Natwest Mastercard

I have banked with Natwest for nearly 20 years and had a credit card with them for over 15. The card was extremely useful in times when money was tight and over the years the credit limit had bumped up to a nice healthy amount. I now have my own business and with more money coming in I no longer rely on the card, UNTIL I needed it recently to hire a car, only to find out it was out of date. On enquiry to Natwest they informed me that the card had actually been cancelled due to lack of use; they'd apparently sent me a letter regarding it, that funnily enough I never received and would I like to sign up to a new card, one I have to pay for of course. They have showed me no respect whatsoever. I am now left in a complete quandary, as I am unable to apply for another card, due to sporadic income. Having just bought a house and hoping to rely on my credit card for decorating cost, I am very annoyed, and will be taking all my business and huge amount of savings elsewhere.

So apparently Natwest do their damn hardest to stop you paying off your credit card!!!! After calling last month to pay off the full amount they advised i could not pay it until the interest had calculated and a letter was received the following month, however they had intact closed the account so no other charges would be received! Today i received a call to tell me i had to make an immediate payment as i owed £100! Is this a Joke? not only that, the patronising little boy on the phone treating me like a thief did not help!! Following this i called your points helpline to feel a little better about all the money on the card and claim the points, which when hearing the amount works out at 0.02p for every £ spent! what an absolute waste of time!

Had a joint Visa/Mastercard account for over 20 years. Then last year when I tried to use the Visa card, it was rejected and when I rang them it had been cancelled. They claimed that they had sent me a letter months beforehand advised that the Mastercard was being changed to Plantinum and in this same letter I was advised that the Visa part was being removed unless I contacted them and requested it.

I strongly refuted recieving any such letter and demanded that the Visa part was reinstated, which they refused to do.

When I asked for a copy of the letter they sent it to me and was astonished that nowhere in the letter does it mention the removeal of the Visa card. When I pointed this out they refused to accept it.

Just another example of awful customer service from Natwest.

Decided that best way to deal with them is to vote with my feet !

I have had a Natwest Mastercard since 1982, and have had no other Natwest account. Staying with Natwest for so long indicates that, generally, I have been satisfied with the service. Until today's ludicrous situation.

For several years I have logged into Natwest Online banking to get card statements and other information on-line.

After being late with a couple of payments, I wanted to set up a direct debit. Natwest's instructions are first to register on-line at www.natwest.com/cardservices or call the relevant customer service number.

I tried to register on-line as "card customer only". A couple of screens in I had to enter "mother's maiden name or password". I entered my password and got an "unable to validate, call number under Contact Us" message.

I called the online technical support line - 3 times.

The first agent said that the failure to validate was because my mother's maiden name was not on my account. If I entered it, there would be no problem. I logged in, but could not see how to add my mother's maiden name. So I called again.

The second agent said that I could not add my mother's maiden name to my account. I must send a letter asking Natwest to add it for me. It would take about 5 working days. He did not think I was registered for online services. After logging on (just to ensure that my online service was still working) I called again.

The third agent asked if I logged into on-line banking or card services. I said on-line banking. He said that was the problem - card services needed a different password. I said that my only account with Natwest was the credit card, and that was what came up when I logged in. He transferred me to on-line banking.

The on-line banking agent confirmed what I had been told - I would need a different password for card services. The way to get one would be to register for card services. But that was the start of the problem - when I tried to register for card services, I got the "unable to validate" messages. The way around this was to get my mother's maiden name on my record. But I didn't have to write in. I could go into any branch and they could set it up for me. I asked where on the Natwest web site I might have found this out. He didn't know, and neither do I.

This is the bank that has recently been spending millions on TV adverts telling us how customer-friendly it is. I have credit cards with two other banks, both with direct debits that were set up in a few minutes. Maybe Natwest might consider spending less on telling us how good it is and divert the savings to actually improving the service - so we could see for ourselves.