Just over a month ago, sick of the interest rates, I paid off my NatWest credit card by going into the Aberystwyth branch and saying “how much money do I have to give you to have you cut up this card and never bother me about it again?” I paid three-hundred-and-something pounds, direct from my bank account, then had the lady behind the counter cut up the card. There we are, done.
This morning I received a letter from NatWest Credit Card Services indicating that I’d missed a payment. I called them up to complain, and was told that the branch must have made a mistake in calculating the sum I owed them, because my account was labelled as being active and I still owed forty quid.
Then they said that it must, therefore, be their fault – the mistake of the branch that had mis-advised me (they took my word on the conversation I’d had in the branch) – and closed my account, dropping the remaining debt.
While it’s obvious that this was the correct thing for them to do – it was, indeed, their mistake that had caused the problem – I was impressed that they behaved in this way. They are, in the end, a bank, and over the years we’ve become used to banks screwing us over with ludicrous charges, seemingly just for the fun of it. Meanwhile, NatWest have consistently provided me with excellent customer support and an attitude of genuinely trusting me as a customer.
Bravo, NatWest. I have no problem with continuing to recommend you as a bank.