Lost/Missing payment - making a complaint. what should I demand?

[burnt]

Briefly (I hope without padding this out too much) I am putting together a letter to Lloyds to complain on a series of events.

 

Rent paid as normal to Estate agent through Lloyds account to Estate Agents in November 08'. It was the final payment as we moved out that month.

Estate Agent contacts us to say money not paid to them in November, and took that out of the deposit, leaving us out of pocket and into debts/bank charges.

Now we are in a situation where we think Agent has ripped us off and Lloyds (after a very long time - over a month) manage to send us copy statements and 'help' in us providing statemets to confront agent with to show money paid. (Unfortunately they sent wrong information the first time - so we had to go back and ask again)

 

A few months go by and we have no option but to start court proceedings to get money back, before this goes ahead, Agent requests we ask for 'track & trace' with Lloyds because they insist no money received.

 

We request this, and a month later, after being told it would take 14 days , twice - Lloyds discover money did go to Natwest, but not all the way to the account it was supposed to - they then recovered the money and are in the process of returning it back to our account.

 

Conplaints are about the length of time this all took to discover, whose fault it was - what compensation is expected for money lost, almost having to go to court + stresses involved, and Lloyds not identifying the problem at the first point of call, all the chasing up that had to be done, the length of time it has taken (just over 3 months)

 

It's not much money in the grand scheme of things but the end result is just to put it back in the account - no explanation, or letter, or offer to make up for the problems caused/consequenses of money lost.

Maybe it's not their fault? Maybe i should approach NatWest?

 

As I am writing to LLoyds now to complain I was wondering if anyone had some advice?

 

Thanks.

[yourbank]

NatWest's process is that if the money has been sent to an account that does not exist that it is sent back to the account from where it has come from. Not entirely sure why it took so long so I would certainly ask why it took months for the money to be returned.

[burnt]

Thanks.

It's not that the account didn't exist - payments had successfully been made before.

[yourbank]

Thanks.

It's not that the account didn't exist - payments had successfully been made before.

In that case, why did the Estate Agent say it hadn't been paid? Very very odd. Sounds like the Estate Agent has said to ask the bank to get the money back rather than actually deal with it themselves.

[burnt]

I agree that there is something fishy with the Agent, but they say they went to their business manager at their bank and there was no payment to them. They say they never saw it.

Lloyds (by my request) then investigated and contacted Natwest, (I don't know the exact circumstances of why it was just 'floating about' because it was never explained) and the result was that 'the money went into Natwest banking system, but never reached the designated account'

 

that's the only explanation offered.

Why couldn't that be seen at first point of enquiry?

 

It truly has become a ridiculous series of events. Who would want to be stuck between the bank and an estate agent? Yuck.

[yourbank]

I agree that there is something fishy with the Agent, but they say they went to their business manager at their bank and there was no payment to them. They say they never saw it.

Lloyds (by my request) then investigated and contacted Natwest, (I don't know the exact circumstances of why it was just 'floating about' because it was never explained) and the result was that 'the money went into Natwest banking system, but never reached the designated account'

 

that's the only explanation offered.

Why couldn't that be seen at first point of enquiry?

 

It truly has become a ridiculous series of events. Who would want to be stuck between the bank and an estate agent? Yuck.

 

That explanation is quite frankly not very good. If it has reached the designated account all the other times, did the Estate Agent change address/get taken over,etc,etc

If it goes out automatically every month and is not missed at all, then in an automated system unless details on the receiving end changes then it goes straight to them. Was the account number it was being sent to 100% accurate? (suggesting that the issue only arose as NatWest did not simply place it into the right account?--seems very odd if that did happen).

[burnt]

Nothing out of the ordinary happened in terms of the account number/Agent (to my knowledge) there is nothing to suggest a change in the normal arrangements.

 

So the receiving end and the paying end were as normal.

The money left our account, and showed up on the statement as doing so.

The money just didn't end up at the receiving end.

 

I am writing a letter to demand a full explanation.

 

But really wanted to know at the moment, what should I expect the bank to do about it? (apart from explain and apologise) Money dissapearing for a few months (Agents were OK because they took out the money from our deposit - so they were never out of pocket) then no explanation, loads of phone calls, stress caused, and debt entered in to and not being able to divide up the deposit money for us 3 tenants, none of which could afford to be without the cash.