Complaining can occasionally work

Lounge
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Nationwide Building Society members on here will no doubt be aware that when one receives a payment from another person who also banks with Nationwide, the credit doesn’t show their name or payment reference, just the sort code and account number.

It’s always been like this and because I get very few payments it’s never bothered me. However, I recently decided to modernise my U3A Pilates group by stopping cheques and moving to bank transfers. Of the 14 group members, five have Nationwide accounts, so when they pay all I see is their account number and sort code. The workaround is clearly to write down a list of names and account numbers, but it got me wondering why it was that Nationwide transfers don’t show the names and references.

So I called Nationwide to ask about this. It was explained that it’s always been like this, but would I like to make a formal complaint? I wasn’t really complaining but I figured that it may be the best chance to get this anomaly changed. I therefore made a complaint and was told that I’d get a call from the complaints team.

Lo and behold, I was called the next day. The very professional and friendly lady on the phone knew exactly what I was grumbling about, as of course she banks with Nationwide and gets similarly confused with mystery bank transfers. She explained that there had been grumbling about this from time to time and that it was really time to get it sorted out, and she agreed to take my complaint forward.

That was two months ago and I’d quite forgotten that I’d made the complaint.

It’s now time for my Pilates group to made their payments for August and September, and to my surprise all the Nationwide accounts now show the name and reference, just like the payments from other banks. Well bugger me! Nationwide have fixed it. Maybe my complaint was the trigger, maybe it wasn’t, but either way they have fixed it, and my job running the Pilates group is a little easier. Hurrah.

15 Likes
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Don’t know if you use the app but there have been lots of changes for the better recently. The ability to hide things you don’t want on the home page. The ability to make text bigger. The ability to record your access/support needs in more depth. Being able to do more within the app without being passed to a web page.

Like yourself, last year I’d had enough and so I complained. All bar 2 of my suggestions were taken forward and here we are. I’ll be taking that credit thank you :grin: .

About a month ago I wrote an essay to the app developer for the Passenger Assistance app, which is appalling in many obvious and embarrassing ways. It took 3 attempts to even find a living email address. It all felt very evasive, as though PA had paid someone to build an app and considered the matter closed.

My email was not acknowledged automatically or… anything. It felt like a waste of energy.

Yesterday I received an essay of an email back. All 8 of my suggestions have been accepted by PA and passed onto the developer to start working on immediately.

On the other hand I once complained to AMC cinemas and produced a change in policy towards disabled customers which felt very positive and which they acknowledged in writing had come about solely because I’d written to them.

6 months later the cinema closed and they left the UK.

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I am a bit puzzled. I use their app and all payments show the name, including those going in and out with other Nationwide accounts. It has always been like that.

Maybe it’s ok on the app or maybe that’s how we set them up. They are all standing orders between family members.

Still, if you have prompted a change then that is good news - it suggests that someone is listening, in a large organisation too.

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I did help my cousin when fraudsters emptied he account and I found Nationwide helpful.