Widow fined £800 by Northern Rock

A woman who previously had tens of thousands of pounds worth of savings with ailing bank Northern Rock was outraged when she was hit with an £800 fine from the bank for withdrawing her savings, even though she had followed the procedure required in order to avoid these charges. The elderly widow, Mrs Heather, had savings of £173,000 with Northern Rock, but like many other customers decided that she wanted to withdraw her money when Northern Rock ran into problems in September 2007.

Mrs Heather explained that she called the bank and because she had a thirty day notice account asked that the money be sent out to her after the thirty day period had expired so that she would not lose interest or face financial penalties. Northern Rock agreed to do this, but Mrs Heather stated that a week or so later she received her cheque in the post. She assumed that under the circumstances Northern Rock had decided to waiver the notice period.

However, when asking for a closing statement on the account Mrs Heather realised that she had been fined £800 by the bank even though she had asked for the money to be sent out after the required notice period. The bank had actually made the error in sending the money out to her earlier than she had asked them to, but had still imposed to early withdrawal charge of £800.

Mrs Heather explained that she was outraged by what had happened and called the bank to complain. She added: ‘The lady I was speaking to apologised, but then got very officious and said I should have sent the cheque back to them after I received it. She was very bombastic. So they expect a 76-year-old housewife to know when they have made a mistake – even when they fail to send out a statement showing what they have done?’

Tags: account mrs, face financial penalties, worth, finance, interest