I had finally got myself a good income and felt that I needed a Bank manager who could advise me how to look after my wads of cash so I left my perfectly acceptable internet bank and went to my local NatWest. My new Manager very quickly became my best mate (according to him anyway), first name terms, smiles, coffee, the full treatment jokes about my pathetically small mortgage and my lack of credit cards were regularly cracked on my visits to the bank - little did I know what was coming - anyway I fell for it and pretty soon I was into virtually every single financial product he could think of selling me. Things were going well, after all, I could afford it and my new bank manager was at the helm steering me on a safe financial path. The 'I thought you might like to come in for a financial review' phone calls came in at an alarming rate but I was flattered by all the attention and VIP treatment. It all started to unravel when I became ill and couldn't work full time. I still had an acceptable and permanent income but just not as much as before. The friendly phone calls stopped, no more coffee, no more blokey chats (I'm sure he had my football team results 'blackberried' to him by his secretary) and I was being crippled by bank charges.

After my Doctor told me my condition wasn't likely to improve in the short term I could see the writing on the financial wall and new I would spiral into debt quite quickly so I rang my bank manager who made me an appointment with one of his underlings for two weeks time (none of his friendly banter this time) I had usually been able to get an appointment within 2 days and I explained the urgency but there was apparently nothing he could do. Now call me a cynic but it would appear that as they had 'maxed me out' on financial products and the account was starting to look a bit shaky I was no longer a priority or indeed his 'best mate'. At the meeting I explained the situation and asked for advice on how to manage, the reply was.... and I remember the exact words... cancel your direct debits and pay them manually when you have money in the account to prevent any more bank charges. My wife burst into tears - which he totally ignored - I asked him if he could reduce or even stop the charges as after all I hadn't been irresponsible and could provide the evidence to back up my claims of debilitating illness and a previous exemplary financial record etc and it appeared from examination of my statements that the charges were contributing to my demise. No further advice was offered. I then discovered that none of the 'insurance' I had been sold to cover these payments applied as I actually still had an independent income which was evident before I was sold the insurance. I immediately cancelled all premiums which reduced my outgoings by a considerable amount - a lesson there somewhere - but delayed the process of recovering the premiums already paid as I'd seen what had happened to the accounts of others who had taken the banks to court but vowed that when the dust settled I would. Over the next 12 months we went through a thoroughly miserable time as I played catch up with the mounting charges and diminishing income. My health deteriorated. My wife got a job despite being severely arthritic which helped a great deal. Eventually I gave up with the bank and took some independent financial advice and found that you could indeed get the banks to reduce their charges and interest payments via a debt management agreement.... why didn't my Bank tell me this or offer a similar solution... all I got were letters threatening default notices and later on CCJ's etc. An offer to examine my income and expenditure was eventually sent by the bank. I took them up on the offer and contacted the department I spent one and a half hours talking to someone who was so obviously trying to squeeze as much money out of me as possible. He came up with a figure 10 times that which I had been recommended by a highly reputable independent debt counselling organisation only the day before. I immediately checked back with them to see if they had got their sums right they told me that if the bank was going to take that attitude I had no choice but to declare myself bankrupt.... Which I did.
So the credit cards and outrageous bank charges will never be paid as the official receiver decided I didn't have to pay a penny and recommended an early discharge after 8 months.
So my point is... if the Natwest had been as friendly to me when I was struggling as they had been when I was solvent we would have been able to set up a debt management agreement and I would have been happy to pay as much as I could afford and I would most certainly have been paying the full whack by now as my income has recently improved and these agreements are commensurate with income. Instead they received nothing. I'm not at all bothered because I think they acted badly and entirely in their own interests. But I can't help thinking what fools they have been to be so grabbing even when it was obvious that as my counsellor put it 'they won't be able to get blood out of a stone' but they tried and lost everything.

