No email address? Sorry, you don’t qualify for the £100 fee

G.B.T. writes: My granddaughter and I booked an appointment at the Camberley branch of Nationwide Building Society under its refer-a-friend scheme which paid £100 for introducing a customer. We were asked for email addresses and explained that only my granddaughter has one. We were told this was OK. A week or so later my granddaughter received details of her new account, but I did not receive £100. Nationwide said that as I had failed to supply my email address, my application for the £100 fee had failed. IT IS startling but true – you really did introduce a new customer to Nationwide but were refused the £100 reward simply because you do not have an email address.

When you protested, a Nationwide manager told you: ‘Members need an email address as part of the refer-afriend process. As you are not currently eligible for the £100, I am sorry to say we would not look to pay this to you.’ But as a consolation prize, you could have £50 ‘in recognition of the service you provided’.

Nationwide’s head office was more sensible. Staff there explained to me that normally an introduction form would have been emailed for completion by you and your granddaughter. As you have no email address, the correct procedure should have been to email the form to your granddaughter.

The society told me you were poorly advised by the branch. It added: ‘We can see that his granddaughter has completed an account switch and it is clear it was their intention to make a claim under the scheme, so we have made an ex gratia payment of £100 to both him and his granddaughter.’