To be frustrated by NatWest

[flabbyflabbyflabguts]

I use online banking to keep track of my incomings and outgoings, to budget, to pay bills etc. However lately I find that my balance can vary by £200 in any week. Today, I'm £200 overdrawn, yesterday I wasn't. I haven't spent any money. I fact I'm too anxious to spend it, because I never know how my account will look. Two weeks ago, £150 just disappeared from my account overnight, I went onto overdraft, a bill couldn't be paid, I incurred charges, and then a few days later the money re appeared in my account.
This isn't normal right?
I've decided to switch bank accounts, as soon as the current overdraft disappears.

No, that’s not normal.

Could you screen shot your account and your statement daily and then put in a formal complaint? You should be compensated if you went overdrawn due to a banks mistake

I would definitely try and follow it up, that’s not normal. YANBU to leave NatWest, they suck and I will be moving banks as soon as it is convenient to do so. (I’m planning to move to Starling)

What are the actual payments which are taking you overdrawn?

Some payments won’t show up until they’re taken out, so your bank balance can be a bit of a fiction really. I find it really helps to keep track of spending yourself - you can make a simple spreadsheet to do it.

What are the outgoing transactions for? They must have some kind of identifier against them surely? If your balance is going up and down with no transactions to account for it then you need to get in touch with NatWest.

The money wont just be disappearing from your balance it has to go somewhere. Are you checking your statement?

Have you spoken to them? Can you not see where the money is being transfered/moved to?

I had this with Natwest last week but not quite as bad. I randomly went £18 overdrawn when i know I should have had £40 in there. The next day I had £40 in there. I just hope they're not going to charge me for their error

Do direct debits come out? Are you paying by debit card, doing online shopping? Available balance can vary due to pending transactions that haven't left the account but are taken off the balance so you don't spend it

Natwest have changed the way they present statements online. If you’re just looking at transactions you might be missing things in the ‘pending’ transactions section. Presumably you have direct debits coming out of the account which is why this keeps happening.

It will be a retailer issue rather than a bank issue

You can't screenshot banking apps so won't be able to do that to show them.

I am with Natwest- if there is a payment due it will account for that in your available balance, even if it doesn't in your regular balance.

Are you saying they are taking amounts out then putting them back? That is odd.

I have no idea what's causing the fluctuating balance even though no money is going out, that sounds weird.

But I find it really odd when people spend from their bills account because, like you say, it's difficult to keep track of. You really have to be on top of things to not spend the money that's due out next week, for example.

We put all our day to day spending on a credit card that's paid off in full by direct debit each month and don't really touch the current account at other times. I just check once a month that there's enough money to pay all the bills including last month's credit card bill and otherwise it just runs itself.

Doing that would also have the advantage of reducing the amount that you're overdrawn, because the money spent on the card doesn't count as spent until the direct debit comes out, for cashflow purposes, so it stays in your current account and keeps you out of overdraft.

Or if you don't want to use a credit card you could move your day to day spending money to one or more separate accounts, but that will be costly as your bills account will be in overdraft.

Of course you can screenshot banking apps. I’ve done it loads of times

That's bad.

I'm not keen on Natwest - DH runs his own business and pays wages every Friday from his business account by direct debit/standing order - if the Friday is a bank holiday the payment isn't made until the following working day. I've never had this with any of my own bank accounts.

Actually some banking apps u cant screen shot for security

You could take a photo of the screen with another device even if you can't screenshot.

I just tried with my Nationwide app and it didn't let me screenshot

As a previous poster, I’ve moved all of our accounts over to Starling during lockdown. We were 20 year customers of Lloyd’s but I got so sick of them not being able to do anything I needed due to Covid. The final straw was needing a paper statement as proof of address and they said it was impossible until things had gone back to normal.

The service with Starling so far has been amazing and using the account switching service was completely seamless, even all my old payees have transferred across. I also love all the savings pots you can set up so we’ve now got several attached to our joint account for things like renovations and holidays

I'm with Nationwide, pending payments show in a separate page and I have a balance and available balance.

Mirrorxx I bank with Lloyd's and First Direct and I'm not able to screen shot anything with either bank.

I am with Nationwide and the app is very good as a pp said. PayPal transactions I was getting confused with as they only go out 3 days after purchase and not at the time as a card payment would

NatWest doesn't let you screenshot, neither does TSB or Tesco credit card, or Lloyds or Monzo or RBS. So I assumed that none of them let you.

I do the same as PP, put all spends on a credit card that gets paid off every month. I also have a large overdraft for emergencies although normally stay in £1k credit most of the month to avoid overdraft fees.

Monzo is good if you want an account which shows all payments taken immediately- no pending so you know where you are at.

Monzo lets you screen shot - I’ve just done it. On an iPhone so android might be different