Posted by Ian on the 22nd January 2010

My local branch is Plymouth city centre. It is very busy with queues for the cashiers and reception desk quite frequently which is annoying but they do have a lot of staff who walk the floor and take people from the queues to help. Everyone in the branch do have big smiles on their faces and are friendly though, compared to other banks this is lovely. I went to Abbey the other day, there was no one manning the front desk and I stood there for 10 mins before someone came and acknowledged me and no one apologised for my wait. Plus I once had to make a visit to Abbey 5 times before they managed to change my address. Natwest always manage to get that right.
Any problems I have had get resolved quickly. Their life insurance policies are expensive and savings rates quite uncompetitive. The problem with all the banks now is it's all sales sales sales. Not the staffs fault of course, they are under high pressure to sell all the time and that always affects service.

Posted by Sarah on the 13th January 2010

Have banked with Natwest all my life. Haven't had much of a problem with them personally, they have been reasonable and easy to deal with for my student account and the switch to a graduate account - and the resulting increase of overdraft. However, my parents recently separated and this has caused a number of problems with Natwest. First off, the process of having my father removed from their joint account was exceedingly complicated. The split is not amicable and yet Natwest lost the paperwork THREE times, meaning my mother had to ask my father to visit the branch with her on three occasions. Also, the split caused them to review and significantly reduce my mother's credit limit. Yet they simultaneously approved a £20,000 loan for my father - a window cleaner, with extensive debts and a low paid job. The customer service reps were pleasant but largely uninformed and unable to help. It is also an absolute nightmare to get in contact with them - although I suspect this is an industry wide problem.

Posted by TS on the 5th January 2010

I have not had an account with Natwest since the 80's. The reason being - in those days us youngsters had the option of opening a Piggy Bank account (if you don't remember them, basically you saved your money with them and depending on how much you save, you get a Piggy bank for each milestone you reach - something like £1,25,50 and £100). I was only about 10 and I went to withdraw £1 from my account over the counter in my branch. I was given it, no problem at all. Only to be followed up with a letter 2 weeks later demanding £25 for going overdrawn.... by 2p. I don't know what happened to the demand or if my parents paid it, but I was distraught (as any kid would be that had saved up £3 and then been fined £25). I have never had any dealings with them since, and refused to have a mortgage or any investments through them whatsoever. I've only met one person who thought they were 'all right', everyone else seems to have had problems so my advice would be to stay well clear.

Posted by Toby on the 20th October 2009

My husband died early this year (2009) he was severely brain injured due to so many strokes, had a heart condition was registered blind etc, in short could do nothing for himself or even speak. I found bank addresses in his briefcase one of which referred to a Nat West Account in Cardiff, so I wrote asking if there were any accounts in his name and fully explained my situation, we were only together four years and married 18 months I nursed him for 3 years so I had no way of knowing many details. Nat West's caring response was to return my letter with a hastily scribbled compliment slip, no date no Dear Mrs... sorry to hear, just a curt we don't keep details, we need an account number or at least a post code (they even got his name wrong), the person scribbling was clearly too lazy to even include their signature. I am appalled at their lack of thought or feeling, for all I know there might be a lot of money (unlikely I suppose) but whatever it's not Nat Wests' to keep, so I have written to Sir Philip Hampton their Chairman in London and asked him to get a reply worth reading. I guess staff are far too busy repossessing homes and charging huge penalties to think about PR skills, or maybe they just employ dolts for economy!!!!! Whatever the problem customers simply don't count for anything, banks get ever ruder, and pursue one thing huge profits so they can pay fatter bonuses to their EO's

