Don't get caught out by Nationwide PLC

“Don't get caught out by Nationwide PLC ”

Written on: 29/06/2012

I Joined the Nationwide building society, as at the time thye offered free international access via their debit card, which was heavily advertised on UK TV.
Before opening my account, I asked is there any problems running this account from Israel as I am going to live there in about 1 year? No they replied, none at all.
As soon as I left England they started charging for using a card abroad.
Then I asked them to post me a Cheque book and they said we can only post cheque books to EU counties. I am in Israel not the EU. So I asked a friend to collect a cheque book from the branch and post it to me. By accident they listed the cheque book as lost and placed a stop on it. I wrote a cheque for £59,000.00, to my bank here unaware of this and it bounced, which was returned and cost me 1% (£590) in bank charges. They Nationwide offered me £100 compensation. I contacted the UK Ombudsman and after 15 months they decided I should take the £100, which I refused. So now I am down £590 and had to gets a close friend to login with my details and transfer the money to his account and then send it to me by telegraphic transfer.
Now you can't even access Nationwide PLC’s web site from Israel and this has been the case for a few months now. If the UK police want to find banking fraud, they should not look at the public so much rather the other side of the bank counter, or perhaps even the Nationwide’s Board room.