Royal Bank of Scotlands questionable ideas

I’ve been a RBS account holder for around 10 years now, starting with a child’s route-17 account, moving to a route-21 and then opening a second student account. When I was a student I used my second account as an overdraft account for which my loan went in to, money would go in 4 times a year, 3 times was student loans and one would be my final pay off of remaining overdraft debt.

Seems like a good setup, however during my years at university I received a letter from RBS noting I had not made any deposits into my student account for 60 days and that I should give them a call to sort it out. The phone call was made and during the call it was suggested by the RBS representative that I should pay off my free student overdraft with a credit card. A credit card with an interest rate to pay off a student overdraft of £900ish? Needless to say at that point I ended the conversation, made a 1p deposit which seemed to satisfy the requirements and made a formal complaint (of which nothing happened).

Now I’m a graduate in full time employment and still have the student account, albeit upgrade to a graduate account, which I use if required to make extra additions to payments (an extra £200 if required for car insurance for example) and I received a phone call from my local RBS branch. “Mr McDonough, we’re looking at your accounts and noticed you need to upgrade your accounts” at first they offered me a £12.95 per month account with no features I wanted, they then noticed a £300 overdraft on my free graduate account and then asked me if I would prefer to take out a loan to provide an end date and more structure. I asked if the loan was interest free, they said no.

Twice during the past 3 years an RBS employee has suggested to me as first a student and now a graduate, who could of been naive banker, that I should use an interest based loan/credit card to pay off a free student overdraft.

So if you want a bank that will attempt to make you use a credit card or loan to pay off a free overdraft, then RBS is the one to go for.

Ryan McDonough 2008-2010