paying fees of up to £25 a month for perks that are often useless

Natwest has been named as the worst bank for complaints about paid-for current accounts. Customers pay a monthly fee, from £5 up to £25, for perks like travel insurance or breakdown cover. But in some cases the accounts’ benefits are useless. Elderly people can find they are too old for the holiday cover, for example. For the first time, a complaints watchdog has revealed which banks are the worst offenders for gripes about the expensive packaged accounts. The Financial Ombudsman said in the last six months of 2015 it dealt with 4,872 complaints about NatWest and found in favour of customers in almost one in four cases. Barclays was second worst with 4,525. Customers won their challenges in 15 per cent of cases. The ‘big five’ High Street banks — NatWest, Barclays, Lloyds, Bank of Scotland and HSBC — attracted 17,189 complaints over the period.....Read more here