Posted by Vicky MacLean on the 21st August 2009

I've been with Nat West for just over 6 years, they've been OK until now. Last Saturday I attempted to withdraw cash - only to find I could not, the cashpoint said I could not withdraw any money and my account was over £114 overdrawn. I don't want or need an overdraft, and knew I had not had any large or unexpected transactions, I always keep very careful records of my money. I immediately visited the town centre branch, the cashier I initially spoke to was very good, she referred me to a colleague who would speak with me in a private room. The colleague really could not have cared less, she printed off a list of my transactions for the past 2 weeks - and I found that the problem was caused by the bank having made a mistake; 9 days previously I had paid some cash into my account - and the branch had entered this as a withdrawal, this had caused my account to go overdrawn following a standing order being paid out. My funds had (unknown to me) been much lower for these 9 days because of the bank's mistake. I'd paid the cash (given to me by my husband towards grocery shopping) in on the day I was paid, when I always do calculations as to what I have going in/out for the forthcoming month and how much personal money I'll have left; I then check my account online about every couple of weeks. I'd paid the cash in at another local branch which is closed Saturdays. The 'customer service officer' I spoke to said there was nothing she could do except mark the transaction as a 'concern' and said she would contact the other branch first thing on Monday morning and then call me as soon as she had done that. She said the other branch would have to check their financial records for the day in question and that if they found a discrepancy in held cash amounting to the amount I'd paid in then I'd get my money back. Her attitude was very casual, rude and uncaring. I said surely as you're a branch of the same bank you can check each other's records. I asked her several times if going to the other branch myself on the Monday morning would make any difference - she would not answer this question despite my asking her several times. And she even had the nerve to push at me 'packaged' accounts (with monthly charges) and the bank's credit card - I refused both of these, saying I don't need them and that I just wanted to sort out the problem with my current account.

This morning - the Monday - I knew that she would not contact me like she'd said she would. By 9.30 I'd received no call from her, so I called the other local branch myself - and the person I spoke to there was very different, caring and understanding, she promised that she would look into the matter and call me back today. I had my doubts about this - but to my surprise she did call me back, it was about 5 and a half hours later but I suppose the matter had taken some time to look into and sort out. She admitted the bank's error and said she had credited the money back to my account and has ensured that I will not incur any charges - she said that the standing order that had been paid out (which - due to their error - was what took me overdrawn) had been about to be returned as unpaid. I'd said I was very concerned as I have 2 other direct debits due to come out this week. She was extremely apologetic. This experience has however affected my confidence in the bank to the effect that I am now strongly contemplating switching banks. For however much longer I stay with Nat West, I will keep a much closer eye on my account and carefully scrutinise receipts given for any transactions, and immediately check online that the transaction has been correctly carried out. It could be said that I should have checked the receipt I was given when I put the money in my account - but I did not feel the need to (I'd trusted the bank to handle my money properly), I just folded it up without looking at it and subsequently shredded it. Am still expecting - despite the assurances given today - that Nat West will still try to apply the charges that I'd have incurred due to their error.

Posted by Andrea on the 6th July 2009

Natwest is ok. Not too bad. Been with them 4 years.

Posted by Ritz on the 1st March 2009

I changed banks from Natwest after 21 years due to high bank charges. They were charging £12.95 for the 'privilege' of offers on stuff I would never want or use. I later found out when I had closed that they had also added a 'Closing Account Charge' of £12.95. Never will I be going back with these Charlatans...

Posted by Mark on the 23rd October 2008

Hello, I'm 47 years of age and have been using this bank for a number of years and it has never once let me down. Its rates are just spiffing. I am going to carry on using this banks very wide range of services. Thank you.

Posted by Felicity on the 29th September 2008

My only dealings with this bank were following the death of my sister when I had to close her account. The staff couldn't have been more helpful.

Posted by C Keane on the 11th February 2008

The most awful bank I have ever used, ignore my letters and then had the cheek to charge me for being overdrawn. I would not recommend this bank to any man, woman or child.

Posted by Paul Stenhouse on the 4th November 2007

I find their personal banking services to be adequate, the charges are too high, but that's normal, isn't it? The credit cards are also ok. But do yourself a favour and NEVER ever ever use NatWest for business banking. They charged us for an unauthorised overdraft when we tried to CLOSE the account, it was less than a quid. They stopped sending statements, we assumed the account had been shut, as we'd signed off in the presence of our business advisor at the branch. FOUR YEARS later we found out by chance that the account was still open, charges were still being applied and we apparently owed them £750. We tried to resolve this - the guy dealt with us NEVER answered his phone or returned his calls. It took us TWO more years to resolve, eventually they admitted liability and we didn't have to pay them a penny.

Posted by Jude Rawlins on the 3rd June 2007

The most awful service I have ever received from any organisation whatsoever.I found the service and my particular branch to be slow and bumbling with many mistakes being made. I wouldn't wish this on anyone and strongly recommend that anyone wanting to open a new account not to choose natwest.

Posted by Dan Campbell on the 14th May 2007