On 18 September 2002 I gave instruction for the transfer of money from one of my accounts to another thorugh Nationwide Building Society's online banking service.

Upon checking my account balances I was shocked to find the money had been TRANSFERRED TWICE.

I immediately contacted Nationwide through its "secure" online messaging facility informing it that I had already transferred the excess amount back to its original account. I received the following response from Maxine Ball, Senior Internet Services Advisor:

" As a result of processing faults on 18th and 19th September 2002, your instruction to transfer money between your accounts has been duplicated. This duplication has been corrected and your account will show the accurate balance on 21st September 2002.

Any charges incurred and any interest lost as a result of this error will be refunded directly to your account. You do not need to take any action regarding this. " (This despite informing Nationwide I had ALREADY transferred the excess amount back).

Upon checking my account balances again on 25 September 2002 I was horrified to find my Flex account was in debit due to Nationwide having transferred a further sum back to my savings account. This had caused my account to become overdrawn, an extremely distressing state of affairs for me as it is not my practice to be in debt in any way whatsoever.

I immediately sent a message through Nationwide's "secure" online messaging facility requesting that it sort the mess out immediately. On 28 September 2002 I received a message from Lisa Mason, Team Manager, asking me to confirm once again that I wanted it to correct its error. I confirmed this and then had to wait until 2 October 2002 and send yet another reminder before matters were finally rectified.

This matter raises two very important issues which should be carefully considered by present and potential Nationwide customers:

1. How trustworthy is its online banking service? Would this error have been rectified had I not been diligent enough to check my accounts.

2. Why is the society's customer service department so inefficient at responding to such a straightforward problem, which would have been so easy to rectify? (If the society had bothered to read my first communication properly it need not have taken any action other than ensuring I did not lose interest.)