You need to give it time, you are only out of the UK for 3 months, 3 months mean nothing on the timescale of these things.

Assuming you keep your Swiss address registered at the UK government they'll find you when they deem the time fit. Just a combination of having to pay up negative amounts when emigrating for which I am almost certain you signed up for in their T&C's and the law forcing them to keep their addresses updated.

So how do you issue a copy of a valid passport issued by the jurisdiction in which you claim to be resident ?


The fact you reside in Switzerland (jurisdiction) in no way accords you any right of citizenship and the only way to get a passport is through full 100% citizenship.

Complete bull.

Setting aside any judgement, Natwest is going to check your UK address on their record to recover their monies, realise you are not there, escalate and set recovery playbook into action. Ergo your account is not happily running.

Well spotted, but that is not a contradiction. All of my active bank accounts are running happily. That one isn't active. Natwest closed my account because I never paid the overdraft. (I just went across the street and opened a new bank account instead, and saved the money.) I've owed them 1000 pounds for about a year. They've been sending letters to my old address for months. I get my letters, but they have no clue that I'm not at that address, leave alone not in the country.

Also what do you think "recovery action" is? They send a few threatening letters, then sell the debt to a collection agency who send you some more threatening letters, then threaten court action, then beg and plead for you to give them the money, and then give up. They can send bailiffs to my "address" but they will find nothing. if they try to take me to court, again they need to serve a legal notice to an address, and they cannot do this. Nor would they bother, not for these amounts.

I mean, that's a pretty obvious sign. You basically told them you've moved when you've changed your primary number.

Why would anyone do this? Why would I tell the UK government, or anyone my new address? I didn't even know that is possible..

Do you plan to return to the UK?

Can be handy if the police needs to find you if your parents had an accident, or the notary for your heritage from whomever, or later if you need your pension money.

But hey who cares, you must be trolling anyway, nobody is that dumb.

Not for £1000 they won’t. It is not worth their while. They’ll sell it to an agency, who tend to be much more aggressive about collecting and are not too worried about legal niceties. They know well if they hassle parents and siblings enough somene is likely to toss them £500 - £600 to get shot of them as it is cheaper than going to a solicitor to get them to stop.

It's fascinating that you live in such a closed bubble of being a perfect cog in the system that you think anyone who doesn't mindlessly follow the system is "dumb".

If anyone (police, solicitors, etc.) wants to get in touch with me in an emergency they can google my name and find my email address. Although, granted, most police do not know how to do this. There is absolutely no need for anyone other than myself to know where I sleep at night.

None of your emergency scenarios applies to me, in any case. I don't have family or ties in the UK, I was just passing through.

Nah. Anyhow the debt will be written off soon if I don't repay it.

(Don't worry guys, I'll pay them back. I promise. Cross my heart. So sleep easy at night. I'll even send them cookies.)

Harrassment is illegal under debt collection regulations and a simple cease and desist letter printed off from the internet carries a lot of legal weight and is usually sufficient.

When a debt is written off it just means it is no longer included in the financial statements. It does not mean it goes away. Most likely at that point it will be sold to an agency at a discount.

And the agency will run around in circles for a while and then give up.

Apparently the "BSB" bank is very good, i suggest you try them as they seem to be able to open accounts for almost anybody

in the uk, the debt will become statute barred after a while unless a CCJ is obtained.

I've had the same letters from NatWest - I ignored the first two, replied with my TIN on the third letter, heard nothing more from them for 8 months then they sent me a fourth letter asking for my TIN !!! Sent them the TIN again plus a few salty comments - never had an acknowledgement back of course.

NatWest continue to astound me with their incompetence - only reason I keep the account is to have more than one UK account open should it ever be needed again.