Barclays: £30K missing from parents life savings - outside of 6yrs - Barclays refuse help!

[Olivetree2020]

Does anyone have any experience of or advice on the following situation?

 

My parents have banked with Barclays for decades

 

for the last two years, I have been trying to track down 30k missing from their current account for a transaction ( in 2010)  

- This was only spotted two years ago - due to some tragedies within our family which still impact today.

 

Over the last two years, I have sent many emails,  letters and some phone calls to Barclays on my parents behalf.

They never responded - until recently following contact with  the financial Ombudsman from early last year 2019.

 

Background:

My mother spotted the error while she was spreading her statements, a 30 K hole in her account and the money they would have to live on for their retirement.

Today and after almost a year., i received a reply from the Financial Ombudsman that, they cannot pursue the complaint ( due to this 6 year restriction).

 

I am not satisfied with this and I will write back saying so.

These are the only savings my parents have left and Barclays show no interest in this what-so-ever!

In fact, one employee tried to convince my parents that they spent the money and forgot.

 

This employee also said that she had spoken to one other person at Barclays and that they could do nothing.

I would expect at least an investigation into such a loss.

 

it showed up on my mother’s statement as a card payment to the Postoffice LTD.

 

My questions are:

In 2010 Barclays would have been responsible to seek my parent’s authorization for such a large amount

- does anyone have any further information on the banks obligations? Terms of service?

 

What investigation should Barclays make despite the 6 year rule?

 

If we believe this transaction to be fraud ( which we do, what are the statute of limitations on this for recourse?

What other useful help can anyone offer.

 

We are also thinking of going to our media friends to outline this situation with Barclays and asks questions about how safe people’s money is

- any views or experiences welcome.

 

I have not given up for them and will not.

 

All help appreciated - thanks!

[BankFodder]

You should begin by getting your parents to send an sar to Barclays to see what information that produces. Come back here when you have the statutory disclosure.

 

make sure that you asked for everything they have including telephone calls, correspondence, everything. Barclays are not very good about honouring sars

[slick132]

Hi Olivetree and welcome to CAG

 

Did the FOS refuse to review the case at all, due to the timeframe. Or did they review the case and you've received an Adjudicator's determination.

 

Get the SAR off to the bank's HO asap and don't speak to the bank at all. You need everything in writing.

[Olivetree2020]

Thank you BankFodder and Slick132, I will get my parents to ask Barclays for a SAR and I have a full summary of the FOS, which I think is simply due to the 6 year rule - I will add the summary here:

 

 

Time limits

Our service was set up to sort out complaints between financial businesses and their customers.

My ability to consider complaints is determined by the rules that govern this service.

Those rules are set out in the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) handbook, and determine among other things, who may bring a complaint to us.

 

The rules set out some time limits under which we can consider complaints.

 

Barclays has said that it doesn’t agree to us considering the complaint as it is about an event that happened more than six years ago.

 

 I’ve looked at whether the time limits they have highlighted apply.

 

Under our rules, we can’t consider a complaint if the complainant refers it to the Financial Ombudsman Service:

(a) Six years after the date the event complained of, or (if later)

(b) Three years from the date in which the complainant became aware (or ought reasonably to become aware) that he/she had cause for complaint.

 

Looking at the details provided, you have said the transaction was discovered in 2019 when statements were being shredded.

 

As the transaction happened in October 2010, six years has passed after the event. 

 

I know statements were being sent to Mr and Mrs N and these would’ve shown the account status at the time. Therefore, in accordance with the three-year rule, they should have raised this complaint by at least October 2013.

 

Our rules do allow us to set aside the time limits if the delay was due to exceptional circumstances to explain why the complaint was not made earlier. From our discussions about this I am of the opinion exceptional circumstances don’t apply.  Under the rules, an example of an exceptional circumstance is if a customer was incapacitated

 

I appreciate you’d like this looked into however as Barclays has not consented for us to look into the complaint and it has fallen outside the rules set up for our service, I have no justification to look into the complaint.

 

Next steps If Mr N and Mrs N decide that they don't accept what I’ve said, then please let me know by 7 August 2020.  If I can’t resolve things then an ombudsman here can look at everything again and make a decision. If I don’t hear from you by that date we might not be able to look at this complaint again.

 

 Thank you again and I will get back to this post once I have an answer for the Sar.

 

Olivetree 

[slick132]

Hi OT,

 

Barclays will not reply to the SAR before the FOS deadline.

 

Hence you should reply to the FOS (before the deadline) saying you want the decision reviewed by an Ombudsman.

 

Get the SAR sent off without further delay to their London HQ by letter. Take it to a PO and get a free Certificate of Posting.

[Olivetree2020]

Hey thanks again.

 

I have only just received the SAR.

 

The FOS said that I must show mitigating circumstances why my parents did not contact them or the bank earlier - I have done this.

I am now awaiting a response from them.

 

The SAR information will take a very long time to go through.

