Church and State blog: Royal Bank of Scotland: Despite his earlier dealings with the RBS Executive Response Team, Declan has been waiting four weeks to learn from Natwest Bank who cancelled a standing order on the Network for Church Monitoring business account without his knowledge or consent (Financial Ombudsman Ref: PNX-3576860-D6B8)

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Royal Bank of Scotland: Despite his earlier dealings with the RBS Executive Response Team, Declan has been waiting four weeks to learn from Natwest Bank who cancelled a standing order on the Network for Church Monitoring business account without his knowledge or consent (Financial Ombudsman Ref: PNX-3576860-D6B8)

25/2/20
Declan has asked for a simple action—put the pay owed to him in [his personal] account—but it is now in dispute at this Bank!
How could this be?
Don Sr
http://network-of-those-abused-by-church.blogspot.com/

Our Church and State website has no less than 59 Nobel Laureates on it despite the never-ending assault on our email; see paragraph 2 of this blog's sidebar under "Church and State" (updated today).

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Headquarters in Gogarburn. The RBS owns National Westminster Bank (NatWest).

On 25 February Declan called into NatWest Stratford Branch Broadway about the non-payment of his salary, only to discover that the standing order payable to him on the Network for Church Monitoring business account had been cancelled. And this notwithstanding that the Royal Bank of Scotland Executive Response team assured Declan in writing on 17 February that there were then two new standing orders on the account payable to him and me. They also paid him on that day £100 compensation in recognition of his time, travel costs and inconvenience. Prior to this latest visit to NatWest Stratford Branch Broadway, Declan's previous visit to this or any NatWest branch was on 13 February, so it could not possibly have been him who cancelled the standing order. The deputy manager at NatWest Stratford Branch Broadway complained to the NatWest Complaints team on Declan's behalf: "Customer's desired outcome for now is to find out who has cancelled the standing order and why it hasn't been paid. Customer is not willing to provide another signature on a new standing order until he knows who has cancelled it and why it has not been paid." For now, Declan's salary is being paid online by quick transfer from the business account to his personal account. He is still waiting to learn from NatWest who cancelled the standing order without his knowledge or consent (case reference: PHO-0265369320). This is information the Bank is still withholding from him notwithstanding the involvement of the Financial Ombudsman Service. This service settles individual disputes between consumers and businesses that provide financial services but they haven't got back to Declan since they emailed him a case reference number on 5 March.

Financial Ombudsman Ref: PNX-3576860-D6B8

This was Declan's complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service before he visited NatWest Stratford Branch Broadway on 25 February. The Service subsequently informed him that the cancellation of the standing order will be considered in addition to and part of this complaint, which Declan submitted only knowing about the then ongoing partial disclosure in printout form of the standing order payable to him and the non-payment of his salary the day previous.

Tell us about your complaint - what happened?

Despite a total of five visits between two NatWest Bank branches, and my telephone and email correspondence with my contact in the Royal Bank of Scotland Executive Response team (my emails cc'd to RBS Chief Executive Alison Rose), I have not received a printout of page 1 of the new standing order payable to me that was set up on the Network for Church Monitoring account on 12 February 2020. All I have from the RBS Executive Response team is an assurance that there are now two new standing orders on the account payable to me and my wife against the reference ending 0400. (On 11 February 2020, the manager of NatWest Chancey Lane Branch incorrectly set up the standing order payable to me with a reference number ending 040.) On 17 February 2020, £100 compensation was credited to the Network for Church Monitoring business account in recognition of my time, travel costs and inconvenience. I was also provided with the address of the Financial Ombudsman Service for the referral of my complaint. I can confirm that yesterday I did not receive the first payment of my salary in accordance with the page 2 details of the standing order payable to me that I was provided with on 12 February 2020, having been repeatedly refused a printout of page 1 of that standing order by the manager of NatWest Stratford Branch Broadway. I called into NatWest Stratford Branch Broadway twice the following day. On both occasions, I could not come away with this printout - on the second occasion having once again dealt with the manager himself.

How have you been affected - financially or otherwise?

I have been left out of pocket notwithstanding £100 compensation in recognition of my time, travel costs and inconvenience. This matter continues to take a toll on my time and money through no fault of my own.

How would you like the business to put things right for you?

I would like NatWest Bank to provide me with a full printout of the standing order payable to me that mirrors what I have for the standing order payable to my wife, and that my salary is paid from the Network for Church Monitoring account into my personal account.

Submitted on 25 February 2020

On 11 March Declan received the princely sum of £9.50 from Royal Mail to refund the postage on our employment contracts to the United States. It is evident from the track and trace report that the mail item was lost by the United States Postal Service one step away from the delivery point. We have had problems with the delivery of this mail item for the past few years. In fact, this is the second time in three years that Royal Mail has compensated Declan for his postage of the item. Three years ago the item didn't even make it past our nearby collection office; see my post of 18 February, I have just discovered that a United States Postal Service image no longer appears in the relevant Royal Mail blog post last year! I have written to MediaFire about this (WITH UPDATE 11/3/2020).

From My Picks:

28 February: Declan's claim against the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's has not been dismissed on the papers. We're waiting for a hearing date from the Central London County Court in the Royal Courts of Justice

County Court at Central London, Royal Courts of Justice.

What the issue in these court proceedings boils down to is whether the Court will decide that Declan and I should face the prospect of eviction back to the streets (a death threat) rather than St Mungo's take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of theirs, and that such a position is not harsh, unjust and unreasonable.

Our need for this support continues to escalate?

"Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out." Edd Doerr (1930-2020), (then) President, Americans for Religious Liberty

http://churchandstate.org.uk/honorary-associates/

Our list of 276 Honorary Associates includes 16 Nobel Prize laureates, 10 US National Medal of Science laureates and 12 knighted professors notwithstanding the excessive targeting of these three categories of emails in particular.

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

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