Help needed to stop bank stitching up my Mum!

vivatifosi

Last year my Mum was diagnosed with cancer. About the same time we tried to move her savings account, as the company her account was with had shut their local branch and we'd have had to drive 100 or so miles to the nearest branch. That was August. We telephoned the bank and asked them to transfer the money. No problem they said, send us your passbook. Can't do that we said, Post Office will only insure passbook for up to £2,500 to send by post. Oh, they said. We'll send you some forms. They did. We sent them back.

Nothing happened. In September I told Mum to put it in writing, and request a transfer. She did. Nothing happened.

Then a miracle happened. In October we got the name of someone to write to to transfer the money. He said he would look into everything for us and sort it out. So we did write. Nothing happened.

In January we called the bank. Said we haven't had the money transferred yet. "We don't have a record of you asking for it" said the bank. Don't worry, we'll look into it and transfer the money.

They tried to transfer the money. It didn't work. But they neglected to contact my Mum and tell her.

So we're now in April. Mum goes to withdraw some of the money and doesn't know that the January transfer didn't happen. We called the bank. Apparently we should have noticed that the money didn't transfer across. Its our fault. Mum asked for compensation for lost interest. They'll look into it they said.

They looked into it. They have no record of Mum's earlier requests, even though two were by mail and one was to a named contact. They therefore can't offer anything except £25, and sign here to absolve the directors of any responsibility.... Oh, and no mention of the fact my Mum's been worrying about this when she's been really ill with cancer!

I don't want to name the bank in case this ends up in court. But if anyone who knows how banks work and what our next step should be would like to give us some advice we'd be really grateful. I just want my Mum to stop stressing out and to have her money somewhere she can take the bus to and get it out and actually spend some on herself for a change!

Thanks everyone

Vivatifosi

Debt_Free_Chick

So the money has stayed in her existing savings account - yes? If so, doesn't that pay interest? I can see that you've lost the interest you would have had in the new account, but surely the old account pays interest anyway?

As for sending the passbook by post, it doesn't need to be insured. The passbook is just evidence of the existence of the account. If you lose the passbook it's possible - though quite a hassle - to still get your money out.

it does seem to be shabby service, but I'm not clear about any financial loss. Not sending the passbook may well have sent their procedure into a spin!

Avoid further stress .... follow the standard procedure for closing the account, get the cheque, take it to a local branch of wherever and open a new account. Remember you usually need ID and proof of address to open an account.

vivatifosi

Hi Debt Free Chick,

Mum had opened a higher interest account last August to transfer the money across to. As the account her money stayed in was a very poorly performing one, the difference in interest between the two accounts works out at about 3.5% over a year (I appreciate that this wasn't a whole year, but the interest would be significantly higher than the 25% offered).

In terms of following the correct procedures, we did try to follow the bank's procedures, but they lost their own forms!

vivatifosi

Sorry, that previous post should say £25 offered. If they had offered Mum 25% we'd all have been happy!

masonic

Ask for your complaint to be put through your bank's Independent Complaint Scheme.

vivatifosi

Many thanks Masonic, have now done that. I was under the impression that we already had, but apparently they had a level below that too and that's what the initial complaint was handled by. Confused... Certainly am!