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Guest's Response to LindaTaylor's Review

Written on: 09/07/2011

I had a similar problem with Natwest whilst I was travelling Australia. Despite being advised I was a whole other continent they still allowed somebody to fraudulently withdraw money from my account in the UK, after I returned home I discovered that my parents had been inundated with letters telling me that I was over my overdraft limit, and on more than one occasion they allowed this person to withdraw more than the daily cash limit that they themselves had set me. Whilst this was all very dissapointing I then found out that they had all seen fit, based on this other persons spending, to increase my overdraft from £1000.00 to £2000.00 without informing me. I then went through a lengthy process of showing numerous dated photographs to various staff of me by Sydney Opera house whilst 'transaction 353.1' was been carried out in the UK. As soon as they cleared the account I was off, they were pathetic.

I went to First Direct, and I am so glad that I did. The customer service is excellent, no automated voice saying 'push 1 for...' when all you want to do is speak to somebody, just straight through to an advisor, always polite, always helpful, always "okay that's been dealt with, are you sure there isn't anything else I can do for you?" nobody ever trying to flog me a credit card when I called in about adjusting my account. Always kept informed of what's happening and (the reason I will never go elsewhere) they are very on-the-ball. I went to Rome for a holiday and forgot to tell them before I went, needless to say that whilst with Natwest I never had to let them know where I was, I just went abroad and my card worked, I tried to withdraw some cash and within fifteen minutes my card was stopped, account frozen and somebody from fraud prevention was on the phone.

If you're worried about who to bank with because another bank got it wrong, go to First Direct, they really are excellent.