Are there any suggestions what to look for specifically please?

 

Thanks OT 

[dx100uk]

you should have what might be called a manual intervention log or a comms/account log.

this is where staff have accessed records or administered the account.

see if anything shows for the relevant period .

 

i gather you have org statements from the time?

see if those correspond with again the same like period of the £30k  

particularly look at the running balance total around the date

 

 

[dx100uk]

open

[Olivetree2020]

Hi Guys,

 

the update on my post above is this:

 

Ombudsman would not accept any mitigation for elapsed time period - cancer and death  are not serious enough.

 

They have thus rejected my request, without any detailed written summary, they simply provided a summary of their T & C”s. Barclays have not responded further.

 

I think I have discovered the post office LTD in question but this business is no more. I also read into the Horizon Scandal where some post office workers were accused of fraud but this was subsequently dropped, when it was understood that The post office system they were using, had major faults and apparently accounted for the issues of fraud.

 

Thus, I thought that writing to the post office would be a good approach which would then lead me to Ofcom ( which apparently caters for post office misconduct).

 

Any thoughts or help here are greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you! 

Edited January 25 by dx100uk
added A few blank lines only..dx

[slick132]

Hi OT,

 

Is this rejection from an Adjudicator or from an Ombudsman ?

[Olivetree2020]

I received the Ombudsman’s decision and then I had the opportunity to ask for a review on this decision and the review I received was from another person who is also an Ombudsman.

 

Is this the Adjudicator without actually being called as such?

 

Here is some of the text explaining why they cannot help. -thank you!

 

Why I can’t look into this complaint

 

We can’t consider every complaint that is brought to us and operate under a set of rules known as DISP which are set by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

 

Those rules, as the investigator has explained, say we generally can’t consider a complaint brought to us more than six years after the event complained of, or if later, three years after a complainant knew or ought reasonably to have realised, they had cause to complain.

 

There is no dispute here that the event complained about took place at the end of 2010 and so I’m satisfied that was more than six years before the complaint was brought.

 

It follows that I find we can’t consider this complaint under the first part of our rules.

 

I have looked carefully at when Mr and Mrs N did know or ought reasonably to have known that they had cause to complain.

 

I’m satisfied that a large payment of over £90,000 was paid into Mr and Mrs N’s account in September 2010 that appears to be from a property sale.

 

I can also see from the account statements that in October 2010 the disputed transaction took place which took the account balance from about £74,000 to about £44,000. And that the account was in regular use before and after the transaction including a number of cash withdrawals.

 

So, on balance I’m satisfied that Mr and Mrs N ought reasonably to have been aware at the time of the transaction that they have cause to complain.

 

I say that as I think they would have received regular account statements and it was up to them to manage their account.

 

I also think they ought to have noticed at the time or at the latest within the six years following the withdrawal that £30,000 was missing from the account.

 

I find that the second part of our rules don’t provide a longer period for this complaint to have been brought.

 

I can consider a complaint outside of the time limits if I find there were exceptional reasons why a complaint couldn’t have been brought in time.

 

I have read about Mr and Mrs N’s health and other difficulties over the last 10 years. But I don’t think those problems amount to an exceptional reason or would have prevented a complaint being brought in time.

 

I appreciate Mr and Mrs N questions if the Limitations Act provide them with a longer time period to bring a complaint, but as I have explained we operate under the DISP rules.

 

I appreciate Mr and Mrs N will be disappointed by my decision, but I think this brings an end to what we in trying to sort out this dispute informally can do.

 

My decision

 

My decision is that this complaint has been brought too late for us to consider.

 

David Singh Ombudsman

 

 

Edited February 7 by dx100uk
Added some blank lines for ease of block of text syndrome

[slick132]

Ok, so this has been reviewed by an Ombudsman who repeats the matter is too far back to fully investigate.

 

Have you found anything in the bank's SAR disclosures that you think may assist your case with the bank ?

[Olivetree2020]

The information in the SAR was very limited. So no! Do you have any further suggestions? I thought that the statute of limitations in fraud cases with banks can be stretched to 15 years?

 

Thanks again!

[Olivetree2020]

Hi Mantis, thanks for your post. When I mentioned fraud, I was referring to the post office which processed this transaction.

I cannot understand how a transaction of such a size would not be flagged when using a debit card!? I did think that if fraud were suspected ( from whichever party, would allow more time for an investigation). 

 

What do you mean by ‘ concealment by the defendant’?

 

Thanks!

[Olivetree2020]

But can this situation be regarded as a cover-up? Thanks!

[Olivetree2020]

Mantis, what further information would \allow you to answer the above question? Thanks! 

[slick132]

Hi OT,

 

It is, of course, your prerogative to continue to question what happened and why. 

 

However, putting it simply, over 11 years have passed since this money went missing and your chances of successfully challenging the matter now are virtually zero. For whatever reason, no one noticed when the money went missing and no questions were asked of the bank about what happened, or their responsibilities at the time.

