (It doesn't work, the money is just returned eventually)

We then tried the following:

a) Paying via bank card but when they tried to process it, it just gave a json error on their system
b) Doing another transfer from a GB pound balance on my wise card. This got to Natwest, got stuck and then was returned
c) Trying the website form they gave me but that also declined to accept my payment.
d) Given an iban and swift code which they said would work but was the iban and swift code for the closed accounts and just bounced back.

Spent an hour on the phone to the lady who tried to be helpful but ultimately got nowhere.. It seems that no funds can be paid into the accounts as they have been marked as 'dormant'.

She said she would put a complaint in for me as obviously I was trying to pay the overdrafts off but nothing seemed to work.

Anyone know where this goes from here? I received no prior warning from Natwest that they were closing the accounts and I get a daily sms telling me that despite repeated warnings I have not paid off the overdraft.

Many thanks.