Nationwide Building Society....
Now I know that everybody has been going through some financial problems, but I thought from the TV adverts that the Nationwide is supposed to be helping us poor working humans.

Two months ago we had a few days between the direct debits being asked for and there being enough money for them to go, the result being that six were returned at a cost of £30 a time.

So last month the Nationwide took £180 out of our account to cover their charges. This resulted in our insurance company trying three times to take four direct debits because we didn't have the money in our account...

So thats £360 they want next month.

So I rang their customer services to ask if they would agree to just taking one £30 a month instead of it all at one time.
They called it a 'descending overdraft', they'd give us a £360 overdraft and £30 a months would be taken from the account to get us back to normal.

Sounds good, yes?

BUT to initiate this they also wanted to cancel all our direct debits and make our cards invalid until my next pay day in a fortnight.
Yep, that'll be the debits for rent, electric, gas, buildings and contents, and the cards we need to get money out for food, etc...

The phrase I used was 'forget it'.

So we're now looking for a new account with the idea being to put slightly more than the cost of debits each month....

Just as an aside, why don't banks do direct debits that can come out every 28 days for those of us who get paid every 4 weeks?
(paof2 Nude might not be rude, but rude could be nude..., Tue 28 Oct 2008, 10:56, 2 replies)

i used to be paid every four weeks
and I thought it would be a fucking nightmare with all the direct debits and standing orders getting out of sync all the time. Thing is, you get paid 13 times a year, and technically 3 days ahead of everybody else, every 4 weeks, so your credit should always be ahead of you, not behind you. You should just try and not spend all your wages the day they are paid in.

If all your DD's are on the 2nd of the month, and you were paid on the 1st, there is no problem. But your next payday is then going to be 28 days later, on the 29th, your DD's are then 4 days after you were paid, (5 days if it is a 31 day month). Is this a problem, you still have your money before your bills are due. Next month you will be paid on the 26th(or 25th), so you now have your money 7days ahead of your bills. After about 10 or 11 months, you will reach a point where you are paid 3 weeks ahead of your bills, NOT 1 week behind. If you think it is one week behind, then you are spending money ahead of your means.
( turb0t, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 11:44, closed)

I had a similiar problem with Natwest...
So I spoke to the manager at my branch and he said I could have multiple 'accounts' on the one account so to speak, each with a seperate account numbers but I can see them all when I log into my Online Banking. One account for your money to come into, one account for your direct debits, and one account for savings - Once you get it all sorted, easy as pie!
(feels_goodman 's brain cogs whirred at, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 12:39, closed)