In reply to Trangia:
The first time was when I had my card scammed whilst abroad. I sussed it straight away but they didn't act until some funds had been lost, then they left me with no way (or advice) to access the funds and would only send a new card to my home address, which is bugger all use when you're travelling round the world for 2 years. Why not stop the card straight away as asked? And why then leave your customer stuck in a foreign currency with no access to their funds - luckily for me I had another account with a different bank so was OK.
Second time was when my wife tried to book a last minute flight to visit her friend in the states for an event out there. Nationwide decided out of the blue that this transaction was fraudulent (even though it wasn't) and blocked her account. They never even told her, the first she knew was from an email from airline saying transaction has been refused. She ended up missing out on the flights and switching banks. Why block the whole account? Why no contact? Surely the sensible thing would have been to delay or even stop the transaction but in either case contact my wife to find out if it is genuine or what's going on?
Other incidents involve sending out payments I've cancelled, and removing my overdraft, apparently because I never use it and thus haven't paid any fees on it
All in all, I'm sure all big banks are pretty much the same but with Nationwide I've never before seen such a high level of incompetence.
When there is no problems they were generally fine, but most of the problems I had with them could have either been avoided or easily sorted just by using a bit of common sense. In every case they failed.
Thus, the FirstDirect account is in progress, and I'll be glad when it's finalised.
Post edited at 22:35