Nationwide Building Society Review

Overall Rating

Lots of branches

Impossible to pay cash into someone else's account.

My daughter (K) shares a flat with her friend (D). K has a direct debit set up with Nationwide to pay the rent and D pays her half into K's account. Last August D didn't have enough money in her bank account to transfer to K's account so she withdrew some cash from another account and tried to pay that over the counter into K's account. The cashier said they weren't allowed to accept cash from a third party. When D asked why, the cashier said it was to prevent money laundering. The cashier did say, though, that if D had K's debit card they would accept the cash (which I'm sure breaks bank rules regarding debit cards). D asked was there any other way to pay the cash in and the cashier suggested that she try paying the money in at a provincial Nationwide branch because they may not apply the rules as strictly as a city branch would do.

As none of the suggestions were practical, D asked whether funds from an electronic transfer made that day would be available by the following Wednesday and she was told they would be. Unfortunately, although the transfer was done that day, by the time the transfer was made it was after close of business and so couldn't be processed until the next banking day. To make things worse, the following Monday was a bank holiday so that the transfer didn't happen until the following Tuesday. The transferred money then wasn't available until the Thursday and so the direct debit failed. As a result of all this, K is now going to be charged an additional £30 and all because Nationwide won't accept cash over the counter from a third party.

K has complained to the Nationwide help line who are 'looking into it', but the implication was that Nationwide were unlikely to drop the charge.

Members' Comments onArfa's Review

• Arfa on 16th Oct 2007

  Postscript to this review: My daughter has now received a letter from Nationwide agreeing to drop the £30 charge. So, what went wrong? Was this policy Nationwide policy or was the cashier misinterpreting her instructions. We'll never really know because the letter just says it was due to 'an administrative error'.

• piriepirie on 5th Jan 2008

  Hi there,
  
  I am sorry for your customer experience you had with Nationwide.
  As a Building Society - they regularly accept cash over the counter from a third party IF they have the account number at hand.
  
  Thanks.
  
  P.