Nationwide errors drove us away

My wife and I have had accounts with Nationwide Building Society for five years and the service at our branch has been exemplary. This contrasts with the centralised section, which sets up new accounts. It fails to take elementary precautions to ensure that mailing addresses are correctly assigned to postcodes, which Nationwide relies on for security purposes.

Last year my wife opened two new accounts in the branch with the correct address and postcode. These were then set up centrally by operators who do not check the postcode against the application form address. In our case, the accounts were assigned to the address of an empty house nearby.

Attempts to correct this resulted in other previously correctly addressed accounts becoming incorrectly addressed, with letters, statements and cards being sent to the empty house. ALLAN LAMBERT, NORTH WALES Your wife was so fed up that she moved her accounts elsewhere. You stayed with Nationwide but say that on re-opening a Regular Saver account with no change of account number or sort code, the incorrect address of the empty house that had appeared on your wife’s Nationwide savings was used too.

By then you had left a note for the postman fixed to the front door of the empty house, which was now for sale, explaining what was happening.

As a result of all this you are now moving most of your Nationwide accounts to a different provider.

Nationwide accepts that, although you provided your correct address on your application, an incorrect one was recorded on its system. You point out that, rather than having a human being comparing paperwork, the system selects the address from a list of postcode options and here picked the wrong one.

Your efforts to put a stop to this failed but mine succeeded. Nationwide has paid several hundred pounds compensation between the two of you in respect of this issue. would be dealt with by the culprit’s insurer.

I heard nothing from any insurers and there began a debate as to whose insurer was responsible.

It seems I am left with the options of either taking the matter to a small claims court or claiming the money from my house insurance and possibly forfeiting the first £100 unless my insurer agrees to pursue it for me.

I feel so incensed by the lack of response by the car insurers and their failure to take responsibility. CS, WEST MIDLANDS

You had expected the claim to be met by Hastings Direct, the insurer of the car that hit the neighbour’s car and caused it to damage your wall.

However, a view was put forward that you should get the owner of the other car to go through his insurer instead. Naturally he did not think this was fair and his insurer robustly put across a similar view.

Your son felt the wall could be a safety hazard to the public as it is adjacent to the pavement and only prevented from collapse by the plants growing behind it. The work couldn’t wait.

His inquiries concluded that Hastings Direct was indeed responsible on the basis that the car that went into the wall was parked and unattended at the time. Subsequently you attempted to contact Hastings Direct time and again without getting an outcome.

After I approached Hastings Direct it reimbursed the full £769 cost of repairing the wall.

It said: “Having looked further into this, we found we had not addressed Mrs S’s claim in the time we should have.”

It apologised for not acting sooner.