AN ANGRY Nationwide customer spent all day yesterday protesting outside the company’s Swindon headquarters.
Paul Slennett, who owns three Christian bookshops in Essex, stood outside the offices in Pipers Way holding a large placard to protest about the cuts to his BusinessInvestor account.
Nationwide sent out a letter in July to inform all customers of the changes to the BusinessInvestor account.
Mr Slennett was concerned that he was now only allowed to make two transactions in a branch in one calendar month, something he said made business very difficult.
Mr Slennett said: “This decision, I feel, will force many of us business customers to have to close our accounts with Nationwide.
“I object most profusely to being told, as a valued customer of 18 years, that I will only be able to carry out two transactions a month. I felt the tone of the letter was threatening when I was informed that if I do make more than two transactions in a month they will close my account.”
“I am not angry at the staff they have been marvellous and many today have been very supportive of me.
“It is not the local branches’ fault, it’s the fault of the people above who are not running the branches properly.
“It’s not right for us customers who use the account purely as a BusinessInvestor account.
“It causes me great sadness in feeling I’ve been pushed into such extreme action.”
A Nationwide spokesman said: “We invited the customer into our office to speak to a senior manager, who listened to his concerns.
“We explained that the changes are in response to customer feedback.
“The changes affect only a tiny minority of members – just 0.04 per cent of all our members – but will improve the overall customer experience for the vast majority of our branch customers. BusinessInvestor was not designed to be used as a day-to-day business current account.”
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