Free Traffic Legal Advice

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.

Why you want the accounts open. At least you saved money by not paying off the overdraft.

You could reply to the text with "STOP", otherwise you could contact Natwest to remove your phone number and email address as per by GDPR (Data Protection Act 2018), report to ICO if they failed to do that.

Their response to the ICO might be "This customer owes us £xxx, and has left the country. We need to retain his contact details to try to recover the debt." The ICO might well see that as reasonable.

I'm not particularly bothered by them closing the accounts. I just want to be able to pay off the overdrafts somehow that were on them. I've read that Natwest sometimes sells off debts to third parties and who knows what sort of fees they might try to add on.

Which would be irrelevant really, even if they were to sue for the money (and you are outside jurisdiction) if you could show to the court you had tried to pay and NW made it impossible, the court wouldn't uphold a claim for any extra fees.

You could just post a cheque to NW company address for the sum of the two accounts with a covering letter (and keep evidence of sending)?

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...

Call centre staff, for that is who you probably spoke to, wouldn't know what an IBAN number is as direct payments from overseas accounts are still not that common where private individuals are concerned.

I regularly have had to explain to a bank what I want to do and how they need to help me - I used to work for one of the big 4 but moved elsewhere 20 years ago to a job where my skills were better appreciated.

A possible solution is to use a trusted friend or family member in the UK who could send a cheque for you. Mind you many UK banks no longer issue cheque books.

Okays it's all sorted.. After a lot of faffing around and logging a complaint, they temporarily partially reopened both the accounts to allow money in. Did a transfer and confirmed with them that balances were all £0. They did charge interest on both the overdraft balances in the meantime. Oh well.

Thanks to everyone for the help and advice..