 

Tell us exactly what you know about the card transaction paid to Post Office Ltd, everything. Maybe someone will be able to suggest something useful that we've so far missed.

[Isabelle Knightly]

HI OT

 

I was looking for something else and came across your issue - reminded me of one I had and how I dealt with it. 

may be of no use whatsoever ever but adding the onus on barclays citing terrorism finance helped - I got 90% returned.

 

I do wish you well.

IK

 

Dear Barclays

 

Re your letter dated xx March 2018 under Your ref  cccccc / ddddddddd

I am incensed how your letter dismisses the fraudulent activity that took place on my account as detailed below despite having been provided as much detail as possible.

 

As I had stated in detail to the fraud department on the xxth March 2018 the fraudulent activity took place despite my cards, pin, laptop being in my possession at my residence during the time funds were being syphoned from my account.

I have not acted fraudulently, neither have I intentionally or negligently failed to comply with my obligations to keep my personalised security features safe.

 

I am a professional working as an independent xxx with over 20 years experience and also work an independent xxxxx officer working with various local government agencies and councils and feel that the response from Barclays indirectly implying that that a fraud did not take place or that i was intrinsically involved thus denying my refund request is both insulting and unacceptable.

 

I again reiterate questions (amongst others) which I have raised both directly with the fraud department on the xxth March 2018 and in the email below which appear not to have been sufficiently investigated or considered by Barclays;

 

Cards and other security features including pin were in my possession at all times. 

- for the bank to state that these were compromised is hearsay and needs to be proved beyond reasonable doubt rather that likelihood as this would apply to all account holders.

 

The last genuine online transaction which I undertook prior to the fraud incident was x/x/2018.

- the banks internal ‘transaction monitoring systems’ should be able to verify this.

- I also question the effectiveness of the banks internal monitoring controls as 10 external payment transactions would in any reasonable view be considered unusual in context to my ‘usual’ account activity. - why was this not flagged up.

- 6 of the fraudulent transactions all commenced with the reference ‘xxxx’ proceeded by other characters clearly to cause confusion or mask a payment as genuine. 

- Despite informing the Bank of the unauthorised payments, there has been no effort undertaken by Barclays to retrieve the payments.

- furthermore criminals are masquerading as Barclays representatives using phone/text/email etc more needs to be done to help clients differentiate between genuine an fraudsters.

 

Barclays xxxxx Branch staff provided the sort code 11-64-77 and Acc No. 06422061 indication that this was the beneficiary account where the funds were credited.

- I see no evidence of Barclays either contacting Halifax (SC 11-64-77) to query the transactions neither is there any evidence that Barclays initiated SWIFT payment cancellation messages (MT192 or NT292 or equivalent for CHAPS) to recall the fraudulently transferred funds.

 

Details of Text and Phone numbers where also provided to the xxxxxx Branch and Fraud person on the phone (text id BARCLAYS, phone 03330220286)

- surely these numbers can be verified and actions initiated to both find the owners acting as Barclays and to inactivate those numbers.

 

The IP address of my laptop for which I have sole use is xxx.1xx.1.xx

My home Router IP is 1xx.1xx.1.xx4

As stated I only use my personal phone or my personal laptop if I am to log into online banking.

- Has there been any investigation to ascertain the location from where the 12 fraudulent transactions originated from ?

 

I was also informed by the fraud assistant when called from the xxxx Branch that my account would be frozen and replacement cards issued and if I would like this to be reported to the police (which I was happy for), however to date I have neither received any replacement card or any communication that this has been reported to the police as advised Barclays. 

 

The reputation and image of Barclays is dropping having been reported to be one of the UK’s two worst banks for a customer to deal with if they have ben the victim of a fraud. 

Sadly I find myself agreeing as overall I find the action taken by Barclays unacceptable with failing to investigate the matter fully, failing to refund fraudulently withdrawn funds, failing to acknowledge a very stressful situation and presenting what I believe is poor governance of its client responsibilities.

Its further ironic that Barclays recently launching a £10m anti-fraud campaign claiming it was making “the UK public safer, and our society more resilient to fraud”… yet here any reasonable professional will see the bank failing to take adequate steps in investigating reported fraud activity which in this day and age only aids petty and organised criminals to ultimately fund AML and Terrorism financing - quite the opposite to making UK public safer or resident to fraud.

 

I request Barclays to reconsider me request and promptly reimburse the funds fraudulently stolen from my account and to take adequate measures in investigating the fraud to being responsible criminals to account.

[Olivetree2020]

Isabelle, thank you so much for sharing this information. I will look into this in the coming days as I’m just getting over Covid-19. It certainly does appear that banks shirk all responsibility when it comes to the customers’ loss of funds. I will try every avenue until I have made them held to account. 

 

Thank you again.

 

OT. 

[Isabelle Knightly]

No problem - all the best and get well soon.