back to article NatWest calls off legal attack dogs

Moving with the speed of an injured rock, NatWest has finally withdrawn its legal threats against a student advice site. 118student.co.uk offers advice to students and has pages reviewing all the major banks' student accounts. Site owner Peter Hale was shocked to receive a letter accusing him of abuse of trademarks and …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Congrats to the marketing "spin" guys

    I'm almost inclined to say "At least they realised they'd cocked up and apologised".

    Almost

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I look forward...

    ... to reading a (sent as paper) letter of apology from NatWest. Least they could do, really.

    1. paulf
      Coat

      If they did...

      ...they'd charge £35 quid for it.

  3. Thomas 4
    Boffin

    Please be assured we will be feeding this back to our agents

    Did anyone else have a sinister vision of people in suits with sunglasses?

    1. Tigra 07

      Man in black?

      I imagine it was a fat stubby man in a George suit from ASDA

    2. I didn't do IT.
      Happy

      Re: feeding this back

      I actually had the delicious thought of them stuffing printouts of the apology down the lawyers throats.

      Wishful thinking, I know...

      1. Fatman
        FAIL

        RE: RE Feeding this back

        "I actually had the delicious thought of them stuffing printouts of the apology down the lawyers throats."

        No, I would have said:

        "I actually had the delicious thought of giving NatWest's lawyers a good swift kick in the nutz."

        A lot more satisfaction from that action.

  4. lglethal Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    After NatWest's behaviour...

    I doubt I'd be updating NatWest's review with any of their "additional benfits" any time soon, what about you?

  5. Kevin 43
    Grenade

    I would...

    Graciously accept their apology and then remove them from the website, making sure to make no mention of their cynical attempt to advertise their free railcard...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Has anyone looked at the site?

    It's stuffed with keywords and looks like pure cybersquatting / link-sucking stuff to make money off Google Ads or similar.

    1. Wommit
      Pint

      Re : Has anyone looked at the site?

      Ah come on - which site?

      The Natwest one, the student advice one, or both?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It's a mildly informative site

      Without keyword stuffing you won't get any audience whatsoever, since all that will appear at the top of google searches is genuinely useless sites like Mahalo. At least this site attempts to answer your questions once you get there.

      Don't think it adds much to the sum of human knowledge, but then I don't think many sites do - ad-supported as a model has basically ensured that the entire internet is full of semi-useless and totally useless dross.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Alert

      What could possibly go wrong?

      "our advice is to go for the bank that offers the largest overdraft"

  7. Daniel 1

    "Attack DOGS"?

    Sound more like attack slugs, if you ask me. Or maybe just one, rather elderly attack slug, who doesn't work weekends or Wednesday afternoons... "All requests to withdraw legal threats must allow twelve working days to be processed"... That sort of thing.

    However, I suspect that their Department For Knowing What the Company Is Called has been outsourced to the lowest bidder, just like every other aspect of their business. You can stick NatWest logos all over your products, if they are paying you to.

  8. Stephen 2

    Phone support

    "However, I suspect that their Department For Knowing What the Company Is Called has been

    outsourced to the lowest bidder, just like every other aspect of their business. "

    Uh I contact Natwest over the phone all the time and they're English language, UK based staff. Can be a bit stupid at times, saying they'll do something and then just not doing anything. But otherwise they're ok.

  9. Graham Marsden

    "a line making clear the site had no connection to the bank."

    ... and a couple of paragraphs detailing how the bank threatened them with legal action for completeness, I hope!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    got the same "letter" (email)

    Had an identical email. I run a card comparison website. Told them to look up the definition of trademark

  11. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Passed to our agents????`

    Comments passed to agents should be along the lines of 'your sacked you useless twats' but it wont be; in fact, what will happen is some fresh from uni human remains fuckwit will be given the task of saying 'it really really shouldn't have happened that way should it?now lets all join hands and sing a song'

    1. Thomas 4

      @AC

      I've found just the song - "Money" by Space:

      "I didn't lose your money, I didn't lose your money,

      "Oh no your money just lost yoooou...."

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They did the decent thing

    ... which is points.

    Now they can get on with the important things that bankers do, like loosing their shareholders' money, screwing the economy, paying themselves bonus...

  13. JMB

    "Na#wes# Trademark Abuse Department"

    How long before the "Na#wes# Trademark Abuse Department" come up with the idea of taking action against everyone writing Na#Wes# on envelopes address to the bank?

    Thought I had better alter the name of the bank as I don't want to get a visit from them ;=)

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Better Safe than Sorry

    I feel a bit sorry for NatWest at the end of the day it appears that they were only trying to protect their good name. An easy mistake to make. But now it looks like they were IP trolling.

  15. frank ly

    Additional

    "...and a line making clear the site had no connection to the bank"; just in case there are people out there who are as stupid as us. Thank you.

  16. billse10

    @JMB

    does that mean if I obscure the name - say, maybe calling them NotWorst - that would be ok too?

  17. Stevie

    Bah!

    The only surprise here is how on earth KnockWurst Bank employees found the ruddy site in the first place. It isn't very inspiring or that informative from what I could see, and loading the site from a US location causes some howlers with the Google Ads.

  18. Sam Therapy
    Happy

    Anyone remember the Viz ad?

    Unemployed?

    No money?

    Then fuck off.

    Gnat West - the frank bank.

    :)

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