Well done reggie.
And, of course, Nationwide credit and debit cards are accessible via a normal geographic number and the cards do not have a 2.75% surcharge   on foreign use.
I have no brief for them - just a happy customer.

Thanks Tannlan for thr reminder about nationwide I will look into it. I assume that you can have their credit card even if you don't bank with them.

Tanllan wrote on Jun 16^th, 2006 at 6:10pm:


I have had an account with Nationwide for two and a half years as well as NatWest for 24 years.

Basically NatWest (aka Royal Bank of Scotland of which NatWest is now just a cypher brand) angers me in about 20 different ways a year and Nationwide are delightful chappies who seem to be totally customer focused.  NatWest weren't such a bad bank but Royal Bank of Scotland are complete ripoff artists who introduce new scam charges almost every single week.

Especially noteworthy at Nationwide is avoiding the 2.65% foreign exchange rate levy on Credit Card use abroad and the £2 flat rate + 2.65% foreign exchange rate levy on cash withdrawals from credit card machines.  I see that they have finally started to advertise this in a big way, although currently only in relation to the credit card rather than in relation to the blue Visa debit card which is the cheapest way to make foreign cash withdrawals.

The only concern with Nationwide I have is that they do use 0845 numbers for some central call centres like their Internet helpline, even though the branches all have geographic numbers.  However I am hoping that as soon as 03 numbers are available that they will repllace the 0845s with these instead.

We to have a nationwide card and have used it in spain and italy with in the last year no charges no probs and a gero number to the local town branch

Alternative wrote on Jun 26^th, 2006 at 11:27am:


I agree there are workarounds to avoid most Nationwide 0845 numbers but that isn't the point.  The point is that being as customer focused as they are Nationwide should only use geographic numbers and should replace the 0845s with Voip routing georaphic numbers on normal 01 or 02 codes.

I have just had the papers to vote at their AGM and will be making this very point to their Chairman and CEO both of whom making a big point of saying they read respond personally to correspondence from investors in their Building Society.

And don't forget that after Spring 2008 0845 will still be a ripoff even thought 0870 won't be.