Banking Boffins (re: Nationwide Flex Account Problems)

[Solo]

I heard about the Nationwide Flex current account and that it gave free withdrawals abroad. So I went in the other week to set an account up before I go away in January.

Everything went find and they said I'd recive the card and pin within a week.

Card arrived and its a bloody useless 'Cash Card' which you can only take out money from a CIRRUS machine.

No use to me whatsoever, I don't understand why I've been issued this or they didn't warn me about it when I was filling in all the forms.

I asked for a Visa Debit card so I could actually use it abroad.

Not sure what to do now as I've called them up and they just told me to check my credit rating with Experian a third party credit company.

I'm 21 have various HSBC accounts (for over 5 years) and an Egg Credit card none of these have ever been overdrawn or any bad credit history atall.

Anyone banking with Nationwide at the moment whats your opinion on them?

Any advice on how to sort this out would be much appreciated as I'd love to make use of the benefits from a Flex account.

 

[NikonL]

Mate, I had this exact same problem. 20 years old, never been overdrawn, never had any money issues, regular source of income etc. Nationwide just flat out would NOT give me a debit card. I found it really odd that they wouldn't send me one, since banks are usually falling over themselves to get kids to spend more money than they have and go overdrawn. I went in and took in bank statements, ID etc and asked if they could give me a debit card. The woman tapped away at her computer for a bit, and then said "I'm sorry your credit rating doesn't meet the required standard" when I asked why, she said the bank would send me a letter detailing why, and ways I could improve my rating.

I never received the letter. Got pissed off after a month or two of waiting, went back in and asked again, same shit, different woman. Said my rating wasn't good enough and they'd send me a letter. I've not had either of the letters yet. I gave up at this point and switched to Natwest, their student account is great for me, and they have no qualms with giving me a debit/credit card.

I originally thought that maybe there was an error on my credit rating, something that was typed wrong and caused a mistake. But the fact that you're having the same problem, with the same bank, and the exact same account, leads me to beleive that it's just fucked up.

 

[Solo]

While that is comforting to hear its not great news!

You are definitely right that banks love to give credit cards in the hope they are overdrawn and incur big fees.

I could ring up any number of credit card companies and get send a card pretty much the next day.

However I can only try and be persistant as they are the only bank offering the free overseas transactions which will save me lots of money when travelling for a few months.

I could lie and say my annual income is higher - I'm sure that'll turn the green light on. Its just frustrating as this is kind of card they give a 14 year old setting up their first account.

Would you say it helps If I take in evidence e.g bank statements?

 

[NikonL]

The message I got from Nationwide was "It's not our problem, we use this Experian third-party shit and they call the shots, there's nothing we can do about it"

I'm not sure how accurate that is though, but ithink you'd be better off talking to them (experian) first.

 

[Corran]

ddoubt experian will be able to do much.... make you pay for a credit check (not sure how much it costs, but as a government dept. doing it through the online service with Equifax (a different credit check company) it costs about £11 per search and all that will tell you is if someone been getting credit in your name and defaulting.

Beyond that I dont see how they will help, unfortunately unless you go out and get credit to up your rating so they will accept you (getting credit for no reason = stupid) then you may be screwed due to the way they make decisions but it worth a try if you really need it

 

[Cadelin]

This is rather odd. I got a flex account when I was 18 no problem. I had a child savings account before hand though.

What confuses me is even if you had a bad credit history why can't they give you a cash card that will work abroad. Have you asked them where it will work?

Getting a debit card might simply be a case of having to wait 6 months.

 

[Tilda]

I had problems with nationwide, so switched to smile, smile.co.uk - the internet bank
Its internet based which makes things really easy, english call centre, really great people and I haven't looked back.

 

[Bahumat]

only reason im with Nationwide is if they get bought out i'll possibly get shares.

 

[Sparda]

ive just come back from my jols and all the atms i used had cirrus on them

 

[Gamah]

The cashcard works abroad in most cash machines btw.

 

[Solo]

The cashcard works abroad in most cash machines btw.

Just you can't pay for stuff in shops or online. Which ain't so good when booking hostels. I don't want to have to carry around alot of cash.

 

[Lamp]

Northern Rock ?

 

[Gotrag]

You can't pick what cashcard you get, they assign a specific card to each account.