I visited a Barclays bank branch in February.

Whilst there, I paid a cheque into my current account.

I then asked for funds to be transferred from my current account to my Barclaycard Visa card, in order to clear the outstanding balance.

The cashier asked for my debit card PIN, which I had never been given, after which she refused to process my instruction.

This is despite my being able to use the card for online payments.

By refusing to transfer the funds, the bank had effectively declined to allow me access to my own money.

The cashier then said she could arrange for a new PIN to be sent to me, and then proceeded to ask for my mother’s maiden name.

I told her I was not prepared to disclose this verbally in a bank full of customers.

She then pushed a piece of paper under the window so I could write down the answers to the security questions.

Once I had correctly answered them, she proceeded to order a new PIN for me, but still refused to process the payment I had requested.

I wrote to their customer services department to complain, and to ask for their assurance that such a regrettable situation would not be repeated.

I explained that there is no conceivable scenario under which anyone would attempt to pay off my Barclaycard from my Barclays current account for fraudulent reasons, and of course, nobody other than myself would attempt to do it because the only person who would benefit is me.

I then received a text message from Barclays, despite having previously written to them to say I did not wish to be contacted by text.

I followed up my original complaint letter and asked them to remove my mobile number from their system.

I then received a letter from them in which they acknowledged my complaint, and asked me to confirm that the mobile number they had for me was up to date (yes, that’s right folks, the one I’d already asked them not to contact me on.)

I didn’t get a reply to my next letter so I wrote again and asked them for their response.

About a month later,

they wrote to me and said that because they had taken so long to address the issues raised in my complaint,

I was now entitled to ask the FOS to become involved.

I wrote back and said I thought it was ludicrous that they were happy for this to happen rather than deal with it themselves.

I asked for £150 compensation for the time I’d had to spend dealing with the matter.

A few more weeks later,

I received a letter telling me they’d finished their investigation.

In this letter, amongst other things, they said,

“If a customer does not have their PIN with them, we would then attempt to identify the customer by asking security questions instead.”

This kind of misses the point I’d made in my initial letter to them,

which is that the cashier did ask me security questions,

which I answered correctly,

but she still refused to process the transaction.

The letter went on to say that no bank error occurred, and they thought they had followed the correct procedure.

They did add however, that because of the time they had taken to resolve the complaint, they had credited my account with £100.

The interesting thing here, is that they haven’t resolved the complaint.

The statement in their letter regarding attempting to identify customers by asking security questions is at odds with what happened next.

I visited the same branch yesterday,

this time armed with the PIN they’d recently sent me.

I asked if I could transfer funds from my current account to pay off a Barclaycard balance, a

nd when I keyed in the PIN,

the terminal said it was incorrect.

I offered to sign for the transaction instead,

but the cashier refused to accept this.

I offered to answer security questions,

but this was refused as well.

I explained the statement made in their most recent letter regarding identifying customers by asking security questions, but the answer was still no.

I told them I’d already made a formal complaint about the first time they’d refused to allow me access to my own money and that I intended to do the same again.

By the time I left, there was a queue of at least six other customers behind me.

One of them congratulated me for my persistence as I was leaving, and said he’d experienced similar problems with them.

On the basis of the above, I have now filed a complaint with the FOS, who were very helpful when I had a dispute last year with Santander, and who obtained a satisfactory outcome for me.

I’ll let you know what happens with this one.

In the meantime, has anyone else had any similar experiences with Barclays or any of the other banks ?

Hi Leeds,

I don't see that you have a serious complaint but each to their own.

It's not unreasonable for the staff to require your PIN No. and, on each occasion, you were unable to give the PIN No. that the system recognised. If the system was at fault on the 2nd occasion, then that was cause for a valid complaint.

However, you've already had £100 in compensation and I doubt the FOS will give you much more.

Time will tell .............

bet FOS whitewash you - their trade mark

Maybe you missed the bit where I said...

A few more weeks later, I received a letter telling me they’d finished their investigation. In this letter, amongst other things, they said, “If a customer does not have their PIN with them, we would then attempt to identify the customer by asking security questions instead.”

This kind of misses the point I’d made in my initial letter to them, which is that the cashier did ask me security questions, which I answered correctly, but she still refused to process the transaction.

Hi Leeds,

No, I didn't miss anything of what you posted.

Your answer to the security question was perhaps why they agreed to process the request for the PIN to be re-issued.

I'm just being objective and, from your post, I'm not convinced you have a valid complaint that is likely to succeed, beyond the compensation you've already received.

But you should do what you want so proceed by all means and keep us posted ............

I think on receipt of any debit card the first thing I would be looking for or requesting is the PIN number...otherwise it renders the Debit Card only useful for on line transactions.

Alternatively if you never had need for a PIN number and therefore never questioned why you never received it..pay the cheque into the current account..wait for it to clear and then pay the Barclaycard Visa Card on line ?

Just another angle to consider.

Andy

Another illogical thing about their behaviour, is that if I phoned them, I could answer the security questions, and then they would credit the money to the card account of my choosing, however, the branch staff refusal to do exactly the same thing does raise the perfectly valid question, which is this. What's the point in having a branch if they refuse to carry out the legitimate instructions of their customers ?

There wont be any branches in another 5/10 years.....more secure on line than face to face ?

Hi Leeds,

 

No, I didn't miss anything of what you posted.

 

Your answer to the security question was perhaps why they agreed to process the request for the PIN to be re-issued.

 

I'm just being objective and, from your post, I'm not convinced you have a valid complaint that is likely to succeed, beyond the compensation you've already received.

 

But you should do what you want so proceed by all means and keep us posted ............

 

as stated above:-

you do not have a case - you are lucky to get what you got as many of us had to do at an early age Gxxx Ux

as stated above:-

 

you do not have a case - you are lucky to get what you got as many of us had to do at an early age Gxxx Ux

Message unclear. Please repeat.

you received £100 compendation -- we got nothing even after intervention by authorites byt the situation arose thru you

you received £100 compendation -- we got nothing even after intervention by authorites byt the situation arose thru you